Immigration Reform: no greater example of how the GOP has lost its way

There are many examples.  North Korea going nuclear.  Iran rising as a regional power in the Middle East.  The collapse of our occupation of Iraq.  Historic deficits.  No agenda to help the middle class in a more virulent age of globalization.  No action taken on global climate change, energy independence, health care, etc.

There are so many example of how this governing party has failed to deliver on its promises, and left many other critical emerging challenges so unexamined.

But to me there is perhaps no greater example of their inability to make government work for the “common good” than their failure to tackle immigration reform this year.  In a hyper-partisan and disappointing age, immigration reform was different.  Senators McCain and Kennedy built a broad bi-partisan coalition for reform that included labor, the Chamber of Commerce, immigrant advocacy groups and groups like NDN.  Republicans got guest worker, Democrats a path to citizenship and everyone agreed to work on fixing the porous border.  It was a throwback to an earlier era, when reasonable people could come together to solve a vexing problem.

But then late last year, almost out of nowhere, the House Republicans broke from this consensus approach and passed a wild and irresponsible bill that called for the arrest and deportation of the 11-12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.  These two approaches seemed irreconcilable.  Debate ensued.  Latinos threatened by both this policy and the extreme rhetoric surrounding the debate, took to the streets in protest.  The Senate came together, led by McCain, Kennedy and Reid and got 58 votes for what was known as McCain-Kennedy.  A version of it finally passed, and off to conference it went.

At that point the national Republican Party and the House Republicans faced a critical choice.  Solve a national problem or succumb to politics? It was a crucial test.  And it spoke to the heart of the criticism of the Republicans these days.  Could they make government work for the common good?

The answer? Speaker Hastert and his able team choose politics.  They said no to any bill with earned citizenship, and renamed the McCain bill the Reid-Kennedy Democratic Amnesty Bill.  Republican ads equating Latino immigrants to terrorists and charging that Democrats were on this side of illegals and terrorists spread like wildfire.

On such a basic level this is all very tragic.  We had a broad bi-partisan approach towards fixing the immigration system in America.  The President went on national TV to support it.  John McCain was its lead sponsor.  Labor and business had come together.  Immigrants groups accepted changes that in many years would have been unacceptable.  The criticism of the Republicans was that they couldn’t make government work.  And what happened? We ended up with an extraordinarily expensive fence that covers only a small portion of the open border, will take years to build and is not guaranteed to make any difference in this difficult problem.  As Travis writes below the governing party cannot even agree on to how and when to sign this new fence bill into law, and may have violated their own rules in holding it this far. 

And we ended up with ads, politics, distortion, fear, lying in the campaigns themselves.  But perhaps reason is prevailing.  As a DCCC blog post yesterday points out, a television station just pulled a GOP ad in Ohio that was clearly lying about the Democratic candidate’s position on immigration.  And Barack Obama jumped in to the fight, cutting a sensible ad for a Democratic candidate in Illinois trying to set the record straight.

I am very proud of the leadership of the Democrats for standing true on this issue of immigration reform.  In this case, they have taken the right moral, political and legislative position.  Tough as it’s been, on this issue, Democrats have shown that they have what it takes to be good stewards of America in a new century. Despite tremendous opposition, we held fast to tackling a serious nation problem and did not yield.

I am also proud of our role in all this.  NDN got involved last year before the now infamous House vote on “Sensenbrenner,” urging all involved to reject that terrible bill.  We have lobbied many Members of Congress and candidates, written many memos, held forums and fought hard with allies like the National Immigration Forum to find a better path.  And in the spring, we launched the first in a series of national Spanish-language ad campaigns that spoke to the hopes of Latinos and not their fears, and we have been on the air, nationally, ever since.

The Republicans, however, in their inability to get this done, have shown why America has grown weary of them and are looking for a new path.  They no longer have what it takes to lead America in this challenging time.