Posted on 05/23/2007 6:02:45 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Sometime late this summer, after comprehensive immigration "reform" dies on a 12-9 vote in a House committee, the conservatives and populists who are leading the opposition should toast their champion, the pol who made their victory inevitable: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi is in a big jam right now. Democrats took over Congress in January, riding a wave of voter disgust with Republican rule in Washington D.C. But the public never gave the Dems any sort of honeymoon, and a recent Gallup Poll had a shocking finding: Congress, even under new stewardship, was less popular than the highly unpopular president. This is a stunner for a Democratic Party that was counting on a nice run in power.
So what is the huge issue Pelosi's fragile House majority is expected to bravely take up? The most divisive domestic-policy nightmare of all: immigration.
Polls may show the public supports measures that allow many or all of the 12 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S. to eventually win citizenship, but strategists say it's all a question of how poll questions are framed -- and that a substantial chunk of Americans of both parties and all colors have a visceral distaste for anything that can be defined as amnesty. Even though George W. Bush provides some political cover for Dems with his support for comprehensive immigration "reform" and even though there appears to be a bipartisan Senate majority for such a bill, the dynamics are way different in the House. As more and more of the country is buffeted by the sort of illegal immigration influxes that California and Arizona have long taken for granted, more and more intensely motivated single-issue voters emerge. An awful lot of them reside in suburban swing districts where the battle for House control will be fought in 2008.
Given these circumstances, Pelosi knows she must do anything she can to avoid a partisan vote in the House in which Dems force through comprehensive "reform." She first signalled this by saying months ago that Dems would require 60 or 70 House GOP votes to pass the measure. This past week, she unveiled a stealthier strategy to kill an immigration bill she will pretend to support.
Her weapon: trashing the Senate plan for making future immigration more contingent on job skills and other qualifications than family ties, and vowing to oppose such provisions.
Why would a wealthy San Francisco Democrat with few Latino constituents and plenty of Silicon Valley contributors who are the biggest advocates of the job-skills emphasis choose now to get worked up about this issue?
Because it has the most potential to crack the coalition of pro-business Republicans and bleeding-heart Dems who came up with the Senate compromise and just might be able to produce passage of a House measure. The job-skills preference gave the GOPers the opportunity to argue that they'd wrought big concessions in return for amnesty. When it's gone, so are they, and so are any hopes of coming up with 218 votes in the House.
Pelosi, no dummy, sees a prime chance to make everything fall apart while escaping the blame. She showed her hand by naming Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Chicago, as a lead House negotiator to work with senators in crafting a final version of the comprehensive bill (at least if the bill does pass the Senate).
Why is this so telling? Because Gutierrez is one of the loudest open-border voices in U.S. politics. He's also the genius who ripped the job-skills preference with this immortally silly observation: In immigration, "the landscaper is just as important as the computer scientist." Not in a modern economy, Luis. Not at any time since the invention of the computer.
Naming a firebrand extremist like Gutierrez as a lead negotiator isn't just a signal that Pelosi intends to sandbag the compromise bill; it's screaming her intentions through a bullhorn. Pelosi might as well have declared that comprehensive immigration "reform" will pass the House over her dead body.
Peloopsi’s reply made me giddy =X
gosh darn it!!! Karl Rove strikes again. roflmao
>>>>Pelosi: Immigration bill will pass over my dead body
NOW we are talking compromise!
The stakes have been raised on negotiations.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
First bit of positive effects coming from this bill.
“Pelosi: Immigration bill will pass over my dead body”
There is a certain segment of the population who would try to make that happen.
Giddy! For a second there I wished it would pass. Taking her and her Royal Court with it. Can a border fence be built around Washington D.C, cutting off all ingress and egress and making them an island to themselves? Sorry, I got carried away again.
Pelosi: “Immigration bill will pass over my dead body.”
promises, pomises!!!
Ok
Pelosi: Immigration bill will pass over my dead body
Oh man!
Nancy croaks versus the nation croaks.
I just cannot decide!
Luis Guitar is an old Chicago hack socialist. Where did he come from to be in this mess, BTW?
Pelosi: Immigration bill will pass over my dead body
From the article.........
Pelosi might as well have declared that comprehensive immigration "reform" will pass the House over her dead body.
The title is specious, disingenuous and reeking of deceit.
Now you're talking..
Now that would be a fun poll to freep.
Drat. Now I don’t know whether I want it to go down in flames...
That is all true, but you have to admit it makes a pretty picture.
tempting.
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