By focusing all of their time and energy energy on a quixotic effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans have more or less abandoned the one piece of legislation which might have brightened the electoral prospects of their party.
Among the GOP's pragmatic set, there are mounting fears that Republicans, consumed with budget battles and procedural wars in do-nothing Washington, will have little to say to Hispanic voters by the time the 2016 presidential race arrives.
Of course it can be credibly argued that the Republican House had no intention of passing any significant immigration reform measures to begin with. While the Senate Bill was passed with great fanfare the House's response was virtual silence--yet another instance of the Tea Party's stranglehold derailing the interests of the GOP. But the thinking at the time was that the House Republicans could sufficently muddy the issue with non-starter, piecemeal legislation that neither the President nor Senate Democrats would find palatable, but that might have provided sufficient cover for the GOP to weasel out of their reputation as overt racists.
Doesn't look like that's going to happen. They've wasted too much time preening and bloviating about Obamacare to address the concerns of the fastest growing segment of the electorate:
Torn between its hard-line right flank and the urgent need to boost its standing among general election voters and one of the country's fastest-growing voting blocs, Republicans have been caught in what Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina calls "a demographic death spiral" as Democrats continue to rack up huge margins among Hispanic voters at the polls.
The death knell for immigration reform this year was rung silently last week with little fanfare as the members of the "Gang of Seven," a bipartisan group of House members spearheading the issue, effectively
disbanded. What happened? The Republicans jumped ship:
Predictions that there would be no action on comprehensive immigration reform this year in the House of Representatives had been piling up all summer, but now it's official: An immigration plan from the so-called 'Gang of Seven,' a bipartisan House coalition that had been working on a reform proposal, appears to be kaput.
Two more Republicans, Reps. John Carter and Sam Johnson of Texas, announced today that they could "no longer continue" in negotiations and are leaving the group. Another Republican, Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, left the 'gang' in June over a disagreement on health care access for immigrants.
While John Boehner claims he still wants to pass a bill this year, other members of his caucus have
made it clear that if he relies on majority Democratic votes to do so, he'll lose his Speakership. So the realists are looking down the line
as far as 2017 for any substantive reform to conceivably pass through this dysfunctional House. Which leaves us exactly where we started, with the remaining House Democrats free to
push their own legislation without being chained to a "Gang."
Complicating matters, this aide said, are competing imperatives of congressional elections and national ones. In both Democratic and Republican-leaning House districts, the hot political battles are most often waged in primaries rather than general elections. With gerrymandered districts drawn to favor one party or another, self-preservation in Congress increasingly hinges on appealing to the base, general election voters be damned.
Republican dismissal of them notwithstanding, young advocates of immigration reform are gamely keeping up the pressure for
legislative action.
Meanwhile the GOP continues to further alienate themselves:
If Republicans fail to clean up their reputation with Hispanics through policy fixes, the party will be left to make adjustments in their tone and rhetoric -- a project complicated by conservatives like Iowa Rep. Steve King who have a knack for making inflammatory statements that quickly go viral on cable and the Internet.
In July, King said that for every child of an illegal immigrant who is a valedictorian, "there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."
Party leaders were not amused.
They probably weren't amused at this
gem from Louie Gohmert yesterday either:
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) this week asserted that Senate Democrats were using the health care reform law and an immigration bill to encourage “firing every fulltime American employee and hiring the immigrants.”
The GOP's crusade against allowing Americans access to health care has itself
hurt their cause with Hispanics and Latinos:
House GOP extremism could conceivably mean Republicans are setting themselves up for a kind of double whammy among Latino voters, as the image hardens among them of a GOP that is implacably opposed to addressing not just one, but two, problems of serious concern to them.
Polls show Latinos are more favorably disposed towards Obamacare than the public at large. A recent Pew poll found that 61 percent of Hispanics approve of the law.
Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg summed up the prevailing Republican attitude as seen through Hispanic and Latino eyes:
For those Republicans worried about getting their party right with the new American electorate, I would be more than a bit concerned about the current attack on the Affordable Care Act. No group will benefit more from the ACA than Hispanic Americans. Estimates are that as many as 10 million Hispanics could gain health insurance in the coming years due to the new American health care system.
The Republican narrative to them this week, just days before the ACA kicks in? We are so committed to denying you health insurance that we are not just opposed to the ACA, but are willing to shut the government down, default on our obligations, and throw the US and global economy into chaos to make sure you don’t get it.
Please proceed, Mr. Boehner.