By MANU RAJU and SEUNG MIN KIM | 5/7/14 11:37 PM EDT
POLITICO


Lawmakers could have to start from scratch next year. | AP Photo

Marco Rubio spent months last year furiously negotiating a comprehensive immigration bill.

But don’t count on the Florida Republican to revive his stalled bill in the next Congress.

“A comprehensive, single piece of legislation on any topic, but especially on immigration, is going to be very difficult to achieve,” Rubio, a potential presidential candidate, said when asked whether he’d push a large overhaul in the 2015-16 session. “We keep talking about the same issue now for 15 years, and everybody is doing this all-or-nothing approach. And all-or-nothing is going to leave you with nothing.”

Rubio’s grim assessment reflects growing pessimism on Capitol Hill that a sweeping immigration bill is achievable in President Barack Obama’s second term if nothing passes this year. It’s a remarkable shift from last year’s heady belief that the two parties would finally cut a deal on the contentious issue after Latino voters came out in droves to reelect the president in 2012. A bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate last summer, faces fierce opposition in the conservative House — and there’s little chance a version of the measure passes even during a lame-duck session after November’s elections.

This means lawmakers would have to start from scratch next year. But looming over the next Congress will be the 2016 presidential primary season, which could make it too difficult for GOP leaders, and potential presidential candidates like Rubio, to moderate on an issue that roils the conservative base.

Republicans, who appear poised to retain the House majority and potentially win the Senate this fall, say if Democrats continue to demand liberal policies on the nation’s undocumented immigrants, it would sink GOP efforts to move narrower immigration bills in a more conservative Congress.

“Comprehensive reform, if it means tackling everything at once, I think is unlikely to pass — ever,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the potential 2016 presidential candidate. “‘Comprehensive’ means Democrats get everything they want.”

Some fear the end result could be no action on the issue until there’s a new president in office.

“I think if it’s not done this year, it’s going to be next to impossible to do it next year,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who drafted the immigration bill with Rubio and a bipartisan coalition known as the Gang of Eight. “By early next year, the Republican primary season will be in full flower. And that moves everybody to the right.”

Democrats have every reason to stoke the pessimism. Republican elders have long acknowledged the party needs to do a better job reaching out to Latino voters, particularly ahead of 2016, so Democrats want to portray this summer as the lone chance to get the job done before the next presidential election.

Backers are now eyeing a window between now and the August recess for the House to pass immigration legislation. This block of time is ideal, they say, because it takes place after the end of most GOP primaries when support for immigration reform is seen as politically toxic.

But complicating the legislative equation is that the Obama administration is considering whether to take executive action that would effectively slow deportations for immigrants living here illegally — a chief demand of the Latino community that is a core part of the Democratic base.

House Republicans have said a top reason for their reluctance on immigration reform is that they can’t trust Obama to enforce any laws they may pass — pointing to the repeated delays in Obamacare provisions that have occurred without Congress’ blessing. A sweeping administrative action on deportations is likely to kill Republican appetite altogether for a legislative fix to the immigration system.

For that reason — combined with 2016 presidential politics — Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said he believes immigration reform is likely dead until 2017 if it is not taken up and passed this year.

“I’m very much convinced that if it doesn’t happen this year — and this year really means before the August break — that it doesn’t happen,” said Diaz-Balart, who has been trying to rally other House Republicans for an immigration overhaul. “Because let me tell you what happens when the president acts [on deportations], which he is going to: All Cain breaks loose.”

The concerns underscore the difference in the political calculations between the 2014 midterms and the 2016 presidential elections. GOP leaders this year have little appetite to engage in a messy, divisive election-year brawl over immigration when polls show their voters are far more energized on issues like Obamacare, even though many acknowledge they must act to broaden their appeal before 2016.

Republicans also are bound to increase their ranks in both chambers next year, meaning they’ll have a greater ability to move smaller immigration bills. Top Republicans say that could mean the end of a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

“If you’re talking about one big pig-in-the-python-type bill, I don’t think that’s workable,” said Minority Whip John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican who represents the border state of Texas. “So I think what is [workable] is to try to find areas where there’s consensus in a series of smaller bills — so I think it’s important we make as much progress as we can.”

Cornyn added: “But in order to do immigration reform, we don’t have to do what the president and the Democrats want, which is a pathway to citizenship — we clearly do not have to do that.”

Rubio, along with GOP leaders, argue that Congress should instead move on individual bills with broad support — potentially measures to increase H-1B visas for foreign high-skilled workers, attract other temporary guest workers, beef up border security or even legalize immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

But moving individual bills is no slam-dunk either. Any attempt to pass a small bill would prompt groups on the right and left to withhold critical support unless a range of other policy measures are added.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a co-author of the comprehensive bill, is dubious of the small-bill approach.

“I don’t know how you fix this without dealing with the moving parts,” Graham said. “Nobody in the Democratic Party is going to give us all we want on border security and new visas, unless you address the 11 million.”

Indeed, immigration-reform backers, particularly in the tech industry, are also privately fretting about Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley taking over as chairman of the Judiciary Committee — which oversees immigration — if the GOP retakes the Senate majority. Grassley is a staunch critic of H-1B visas, arguing that the program for high-skilled workers is a magnet for fraud and abuse.

“I’m not going to do anything until the border is secure,” said Grassley, who opposed the Senate bill.

The Senate legislation passed last June marked the biggest rewrite of immigration laws in a generation, creating a 13-year pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents, revamping the legal immigration process and enacting tougher border-security standards. House GOP leaders have long rejected the Senate bill, but have yet to put forward their own approach — except for a one-page list of principles on immigration reform released in January that endorsed legalizing undocumented immigrants.

If Republicans win the Senate majority, it’s unclear where immigration reform would rank on their agenda, given that all five Senate GOP leaders opposed the immigration bill last year.

But Mitch McConnell — whom Republicans would elect as leader if he wins his reelection fight this year — has long been attune to the political needs of his party, even though a spokesman said “it’s a little early” to assess how he would handle immigration in a GOP majority.

“The Republicans are going to realize that the chances of winning a nationwide election without immigration reform are minimal,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a co-author of the Senate bill who won 31 percent of the Latino vote in his 2008 loss to Obama. (Four years later, Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the rapidly growing Hispanic bloc.)

“The Republican Party has got a math problem,” Graham said. “Demographically, we’re losing air.”

Still, what McConnell does could certainly be influenced by presidential politics. In a reminder of how conservative fury grows at any hint of “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, conservatives strongly criticized former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for his recent remarks that urged compassion for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, calling it an “act of love.”

“I can’t quite imagine how a candidate would come to Iowa and say, ‘You need to vote for me for president because I support the Senate Gang of Eight bill,’” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a well-known immigration foe.

Democrats say that the stance of onetime allies like Rubio will be dictated by hard-liners like King as 2016 draws nearer.

“It does worry me,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said, when asked about Rubio pouring cold water on a comprehensive bill. “And this is presidential politics at work.”

Nonetheless,

Rubio insists that he has long thought the best strategy is to move individual measures that draw the most support. His allies say it’s unfair to blame his reasoning on presidential politics.

“So after six years of Obama failing to deliver on his promise to fix our immigration system, now they’re saying it’s because of the Iowa caucuses?” said Rubio spokesman Alex Conant. “Classic.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...ma-106467.html