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Making sense of immigration policies
Posted 8/28/2006 8:54 PM ET


By Ross K. Baker
We have become accustomed to seeing the big political battles fought between partisan or ideological trench lines. Name an issue — abortion, flag desecration, same-sex marriage, the Iraq war — and you will see the vast bulk of Democrats on one side and a pretty solid GOP phalanx on the other. This fits nicely with the neat red-blue division of states so beloved by the people who do TV election coverage graphics.
But on immigration reform, a chasm of another kind has eclipsed this. It is between the House and the Senate, and while partisanship has an indirect influence, its impact is almost strictly within Republican ranks, between GOP House members on the south side of the Capitol and Republican senators on the north.

The House-Senate split has produced rival immigration bills that are starkly different. There are three reasons for this disparity: the very different constituencies represented by the 100 senators and the 435 House members, the varying terms of senators and House members, and the greater influence the minority party enjoys in the Senate.

House districts, with about 700,000 residents, can be remarkably homogeneous political entities, especially when it comes to what proportion of those residents are Democrats and what percentage are Republicans. Here we encounter the most naked act of legal political manipulation in U.S. politics: the gerrymander.

Stacking the cards

Drawing the electoral maps of states for the advantage of one party or the other — depending on which party controls the state legislature and the governorship — is a hallowed practice that takes place every 10 years as a consequence of the Census. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court gave its benediction to conducting this remapping even more frequently. However frequently the congressional district lines are redrawn, the effect in most states is to make it a cinch that one party will always prevail.

Partisanship often serves as a surrogate for any number of social characteristics. Accordingly, you often find solidly Republican districts in the distant suburbs of large cities, in rural areas, or in places of great affluence. These districts usually have few minority residents.

In contrast, the district in which it is a cinch that a Democrat will win will be urban and have lots of minority and low-income people. A Republican representing a typical GOP House district, even in the areas where the influx of Latino immigrants has been greatest, might have very few Latino voters. Non-citizens do not vote, and members of Congress respond with greatest alacrity to the demands of those who do.

Senators represent more diverse constituencies. Few states are as unbalanced in partisan terms as is the typical congressional district.

So while Massachusetts is the archetypal "blue" state, it has a Republican governor. "Red" Georgia numbers six Democrats in its congressional delegation. Many senators, moreover, Republicans and Democrats alike, have sizable numbers of Latino voters and immigrants of many origins. States are diverse; House districts can be remarkably homogeneous, and the very homogeneity of some House districts represented by Republicans has led them to favor an immigration bill that places almost its entire emphasis on border security and enforcement. The Senate bill, subject to the influence of a greater diversity of voices, offers legalization and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens that House Republicans deride as "amnesty."

The second factor that influences House-Senate differences on issues of great controversy such as illegal immigration is the fact that House members, with their two-year terms, are connected to the voters by a shorter tether than the one that connects senators with their constituents. Because of the partisan advantages conferred by gerrymandering and the ability of House members to use their incumbency to build personal loyalty among voters, few House officeholders suffer defeat. But on an issue that generates such strong emotions as immigration, a wrong move by a House member, especially one in a strongly conservative GOP district, will be fresh in the minds of voters on Election Day. Senators, except the one-third of the body up for election that year, are cut a bit more slack. A vote for a liberalized immigration policy in 2006 might not be remembered in 2010.

When the minority has a voice

Finally, the rules of the Senate confer on a minority party a much greater ability to influence legislation than is enjoyed by Democrats in the House. A party with the barest majority in the House, if it is cohesive, can get pretty much what it wants. But in the Senate, each senator is armed with the filibuster, which can halt or at least impede the will of the majority. Democrats, notably Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, were deeply involved in fashioning the Senate bill. On the House side, the imperious Judiciary Committee chairman, James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., had things pretty much his way.

If the Framers of the Constitution were to walk among us, they would understand completely this institutional clash. While they foresaw no role for political parties, they anticipated that the great issues would be resolved in a tug of war between the House and Senate.

Institutional checks and balances that are the safeguards of our freedom are usually eclipsed by partisan strife, but it is reassuring to see them, even on isolated issues, displaying their vitality.

Ross K. Baker is a political science professor at Rutgers University. He also is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.