The price for gaining Sen. Orrin Hatch’s qualified support for immigration reform was an agreement to double (and eventually triple) the number of H1-B immigration visas for high-tech workers. Meanwhile, Utah’s other senator, Mike Lee, was one of the first to rise in opposition to the bill today. It’s an interesting snapshot into the divisions that are emerging on the right. Dan Balz highlights two other signs of division in the Washington Post. He discusses the political paths of Rand Paul and Chris Christie, both of whom are diverging from the national party in Washington DC. Christie is hoping to maintain his popularity with Democrats and use a resounding reelection as an argument that he can win blue states and capture the Electoral College. Rand Paul is pursuing such unorthodox policies that he appeals to an entirely different subsection of the electorate than a normal Republican. Of the two, Christie is less disruptive to party unity, but he doesn’t seem likely to inspire a revitalization of the party in California, Illinois, or New England.
Still, for a few decades the Democrats believed that they could only win with a southern nominee, and it was true from 1964 to 2008. Perhaps the Republicans can only win with a northern nominee in the Christie mold. That’s what Christie will argue, anyway.
That’s one possibility. But the fact that Utah’s two senators could be so diametrically opposed in their approach to immigration reform points to a potential crack-up of the Republican Party. Sen. Hatch is doing the bidding of big business and actually legislating by making his support contingent on something. Sen. Lee is doing the bidding of the know-nothing base of the party that just hates Latinos. These two approaches have been part of the Republican playbook for a long time, but I think we’ve reached the point where nativism is no longer viable. Big business will always be able to find people to represent them in Congress, but I don’t think they will consign themselves to permanent losses by aligning with a party that is too racist to ever win the White House.
Since it seems more likely that Sen. Lee is the future of the GOP than that Orrin Hatch is the future, I don’t think the Republican Party will long endure as one of our two major parties.
