House Democrats are
torn between politics and policy in responding to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's defeat in his Republican primary Tuesday, the
Washington Post's Wesley Lowery reports. On the political side, it's a joy to see Republicans in disarray and likely being pulled in a direction that will weaken them as a party. On the policy side, though, Democrats have to deal with the concern that Cantor's defeat means Republicans will be even more resistant to passing major legislation than they already were. But, Democrats are pointing out, Eric Cantor was never the path to getting immigration reform or any other bipartisan legislation:
"It's not," Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Wednesday afternoon in response to her assertion that the chances of immigration reform passing this year are dead. "The votes existed yesterday for comprehensive immigration reform. We don't need one Republican to risk their incumbency in the Congress of the United States to pass. There are dozens of men and women in the Republican Party." [...]
"I think that [Cantor] was just doing things here in D.C. to give the illusion that he was pushing for immigration inside the caucus," said Drew Hammill, Pelosi's spokesman. "At the end of the day, he has been in the way [of immigration reform] more than anything else... Efforts [to push Republicans for a vote] can go on without him."
It's simultaneously true that the votes probably exist for immigration reform and that it's extremely unlikely to happen as long as Speaker John Boehner makes the decisions about what the House will vote on; Cantor wasn't making it more likely to happen, and it would be difficult for his defeat to make a House immigration reform vote any less likely to happen than it already was. When you're close to rock bottom, as House Republican leadership is on immigration, there's not far to go down. Of course Democrats have to keep pushing, but they're pushing against a Republican Party that only hears messages from the right—Sen. Lindsey Graham's easy primary win despite having pushed immigration reform simply isn't going to register on the party of Steve King.