Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration push hits brick wall
Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration push hits brick wall
http://images.politico.com/global/20...rg_gty_605.jpgHis immigration reform push had all the capital, connections to merit success. By JESSICA MEYERS | 7/8/14 5:02 AM EDT
Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration reform push had all the capital, connections and star power to merit success.
But not even Silicon Valley could make this investment — and the Facebook founder’s first foray into national politics — pay off.
Tech leaders poured millions into FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group that has dominated ad buys, launched elaborate hackathons and coddled conservatives in an effort to revamp the country’s immigration system. It galloped into the debate with the tech industry’s classic certainty but wound up facing the same obstacles that have halted reform for decades.
Now, as hope for an overhaul fades, the group must reconcile Silicon Valley’s highflying ambition with the sobering lessons of Washington.
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“In Silicon Valley, if you don’t like the taxi industry, you start Uber, you go around it,” said FWD.us President Joe Green, who helped establish the group alongside Zuckerberg, his former Harvard roommate. “With politics you have to work through it, and doing that can be very challenging.”
FWD.us began with a lofty, if amorphous, goal: to ensure the success of America. But it also made initial high-profile stumbles with its ad strategy and, while trying to engage the tech community, ended up alienating some in it.
The group has stood out in other ways since it launched in April 2013, not least of all its ability to raise money and draw big names.
FWD.us surpassed its $50 million fundraising goal Zuckerberg set and has almost $25 million still squirreled away, according to those familiar with the group’s finances. Much of the money went to media buys, for which it far outranked other pro-reform groups. FWD.us has reached into more than 100 Republican districts, from a $150,000 ad buy in North Carolina that defended the conservative credentials of Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers to a six-figure TV campaign in targeted markets.
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FWD.us spent about $5 million on TV and radio ads in the lead-up to last year’s Senate vote, which resulted in the passage of an immigration overhaul.
Along with its affiliates, Americans for a Conservative Direction and the Council for American Job Growth, the group has continued to run six-figure ads either praising conservative backers or touting the imperative for reform.
Contributors to the group include tech superstars like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Its D.C. agents also read like a list of power players. FWD.us Executive Director Todd Schulte served as former chief of staff at Priorities USA, a super PAC that supported President Barack Obama. Its campaign manager, Rob Jesmer, worked as the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Consultants worked for numerous presidents and both sides of the aisle.
“FWD.us is the most prominent, most active biggest spending group in recent years to come out in favor of immigration reform,” said Elizabeth Wilner of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. But its spending, she noted, remains “paltry” compared with organizations tied to the money-churning causes of health care and energy.
Wilner likened the effort to a grass-roots group launched by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that intended to unite voters around gun control. It didn’t.
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“You can look at really influential people in business thinking they can put names and money behind something and believe it will pass,” she said, “but they’re basically running into the brick wall of Washington and polarization.”
FWD.us’ registered lobbying efforts total $780,000, a reflection of not only its political nonprofit status but its focus on popular appeal over policy details.
Its immigration priorities extended beyond many other tech groups, which pushed most strongly for changes that would benefit high-skilled foreign workers. FWD.us highlighted the need for comprehensive reform through local initiatives, individual stories of immigrants and polls that stressed Americans’ desire for change. Green calls it a “dual partisan” effort.
“Instead of a business lobby, it organized itself as a political operation,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice and a veteran of immigration reform efforts. “It focused on both the right and left, put a lot of money into advertising and essentially took that advantage away from anti-immigrant groups.”
That hasn’t always gone well.
FWD.us lurched soon after it launched. The group nettled many of its own members with TV ads that emphasized the conservative credentials of some immigration reform advocates. One ad for South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham — an instrumental figure in the Senate bill’s passage — touted his support for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and opposition to Obamacare. Yet another praised Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, a reform supporter, for backing oil drilling in the Arctic.
Liberal groups pulled ads from Facebook, while Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk and David Sacks, chief executive of social networking company Yammer, cut ties.
FWD.us stood by its strategy, but the ads haunted the fledgling organization, which hoped to strike a bipartisan tone but wound up losing some liberal backers. Future ads heaped praise on Republicans for passing House immigration principles and then pressured them when the window for action narrowed.
The group hosted rallies with evangelicals and farmers. It drew conservative leaders to roundtables, held press events in key districts and created an app that facilitated interaction with lawmakers. It appeared, at times, to lack a cohesive plan.
“They tried a bunch of different things,” said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the Partnership for a New American Economy, a coalition of business leaders and mayors, launched in part by Bloomberg, that pushes for immigration reform. “I think what they have been trying to do with an issue is spot where there are gaps and try and fill all the different holes.”
It has garnered the group mixed results.
“My sense is they wanted to be really helpful, but they didn’t quite know how to be really helpful,” said Kentucky Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth, who participated in House reform efforts. “I don’t think they really know how to wage this kind of battle.”
It was a fight no reform group had the ability to win. House Republicans refused to take up the Senate’s bill and failed to act on their own. The government shutdown and war in Syria last fall slowed momentum. The final kick came with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s defeat and the crisis along the Mexican border. The issue had become toxic for Republicans.
FWD.us wouldn’t let go. The group commissioned polls last month that showed support for reforms in Cantor’s district and spent $250,000 on cable ads intended to nudge House Republicans. Several weeks later, Obama conceded defeat on near-term legislative reform and announced he would turn to executive actions.
Some found the group’s tactics off-putting, even distracting — such as selfies sent to Congress in the name of immigration reform or abrasive attack ads against lawmakers who disagreed. Few dismissed its initiative.
“With respect to them entering into a tough debate, I think they have done a good job, in some cases a great job, to influence people in a way they wouldn’t have been influenced,” said Scott Corley, executive director of Compete America, a pro-reform coalition that represents tech groups. “Does that mean they did everything perfectly? No, no one does.”
Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a key player in the House efforts, called the group “among the most effective advocates that I’ve dealt with.”
The group’s nontraditional methods served as an asset, he said. “They have the staying power, the willingness to work, the ability and willingness to focus on the issue like a laser and not get confused and sidetracked by partisan issues. To me, they have been, frankly, a breath of fresh air.”
And in the resilient fashion of Silicon Valley, the group has no intention of packing up.
“We’ve managed to tread the difficult line of being trusted on both sides and doing work that is fundamentally political on both sides,” FWD.us’ Green said. “We are down but we are certainly not out.”
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