The Senate's Gang of Eight has a proactive, aggressive agenda to reach out to two dozen Republicans in the Senate with a goal of 70 votes for final passage of immigration reform. It's felt that this is the only way to ensure action out of the House-where in the past we've hard talk about the House not getting to it till the end of the year.
“If we were to pass this bill with, say, over 50 Democratic votes, which I do think is possible, and only eight or nine Republicans, it would pass and get to 60, but it would bode poorly for the House,” Schumer said at a breakfast last month sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. “We’re looking not to get 61 votes, obviously that is a minimum. I’d like to get — maybe this is hopeful — but it would be wonderful if we could get a majority on both sides.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/gang-of-eight-immigration-supermajority-90949_Page2.html#ixzz2SXIjv0V6
"In this case, though, the response from Republicans to the study has been swift and aggressive. Reporters were sent a whole list of Republican Congressional aides and conservative think tank types who are prepared to push back on the study — a measure of just how much the GOP establishment wants reform to pass this time."
"Ultimately, the prospects for immigration reform have always turned on whether enough Republicans are willing to swallow hard, cross the citizenship Rubicon, and accept the consequences for the right. This report doesn’t change that basic dynamic. It will give an army of talk show hosts and bloggers opposed to reform plenty of ammunition to kick up a whole lot of noise against the proposal, to be sure."
“If we were to pass this bill with, say, over 50 Democratic votes, which I do think is possible, and only eight or nine Republicans, it would pass and get to 60, but it would bode poorly for the House,” Schumer said at a breakfast last month sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. “We’re looking not to get 61 votes, obviously that is a minimum. I’d like to get — maybe this is hopeful — but it would be wonderful if we could get a majority on both sides.”
“It is very doable,” McCain quickly chimed in.
"On the Republican side, the list of targets identified by immigration advocates and congressional aides could be divided into tiers: the first tier includes about six to eight senators, other than the four GOP members of the Gang of Eight, who are most likely to vote yes; the second is a group of persuadable senators; and then there is a coveted subset of tea party stars, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, who would be as influential as anything else in wooing House Republicans."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/gang-of-eight-immigration-supermajority-90949_Page2.html#ixzz2SXIjv0V6
A key is the continued support of Rubio. There is the risk that by in setting such a high bar of 70 Senators might require further concessions to Republicans that will turn off Democrats. It seems to me that Rubio now owns this and would lose a lot of status by it's failure. Can he run for President in 2016 with a failed bill-much less one he didn't personally support?
He and other Republicans like Paul Ryan in the House-so there's an important House supporter-have early looked to define this bill and fight back the conservative groundswell to kill reform that is coming one way or the other. The Heritage is leading the anti immigration push right now. For immigration opponents it's believed this must be a magic bullet:
"The Heritage Foundation has just released its long awaited report supposedly documenting that the path to citizenship in the Gang of Eight immigration reform compromise will sock the taxpayer with a multi-trillion-dollar bill. You cannot overstate how much opponents of reform have staked on the hope that this report will be the magic bullet to kill the proposal. This is the report that’s supposed to send House conservatives running away, never to return."
Republican supporters of immigration reform have already been preemptively striking the report, in effect:
"My Post colleague Jennifer Rubin has a long post detailing the substantive pre-buttals of the Heritage study that are coming from other Republicans and conservatives who favor reform and argue Heritage’s methodology is flawed:
As Sargent says, no one is even pretending the Heritage study is about any interest in facts or truth, just a desperate, last ditch effort to kill the bill. However, it's clear that the Republican party establishment really wants this to pass this time:The Cato Institute has already come up with a detailed pre-rebuttal of Heritage’s work. And, ironically, even the Congressional Budget Office can figure out that with dynamic scoring of the type pioneered by Heritage (when it was an intellectual trailblazer for conservatives), the country and the Treasury come out ahead.
"In this case, though, the response from Republicans to the study has been swift and aggressive. Reporters were sent a whole list of Republican Congressional aides and conservative think tank types who are prepared to push back on the study — a measure of just how much the GOP establishment wants reform to pass this time."
"Ultimately, the prospects for immigration reform have always turned on whether enough Republicans are willing to swallow hard, cross the citizenship Rubicon, and accept the consequences for the right. This report doesn’t change that basic dynamic. It will give an army of talk show hosts and bloggers opposed to reform plenty of ammunition to kick up a whole lot of noise against the proposal, to be sure."
"But it’s just as true today as it was last week that reform is only going to happen if enough Republicans ignore all that noise and decide that short term pain from the base is well worth dealing with in order to give the party a chance to at least begin repairing relations with Latinos, at a time when demographic realities are looking extremely daunting over the long term. And make no mistake — it’s only the far right who opposes a path to citizenship; polls show solid majorities overall, and even substantial numbers of Republicans."
It looks to me that we may have the Republicans willing to go here this time. However, have no doubt that it will be a "rough business" as Trent Lott says. He's one who has been here before:
As a Senate committee prepares to begin voting this week on far-reaching immigration legislation, advocates are watching warily to see whether relatively tame opposition balloons into the kind of fierce resistance that killed Congress' last attempt to overhaul the system.
"Last time around, in 2007, angry calls overwhelmed the Senate switchboard and lawmakers endured raging town hall meetings and threats from incensed constituents. The legislation ultimately collapsed on the Senate floor."
"I've been through this battle, and it's ugly," said former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who supported the bill. "My phones were jammed for three weeks and I got three death threats, one of which I turned over to the FBI. So it's rough business."
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