NOTE BY VICTORIA: if you have these 14 senators…get on phone and email TODAY!!!! DO NOT DELAY!
14 Senators to Watch on Immigration
- By Meredith Shiner and Kyle Trygstad
- Roll Call Staff
- June 10, 2013, 5:59 p.m.
McConnell, and Cornyn are both up for re-election in 2014 and have been
taking some of their cues from their states’ junior senators.
If
there weren’t serious political skin in the immigration game, the
Senate would not even be debating a framework to overhaul the system
this week. But as it stands, senators are set to begin the formal
deliberations Tuesday on a bipartisan framework.
And
while passing legislation — or failing to do so — could have
repercussions for the Republican Party nationally, individual senators
of both parties are certain to face ramifications in their home states.
Here is a list of the senators to watch during the immigration proceedings and the political pressures they face back home:
Dean Heller, R-Nev.
Heller
is, on paper, a perfect target for backers of the immigration bill: a
lawmaker from a western state with a burgeoning Hispanic population who
has shown a willingness to play ball on bipartisan issues.
Earlier
this spring, Heller, who was appointed to the Senate in 2011 and won a
full term last year, flirted with supporting a bipartisan background
check agreement before backing away at the last minute.
But
likely more important than Heller’s legislative history are the current
political demographics of Nevada, a now-purple state that went to
President Barack Obama in 2012 by 6 points. According to exit polling,
19 percent of the presidential voters in the state were Latino, with 71
percent of Latinos voting Democratic.
Ted Cruz, R-Texas; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Perhaps
there are no more fascinating in-state duos in the Senate than the
Texas and Kentucky delegations. McConnell and Cornyn are the No. 1 and 2
Republicans in the Senate, respectively, and Cruz and Paul are two of
the leading conservative voices who have brief, but strong, track
records of being pains in leadership’s side.
Cruz
and Paul have hinted at larger national ambitions, with Paul expressing
more openness to an immigration rewrite than Cruz. Cornyn and McConnell
— both up for re-election in 2014 — have been taking cues from their
junior senators. Cornyn, for example, was one of only three senators to
vote against then-colleague John Kerry’s bid to be secretary of State. Cruz, of course, was one of the others.
Texas
is a state that for the moment is solidly red, but it’s also a place
where Democrats hope they can soon find themselves in the mix, largely
because of the growing Hispanic population.
Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa.
Toomey,
the former Club for Growth president, has emerged in the past few years
as one of the GOP’s top deal-makers in the Senate, though admittedly,
in this political climate, that’s an easier title to acquire than it
used to be.
As CQ Roll Call reported in April,
Toomey was a lead co-sponsor of a failed background check bill and his
push on the issue won him favor with many moderates at home — something
political consultants already are saying he will need to win re-election
in 2016.
Rob Portman, R-Ohio
The potential for Portman, who has met with Sen. Marco Rubio
of Florida to discuss changes to the bill, to back the bipartisan
measure will no doubt be of interest in his next political showdown — be
it for the Senate or White House. He is a possible presidential
contender, was on Mitt Romney’s vice presidential short list in 2012,
and is due to face voters in 2016 for re-election in the swing state of
Ohio, which has voted for the presidential winner every four years since
1964.
Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; Mary L. Landrieu, D-La.; Kay Hagan, D-N.C.:
These
three senators are ones to watch on nearly every major piece of
legislation that comes up for a vote over the next year, and immigration
is no different. Pryor, Landrieu and Hagan are three of the most
vulnerable senators up in 2014, and — not including Virginia — they’re
the last three Senate Democrats from the South.
Pryor
and Landrieu both voted against the 2007 immigration bill. Pryor and
Hagan were two of five Democrats who voted against the DREAM Act in
2010.
They’re all running in states Obama lost, while highlighting their independence from the national party.
Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
The
first-term senator’s role in both crafting the bill and selling it to
conservatives was critical to an immigration bill having any reasonable
chance of passing.
The
potential 2016 presidential candidate essentially bet his near-term
political future on championing a proposal that could be palatable to
both skeptical Republican members and the growing bloc of Hispanic
voters. GOP concerns over border enforcement and a path to citizenship
for those already here threaten the bill’s viability, while Rubio’s
standing in the Republican primary field will likely depend in part on
the messaging that emerges from either the bill’s success or failure.
John McCain, R-Ariz.; Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
McCain
and Flake are 25 percent of the “gang of eight” and 100 percent of the
Arizona delegation for good reason: Arizona is a red state moving toward
purple thanks to a growing immigrant population and a migration of
voters from other regions to the desert state.
Though
Arizona went to Mitt Romney by 10 points, Republicans are anxious about
the state’s political future. Eighteen percent of the state’s voters in
2012 were Latino, with 74 percent of those voters breaking toward
Obama. More than a quarter of those who voted were under the age of 30.
Border
security also will be a significant issue for these two, as Arizona
borders Mexico directly and would be at the receiving end of much of the
government’s efforts. Immigration issues already are a sensitive
subject in Arizona, where the state government in 2010 enacted SB 1070,
the broadest and most stringent anti-immigration legislation in the
nation.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C
Among
the gang of eight senators who crafted the bill, Graham is the only one
up for re-election in 2014. While his final support for the legislation
is not in doubt, the political ramifications of his leadership in the
effort remain an unknown.
Graham
entered the midterm elections as the Republican senator most vulnerable
to a potential tea-party-inspired challenge to his right. So far, he’s
avoided a serious threat, but one could still come.
Still,
his recent remarks make it sound like he’s more concerned about how his
party fares in the next presidential election. Graham told reporters
last week that if the bill falls apart and Republicans catch the blame
for it, “we’re toast in 2016.”
Victoria Baer
4320 Deerwood Lake Pkwy #101-222
Jacksonville, FL 32216
904.982.1734 PH
904.996.1510 FAX
Give your business the Competive Edge…
When
the defense of liberty becomes a crime, tyranny is already in force. At
that point, failure to defend liberty makes slavery a certainty.
No comments:
Post a Comment