Benjy Sarlin has a very interesting piece up at Talking Points Memo about how unions evolved from seeing undocumented workers as scabs during the era of Cesar Chavez to seeing them, in more recent years, as an exploited workforce deserving of representation and protection. Part of the article is about the prospects that Congress will be able to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, and that is what I want to talk about. As the article (and people cited in the article) points out, there is a new optimism in the aftermath of the 2012 election, primarily because it is so clear that Latinos made a decisive difference in the outcome:
While victory in 2013 is far from certain, labor leaders believe conditions have improved significantly since their disappointing 2007 effort.
For one thing, Republicans acknowledge they’re on defense this time around in a way that was not true during past reform efforts. It was easier for GOP lawmakers to minimize the role of Latino voters in their 2006 midterm losses, which most blamed on Iraq, and their role in Obama’s 2008 blowout, which many dismissed as Bush fatigue. But the 2012 results, in which Obama racked up record margins and turnout among Latinos around the country despite a sagging economy and mediocre approval ratings, are much harder to ignore.
“I think many of the politicians were saying, ‘You know, we keep hearing about this Latino giant and it’s sort of a myth,’” Medina said. “But the reality finally hit home on November 6.”
The article also points out that agricultural interests have been stung by recent anti-immigrant laws in states like Alabama that have scared away temporary farm workers. Those interests are likely to apply significantly more pressure on the GOP this time around.
Does all this augur well for a successful push on a comprehensive bill? Perhaps. But I wonder about something else that is different this time around.
Last time, the president was a Republican and his point man in Congress was Sen. John McCain. They were unsuccessful, but I imagine there was a high level of desire within the Republican caucus to help the president. There is no such desire this time.
In thinking about the changed dynamics, I couldn’t help but contemplate the meaning of another article published today. This one is in Politico, and it is about the likelihood that we will see a government shutdown before the year is out. Here’s a key nugget from the article:
House Speaker John Boehner “may need a shutdown just to get it out of their system,” said a top GOP leadership adviser. “We might need to do that for member-management purposes — so they have an endgame and can show their constituents they’re fighting.”
I’m trying to imagine Speaker Boehner making the decision that he must shut down the government for member-management purposes. And then I am trying to imagine those same members deciding that they need to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill in order to retain the Republican Party’s viability as a national party that can win the White House.
I guess what I am saying is that I distrust all political analysis that relies on the Republicans (particularly the House Republicans) acting sanely in their own political self-interest. I am reminded again of those holographic cards that show you a different image when you shift them. Sometimes I look at the Republicans and think that they are nihilists who don’t believe in anything, including objective reality. Other times, I look at them and see them as total zealots who are driven mad by ideology. And I wind up wondering how both things could be simultaneously true.
In any case, I am all for a full-bore push to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, but I can’t say that I am optimistic about our chances. We are dealing with people who are much more concerned about the browning of America than they are about their own political futures. They will convince themselves that Latinos vote for Democrats anyway and that a better route to self-preservation is to screw around with the Electoral College in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where they have the power to do it and where it would confer them a clear advantage.