I’m not sure that Harry Reid is correct that Speaker Boehner will violate the Hastert Rule to pass immigration reform, and I am even less certain that Reid is improving Boehner’s likelihood of doing that by predicting that he will “cave in” to pressure to pass the immigration bill.
On the other hand, Sen. Reid is absolutely right about this:
“We have a lot of these congressional districts, they don’t care because they don’t have people of color in their congressional districts,” Reid said. “They don’t care. But there are a number of them who do care. If the Republicans ever want to elect a Republican president again, they’re going to have to get right with the Hispanic and Asian community who by more than 70 percent voted for [President Barack] Obama last time.”
The problem on this issue is similar to the problem on any number of other issues. The “don’t care” caucus is in control of the House. Boehner has only been willing to buck them a few times, and only at the last possible moment. Immigration reform is a pretty emotional issue on the right, and I’d be surprised if Boehner backtracked from everything he has been saying about doing the bill piecemeal and suddenly allowed a vote on anything that could be joined to the Senate bill in conference. But, we’ll see.