Thread: Republicans establish immigration war room

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HealthWatch
July 18, 2006


Republicans establish immigration war room
By Patrick O’Connor

House Republicans have organized a communications “war room” to push their enforcement-first strategy on immigration reform during the remaining months of the 109th Congress.

The communications plan will help GOP leadership staff coordinate the party’s message in local media markets during the next round of field hearings, in August.

After the hard-fought victory of GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray in California’s special election, House Republicans have increasingly hung their hopes of retaining the majority on their unwillingness to compromise on enforcement-first immigration reform.

But their emphasis on immigration this election season only serves to create more expectation among voters that Congress should approve a reform bill before the November elections.

House negotiators continue to insist that Congress address border and workplace enforcement before moving legislation to expand the country’s guest-worker programs or deal with the laborers already here illegally, as the Senate bill aims to do.

House Republicans are expected to keep pressuring their Senate colleagues on this issue during the monthlong summer break. Aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) are even planning for the Speaker to make a trip to the border during the recess to push increased enforcement, a Republican aide said.

The “war room” is not a physical space but rather a coordinated strategy to monitor local and national media coverage of the immigration debate and to saturate those markets with favorable comments about the House bill.

Republican aides involved in the effort see it as a chance to respond to critical press while pushing the House immigration plan in local media markets throughout the country. In doing so, leaders would like to harness the energy of their members.

“Members are really on the offensive about this,” said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the House Republican Conference.

As part of the new media strategy, House Republicans will continue their efforts to label the Senate’s comprehensive overhaul as a Democratic plan — specifically the “Reid-Kennedy” bill, a reference to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who co-wrote a reform bill with Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

In addition, GOP lawmakers and staff have stepped up their criticism of Democratic leaders in the House for what they portray as a failure of those leaders to articulate a unified position on the immigration issue.

“This debate was taking place in the Washington, D.C., vacuum,” said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “We think it was being inaccurately reported as a House approach versus a Senate approach. [The Senate legislation] was essentially a bill passed by a coalition of Senate Democrats.”

While GOP leaders in the House and Senate squabble over the details of immigration reform, Democrats in the House will continue to point out administration failures on the border and criticize their Republican counterparts for their own failure to move a bill to the president’s desk, said Jennifer Crider, spokeswoman for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Staffers organized by Pelosi’s office meet regularly to discuss the immigration issue, and they will continue to distribute information packets to members who participate in the field hearings. The packets include talking points, fact sheets and press clippings on the immigration issue.

On the Republican side of the aisle, staffers in Hastert’s office, Boehner’s office and the Republican Conference office have organized much of the GOP’s communications effort. They have separated the country into 12 regions and recruited a dozen press aides from various personal offices to review clips from media markets in each region.

Madden, in Boehner’s office, drew up the communications strategy, leadership aides involved said, while Lisa Miller in the Speaker’s office and Katie Strand in the conference office are responsible for compiling the clips every day from each of the 12 personal-office press contacts. Michael Steel in the office of Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.) writes up a summary of each day’s clips.

The staffers involved hold a conference call every morning at 8:30 to report on clips they have compiled from the local press each day. The calls usually last between 20 and 30 minutes, Hamel said. The aides also meet in person at least once a week to discuss strategy.

The goal is to place opinion pieces and win positive coverage in regions where immigration reform is a prominent issue. To do that, leadership staff will co-opt rank-and-file members from those regions to place op-eds in their local papers or conduct television and radio interviews supporting the House bill.

For example, Boehner is expected to run an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer this week to address the need for expanded enforcement on the border. Not only is the Inquirer the hometown newspaper for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), whose name graces the Senate bill, at least three House Republicans face difficult reelection fights in the greater Philadelphia region.

The war-room staff also has been e-mailing regular “Border Bulletins” to update staff, members of the media and outside organizations about the field hearings schedule. The bulletins also highlight problems with the Senate bill or criticize Democrats, saying that they have failed to articulate a plan. The group also is expected to launch a website later this week.

The personal-office staff includes Laura Blackann, with Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.); Courtney English, with Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.); Sarah Jackson, with Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.); Charlie Keller, with Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.); Ryan Loskarn, with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.); Brad Mascho, with Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio); Tory Mazzola, with Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.); L.D. Platt, with Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.); Becky Ruby, with Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.); Michelle Stein, with Rep. Mike Burgess (R-Texas); Chris Taylor, with the Speaker’s office; and Sylvia Warner, with Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.).

Despite the organized communications plan, Republicans in the House remain divided on the issue of comprehensive reform, but the enforcement-only crowd tends to drown out other members of the conference who are more sympathetic to expanding the current guest-worker program or granting legal status to undocumented workers already here.

During a recent conference meeting of House Republicans, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas) told members about the positive responses he heard during a series of town-hall meetings he held to explain his enforcement-first approach and Rep. Joe Wilson (S.C.) told members that he received above-the-fold front-page coverage in a local newspaper for making a trip to the border.

House leaders are aggressively selling their plan in preparation for possible negotiation with the Senate on a compromise bill, even though the chances of a compromise dimmed significantly after the field hearings were announced. The communications plan is part of that effort.

“This is us going before the American public as judge and jury because all the facts are on our side,” Madden said.
























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A little bit of scramble, scramble, scramble here, ya think?

But their emphasis on immigration this election season only serves to create more expectation among voters that Congress should approve a reform bill before the November elections.

I don't want it to take forever but if passing legislation before the elections means capitulating I'm not in that big of a hurry except for shutting down the border. Like Now. Which seems almost impossible to do for some reason. We don't need any new legislation to shut the border down.

Despite the organized communications plan, Republicans in the House remain divided on the issue of comprehensive reform, but the enforcement-only crowd tends to drown out other members of the conference who are more sympathetic to expanding the current guest-worker program or granting legal status to undocumented workers already here.

House Republicans divided on issue of comprehensive reform?? They lost me here. Have I missed something? What was the vote again on 4437?