By Mark Jacob Tribune reporter

5:11 p.m. CDT, September 30, 2013

A newly published memoir by Rep. Luis Gutierrez takes President Barack Obama to task on immigration, saying the White House tried to stifle the congressman's reform campaign, broke a promise to press the issue and took action only after being "outflanked by Marco Rubio."

In "Still Dreaming: My Journey from the Barrio to Capitol Hill," Gutierrez complains that deportations increased after his fellow Chicago Democrat took over the White House. And Gutierrez, who endorsed Obama twice for president, describes his frustration over what he viewed as Obama's unmet pledge to push for immigration reform in his first year in office.

"As a candidate, Obama made me promises about immigration," he writes. "As president, he broke them."

Gutierrez writes that his complaints about immigration irritated the White House so much that Obama on one occasion asked him privately in the White House's State Dining Room, "So why don't you get off my back?"

He also writes that Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett called him on the phone in an unsuccessful attempt "to bully me" into canceling one of his immigration reform tours. He quotes Jarrett as saying, "You and the president share a constituency," a comment that he took as a warning that there might be political fallout if he went on the tour.

Gutierrez writes that he asked Jarrett, "Are you threatening me?" and that she responded, "I'm simply asking you to cancel your tour and press conference."

Reached by the Tribune, Jarrett responded via email: "I do recall our conversation. It was not at all a threat. To the contrary, my point was that we had the same goal and we should work together to achieve it."

In the book, Gutierrez takes other shots at Obama's approach to immigration. He mocks a meeting in which Obama hosted Latino celebrities but no Latino congressmen. "I knew we were in trouble," Gutierrez writes, "when I saw Eva Longoria on television talking about immigration policy."

The book notes that Obama finally acted in June 2012 to help the "dreamers," immigrants in the country illegally who came to the U.S. as children. But Gutierrez believes the president's hand was forced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who came up with a plan that Gutierrez and other Latino lawmakers had planned to support if Obama didn't act. "In the end he was outflanked by Marco Rubio," Gutierrez writes.

Despite the harsh criticism, Gutierrez is conciliatory near the end of the book: "I have my moments of contention with Barack Obama, but I almost always support him. I frequently disagree with him on one vital issue, but there are a couple of hundred Republican members of Congress who disagree with him on everything."

The book details Gutierrez's upbringing in Chicago and Puerto Rico, his work as a cabdriver and his political emergence as an alderman backing Mayor Harold Washington and later as a congressman. Not surprisingly, the author comes off well in this telling. For example, when Gutierrez describes his refusal to pledge his vote to Rep. Dan Rostenkowski in exchange for a plum committee assignment, he writes: "My honesty had just liberated me."

The book features plenty of stories about rough-and-tumble Chicago politics.

Gutierrez recounts a 1986 City Council session in which he recited the property tax figures for the homes of opposition aldermen, inspiring Ald. Bernard Stone to famously denounce him as "you little pipsqueak."

Less well known was the reaction of Ald. Fred Roti, 1st, who was long linked to the mob. Gutierrez writes that after he read off Roti's tax figures, the alderman pulled him aside and said, "Lou, ward boundaries change. They come and go. But one thing that never changes about the 1st Ward — it always has the Chicago River."

The congressman also admits ordering counterfeit tickets to a political forum in 1989 to make sure his candidate, Richard M. Daley, had plenty of supporters in the crowd.

In recalling his youth, Gutierrez reveals a little-known connection to the Tribune, writing that he delivered the afternoon edition downtown and once received a $5 Christmas tip from Mayor Richard J. Daley at City Hall.

The book lists only one author on the cover — Gutierrez. But the title page credits the book to "Luis Gutierrez with Doug Scofield."

USA Today reported in June that Scofield, a former Gutierrez chief of staff, had earned more than $500,000 in taxpayer money in the last 10 years as a contractor providing training in Gutierrez's congressional office. The office has since severed ties with Scofield. A Gutierrez spokesman and Scofield told the Tribune that the ex-contractor's book work did not involve any taxpayer money.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,2873320.story