POLITICO

GOP holds ground as Dems offer immigration plan

By KASIE HUNT | 4/29/10 8:34 PM EDT


Democrats are struggling to find even one Republican to sign on to their proposal. AP

Senate Democrats unveiled a comprehensive immigration reform framework Thursday in a political challenge to Republicans — but struggled to find even one Republican to sign on to their proposal.

"I think you've noted the tone here today. We are inviting them to work with us," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We just think it's time we stop the nonsense. How can you reasonably answer people around the country that say fix the system and then don't let us fix the system?"

But Republicans immediately condemned the move. "The Senate Democrats' proposal is nothing more than an attempt to score political points. It poisons the well for those of us who are working toward a more secure border and responsible, bipartisan reform of our immigration laws," Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said in a statement released immediately after the Democrats' press conference.

Joining Reid was Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the Senate's only Latino. "To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: I beseech you to join us. This framework has a lot of your ideas. It has things that maybe I wouldn't have written, but I understand what is necessary in order to achieve comprehensive immigration reform," he said.

The announcement comes in the wake of a tough new Arizona immigration law that requires police to ask people for proof of citizenship if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe the person is in the country illegally. "All eyes are focused on Arizona," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Democratic whip.

Reid faces a difficult reelection fight in the fall where Latino turnout and support could be crucial, and the rollout is in part the result of a careful political calculus that looks toward November.

"We need to show to the American people in this election cycle that we have not backed off the major challenges of our time. That we need to solve problems here in Washington, rather than walk away from them or postpone them for another day," Durbin said Thursday.

The issue sharply divides Democrats along geographic lines — and would set up a tough vote for moderates like Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. "It cuts both ways, I'll be honest with you. There're some who need it and some who don't," Durbin said of the 2010 Democratic Senate candidates.

Lincoln was reluctant to talk about immigration. "We got a lotta work to do, we gotta do it sometime," she told POLITICO.

The expanded framework, based on a series of principles Graham negotiated with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y), includes provisions aimed at tightening the borders, a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country that requires registration but not that they return home, and the issuance of Social Security cards with biometric identifiers, an idea attacked by some as a national ID card.

Graham walked away from the negotiations after Reid suggested he would push an immigration bill ahead of comprehensive energy legislation, a schedule Reid has now agreed to reverse. But Graham has said he will not back a bill this year-a move designed in part to help protect Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is facing a tough Republican primary.

Graham's defection has forced Democrats to look to other moderate Republicans. "Take a look at our proposal, I say to my Republican friends, and I don't direct this to Lindsey Graham only. There are forty other Republicans," Reid said.

Those include Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-N.H.), Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), all of whom voted for immigration reform in the past. Schumer said Thursday he had recently spoken with Gregg, who asked for details and expressed concerns about the workforce pieces of the bill.

Schumer insisted the Senate could make legitimate progress on reform-and that Democrats weren't just talking about it to score political points. "Committees of inaction and legislative backwaters are not places in which I thrive. Please," Schumer said, joking about why he agreed to head the Judiciary Committee's immigration panel.

Hope for the bill also rests on Obama's willingness to put political capital on the line. "We can no longer wait to fix our broken immigration system, which Democrats and Republicans alike agree doesn't work," Obama said in a Thursday statement lauding the framework, and noting that it "is consistent with the bipartisan framework presented by Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham last month."

But Obama has also acknowledged that the looming November election could doom the effort this year, a concession that suggests he may not be willing to put his full political muscle behind it.

"It's a matter of political will," Obama told reporters onboard Air Force One Wednesday night. "Now, look, we've gone through a very tough year, and I've been working Congress pretty hard. So I know there may not be an appetite immediately to dive into another controversial issue. There's still work that has to be done on energy. Midterms are coming up," he said.

Those elections promise to be tough for moderate House Democrats who have already taken tough votes on healthcare and climate change legislation-and House leaders are warning the president he will have to push hard to get Congress to act.

"[A]s I said when President Bush was president and I'll say it when President Obama is president," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in her weekly news conference Thursday. "If there is going to be any movement in this regard, it will require presidential leadership . as well as the willingness to move forward in the Congress."

Obama and Pelosi will find little support from House Republicans. "There is not a chance that immigration is going to move through the Congress," House Minority Leader John Boehner said Thursday, especially "in the middle of a boiling political pot here in Washington."

Boehner called the immigration push a "cynical ploy" and said he believes Democrats are trying "to engage . some segment of voters to show up in this November's election."

"Even the president last night admitted that this wasn't going to happen. I've been around here for a little while and know that in the middle of an election year, after we've had bills like health care shoved down our throats, and the process twisted, tortured, pressured, bribed, you cannot do a serious piece of legislation of this size with this difficulty in this environment," Boehner said.

Manu Raju and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.

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