SALON

Wednesday, Mar 20, 2013 9:25 PM UTC

Did Rand Paul kill conservative opposition to immigration reform?

While things look pretty good now, there is still plenty of time for a backlash

By

Topics: Politics, Immigration, Immigration Reform, Rand Paul, Steve King,

Did Rand Paul kill conservative opposition to immigration reform?Sen. Rand Paul (Credit: Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com)

Rand Paul has some sort of magic touch, according to TPM’s Benjy Sarlin, as his immigration reform turnaround apparently convinced a roomful of the sort of Republicans who refer to immigrants as “animals” that allowing many of them to seek citizenship wouldn’t necessarily be a horrible idea.

Earlier this year I told everyone to be skeptical that immigration reform would pass, and one of the reasons I cited was the I thought rather obvious fact that House Republicans didn’t support it. Now Rand Paul nearly has me convinced it could pass the House with more Republican than Democratic support.

Paul’s primary argument was to convince very conservative politicians that they could get away with supporting immigration reform, even though the president wants it and many conservative voters don’t. The strategy is to just use different words, basically.

There was some confusion among the participants over whether Paul supported a path to citizenship (he did, just not by name), but Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), the leading tea party conservative working on a bipartisan immigration bill in the House, didn’t seem to ruffle any feathers when he said he supported a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to eventually become citizens.

“We shouldn’t create a second class group that could never become citizens, but we should also not give them a special pathway that nobody can follow,” Labrador told the audience, adding that any bill also needed border enforcement triggers that would be met before reaching that point.

“I think many of us are willing to consider what Raul just descibed there,” Jordan, the former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said.

It is basically amazing to hear people like Rep. Jim Jordan saying that. Rand Paul getting these guys to even consider a path to citizenship (under the condition that we not call it that) is not something I would’ve predicted.

What these ultra-conservative members of Congress are doing is testing the water. They are cautiously expressing openness to immigration reform to see how loud and virulent the reaction will be, from their constituents and the right-wing organizations and interest groups that support them. Elite Republicans have always supported immigration reform. The problem, when Bush tried it, was that the activist base, as opposed to the donor base, really hates immigrants. Now we see if that’s still true.

While I’m impressed, I’m still not entirely convinced reform is going to happen this year. These right-wing members could still easily get spooked and turn against any meaningful reform proposal. Iowa’s Rep. Steve King — prominent conservative and 2014 Senate candidate — is loudly and vocally not on board.

The deal could still easily fall apart in the Senate, where most major legislation goes to die. Six conservative senators, including Ted Cruz, signed a letter to Patrick Leahy politely asking that the immigration debate in the Senate take a long time — preferably a few years — and diva senators like Lindsey Graham love to latch on to those sorts of arguments when they bail on legislative negotiations. If Reid is “moving too quickly,” or not allowing Republicans to screw with the bill in various ways, a bunch of senators will have excuses to jump ship if they get spooked.

And then there’s the conservative media. Michelle Malkin loved Rand Paul’s filibuster. She hates “amnesty.” So far, as far as I can tell, she just hasn’t mentioned his recent immigration conversion. The National Review’s Mark Krikorian has, though, and he doesn’t care for it. Mickey Kaus is basically begging conservatives to come out against any reform, promising that the major Republican who does so will become the Next Reagan. Erick Erickson is pretending Rand Paul isn’t calling for a path to citizenship (see? the “use different words” approach works!). But now it’s sort of inescapable that Paul is not just endorsing citizenship, he’s weakening conservative opposition to it. In other words, now is exactly the time when the anti-immigration right-wing press will begin to get louder and more hysterical.

Right now Rand Paul’s popularity and star power is the best reason to be hopeful that conservatives will actually allow immigration reform to happen. But lots of observers didn’t foresee the scope and severity of the conservative backlash in 2007. As a rule I usually figure the loudest and angriest people will win any given argument on the right.

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 8 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
2966 points2967 points | 1705 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
923 points924 points | 455 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
141 points142 points | 45 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
24 points25 points | 13 comments
vote
Recent scandals are Whitewater redux, not Watergate
20 points21 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations