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Here’s the attitude. Ohhhh. Don’t make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard.
— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) “theatrically mocked his fellow Republican Congressmen for being afraid to reform immigration policy when he spoke Thursday before the Middletown Rotary Club in his home district,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
— Jeb Bush, quoted by CNN, saying he wants to move past derisive rhetoric describing illegal immigrants.
60%
Of House GOP members (143 of 232) represent congressional districts where Latinos make up less than 10% of the population, and that’s the reason they are balking at reform — not because they don’t trust President Obama on immigration reform, NBC News says. “In addition, Republicans don’t really face serious Democratic opposition in 80% of the districts (71 of 89) with more than 10% of Latinos, meaning their biggest threat to re-election comes from an intra-party primary. As a result, more than nine in 10 of House Republicans will be nearly unfazed by any possible pro-immigration-reform backlash heading into the November election.”
As political momentum in Washington, D.C. swings toward tackling immigration reform, the Republican Party once again is ready to squander a mighty electoral advantage heading into the 2014 midterms. The general failure of President Obama’s economic agenda, health-care reform, civil liberties record, and foreign policy is an electoral gift. Yet with a Senate majority in plain sight, the GOP faithful is crying that ‘Amnesty=Suicide’ and Republican leaders are calling for massively invasive new rules that will only increase the size, scope, and spending of the federal government. … And this is the party of small government? No wonder the country is so screwed.
— Nick Gillespie, in the Daily Beast.
No way it happens. I just don’t see it going anywhere. I think 2014 is a slam dunk to us otherwise and this would really piss off the base.
— A House Republican aide, quoted by Talking Points Memo, on the prospects for immigration reform.
Part of it, I think — and I hate to say this, because these are my people — but I hate to say it, but it’s racial. If you go to town halls people say things like, ‘These people have different cultural customs than we do.’ And that’s code for race.
— A Southern Republican congressman, speaking to BuzzFeed, on immigration reform.
63%
“A consistent and solid majority of Americans — 63 percent — crossing party and religious lines favors legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally, while only 14 percent support legal residency with no option for citizenship, according a report published Monday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.” — New York Times
Last year, almost everybody in my conference would’ve agreed with me on this immigration issue. And this year, it seems as though after the presidential election a spell’s been cast over a good number of Republicans and they seem to think the presidential election was about immigration. I’d ask them, find me that debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama that addressed immigration. I don’t remember it. I can’t find it. The election was about jobs and the economy, not immigration. And yet some Republican strategists and leadership have decided let’s just go ahead and debate immigration for twelve months and then we’ll see if we can solve the problem.
— Rep. Steve King (R-IA), explaining to CNN why Republicans can’t get together for immigration reform.
Yes, I think Steve King, the more he speaks, the more he helps us get a bill passed.
— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in an interview with the Huffington Post. on the prospects for immigration reform.
They are totally insulated from public opinion on this because of redistricting. Republicans are gonna continue to hold the House. But then we’ll head into the 2016 presidential election where the electorate is likely to be 2 percent less white than it was in 2012 and 4 percent less white than it was in 2008. This is a simple math equation.
— GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, in an interview with the New York Times, on the harm House Republicans will do to the GOP’s national ambitions by not supporting immigration reform.
