President Obama’s move Thursday to unilaterally legalize millions of illegal immigrants immediately vaults immigration reform to the forefront of the 2016 presidential campaign while diminishing prospects for cooperation between the White House and the Republican Congress that will be seated in January.
The issue could frame the debate in the opening months of what looks to be a crowded and competitive GOP presidential primary, say GOP operatives in the key, early primary states. Conservative activists are more likely to ask candidates where they stand on Obama’s “executive amnesty” — and they, in turn, are now more likely to define their campaigns according to their firm opposition and plans to roll it back should they win the White House.
For Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Obama’s sweeping immigration action could prove a boon or a burden. The move is popular with Latinos, and this growing demographic delivered 73 percent of its vote to Obama in 2012. It could further cement Latino support for Democrats two years from now. But initial public opinion polls show dissatisfaction with how Obama is using his claimed executive authority.
A backlash could favor Republicans, if their nominee can navigate the immigration issue more deftly than did Mitt Romney in 2012.
“The problem for the party in 2016 is that it baits candidates to define their immigration reform agenda through the lens of what they oppose about Obama’s actions,” said a GOP consultant who has advised presidential candidates. “The next nominee has to lead the party to a safer place related to the policies and politics of a more modernized immigration system that is welcoming to Hispanic voters.”
On Capitol Hill, both parties are already dug in, weeks ahead of the new Congress taking office. It was just 16 days ago that the Republicans scored a seismic victory in the midterm elections, winning control of the Senate and adding to their majority in the House.
Republicans unanimously oppose the president’s immigration move on constitutional grounds. Having campaigned strongly against it in the months after Obama first signaled he would act unilaterally, they feel politically justified in holding their ground. Despite some misgivings, Democrats are almost uniformly on board.
Privately, some Democrats are concerned about the legal basis for the moves provided by the White House. At the very least, they want to know how to explain the matter to concerned constituents. But they have concluded that they don’t have much to lose because they agree with Obama on the substance and don’t believe much can be accomplished legislatively during his final two years in office with Republicans in control of the full Congress.
“This is one last, final acknowledgment by the White House and House and Senate Democratic leaders that the chance to get much of anything done via the legislative process is all but dead for the next two years, so the president might as well go ahead and issue the executive order,” a former Democratic congressional leadership aide told the Washington Examiner.
In Washington, the next few months will be governed by how congressional Republicans choose to confront Obama’s executive legalization. Funding to keep the government’s lights on expires Dec. 11. House Republicans have yet to settle on an initial strategy, whether that means passing an omnibus spending bill that funds the government through Sept. 30 or passing another short-term continuing resolution that runs out in late winter.
The former would avoid another politically disastrous government shutdown and signal that Republicans are looking for ways to fight outside the “power of the purse.” The latter would mean Republicans are unwilling to shut down the government but that they haven’t decided how to respond and need some breathing room to decide. It also would buy time until their party takes control of the Senate and provides more political ammunition for the battle.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, have both vowed that Republicans will respond forcefully. McConnell said Thursday in remarks on the Senate floor that his new majority, once in charge of the Senate next year, would use a variety of legislative tools at its disposal to push back against the president.
An undercurrent flowing through every Republican decision on immigration is how their response might affect the 2015 legislative calendar.
The GOP has not controlled the full Congress in eight years, and there is a pent-up desire among Republican lawmakers to legislate. Conservative priorities, from tax reform, to trade, to passing a budget — even attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare — have been stymied the past four years by a Democratic Senate, and the four years before that by a fully Democratic Congress. That explains the olive branch to Obama that McConnell extended after it was clear he would become the next majority leader.
Republicans don’t want to squander the most promising period of the off-year to move legislation to the president’s desk on a series of futile confrontations. Obama’s decision to act in the midst of record-low job approval ratings, just days after his party was rebuked in midterm elections, and despite opinion polls that suggest public opposition, have left Republicans believing that there’s no pressure they could apply to get the White House to back down.
A lot could change in the coming months. Angst over Obama’s executive action could fade, or it could prove to have limited practical effect. But the tension it has caused on Capitol Hill is palpable, leaving Republicans worried that their chance to put their stamp on the 114th Congress ended before it ever got started.
“For [Obama] to take this action unilaterally and go around Congress is a big problem, and not only makes it much harder to do immigration reform but anything else,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who supported the bipartisan immigration bill that cleared the Senate in 2013. “At the same time, we’re very focused on trying to pass legislation.”
