Stymieing of Bush on immigration
By Adam Nagourney, Carl Hulse and Jim Rutenberg
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 25, 2006
WASHINGTON For the White House, the congressional picnic on June 15 seemed like the perfect setting to mend strained relations with Republican allies on Capitol Hill: President George W. Bush and his advisers eating taquitos and Mexican confetti rice on the lawn of the White House with Republican congressional leaders.
But moments before Bush was to welcome his guests, the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, told the president that House Republicans were effectively sidelining - and in the view of some congressional aides probably killing - what had become Bush's signature domestic initiative of the year: an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.
That disappointing news for Bush signaled the apparent collapse of a carefully orchestrated White House strategy to push a compromised immigration bill through Congress this summer - and in the process invigorate Bush's second term with a badly needed domestic victory.
The decision by the House leadership to defy the president after he had put so much prestige on the line - including a rare prime-time Oval Office speech for a domestic initiative - amounted to a clear rebuke of the president on an issue that he has long held dear.
An account of the administration's push for the initiative, based on interviews with members of Congress and senior White House and congressional officials, shows that Bush's immigration measure was derailed by an overly optimistic assessment by the White House of the prospects for building a bipartisan coalition in support of the bill.
It was also hurt by a fundamental misreading of the depth of hostility to the measure among House Republicans.
It was undone as well, White House and congressional leaders acknowledged, by a sharp division over whether to focus on the short term or on the party's long-term political prospects. Bush's aides saw the House bill, which would make it a felony to live in the United States illegally and would close off any chance to win legal status, as a threat to their attempts to broaden the party's appeal to Hispanic voters.
House Republican leaders saw Bush's approach - calling for tougher enforcement as well as avenues to legalize the illegal work force and create a possible path to citizenship - as a threat to House Republicans already fearful of a setback in fall's elections by angering voters who viewed the plan as amnesty.
Bush's first attempt to advocate for the measure was described even by allies as initially muddled and tentative, permitting opponents to build a case against it before he made his Oval Office address.
Republicans' apprehensions were cemented in June, when, in a special election for a vacant House seat in California, Brian Bilbray, who ran on a pledge to build a fence along the border with Mexico, was elected after running against the president's position on immigration.
Coming in the same week that the White House showed effectiveness in rallying Republicans behind the war in Iraq, the setback raised questions about Bush's chances to achieve major domestic victories from a solidly Republican Congress. Unless a compromise is reached, it will mark the second time in two years, after Social Security in 2005, that Bush has failed to steer his major domestic initiative through the friendly terrain of a Republican Congress.
"This immigration legislation is very important, and if he doesn't get something in his administration, it will hurt his legacy domestically," said James Thurber, a presidential scholar at American University in Washington.
White House officials said they could point to several areas of progress in Congress - on extending tax cuts, pushing a line-item veto and overhauling the pension system. They said that they were under no illusions about the difficulties facing the immigration plan, but that it would never have gotten this far without the president, who will keep pushing for it. Aides say that it is still possible to reach a compromise after the November elections, if not before. "We believe by being patient and sticking with it, in time people are going to be pretty happy with what the president proposes," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman.
But several analysts were skeptical, noting that in just the past week a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona called for building prison camps for illegal immigrants. And the first campaign advertisement for Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who many believe is the most endangered Republican in the Senate, featured him talking about border measures.
By Adam Nagourney, Carl Hulse and Jim Rutenberg
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 25, 2006
WASHINGTON For the White House, the congressional picnic on June 15 seemed like the perfect setting to mend strained relations with Republican allies on Capitol Hill: President George W. Bush and his advisers eating taquitos and Mexican confetti rice on the lawn of the White House with Republican congressional leaders.
But moments before Bush was to welcome his guests, the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, told the president that House Republicans were effectively sidelining - and in the view of some congressional aides probably killing - what had become Bush's signature domestic initiative of the year: an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.
That disappointing news for Bush signaled the apparent collapse of a carefully orchestrated White House strategy to push a compromised immigration bill through Congress this summer - and in the process invigorate Bush's second term with a badly needed domestic victory.
The decision by the House leadership to defy the president after he had put so much prestige on the line - including a rare prime-time Oval Office speech for a domestic initiative - amounted to a clear rebuke of the president on an issue that he has long held dear.
An account of the administration's push for the initiative, based on interviews with members of Congress and senior White House and congressional officials, shows that Bush's immigration measure was derailed by an overly optimistic assessment by the White House of the prospects for building a bipartisan coalition in support of the bill.
It was also hurt by a fundamental misreading of the depth of hostility to the measure among House Republicans.
It was undone as well, White House and congressional leaders acknowledged, by a sharp division over whether to focus on the short term or on the party's long-term political prospects. Bush's aides saw the House bill, which would make it a felony to live in the United States illegally and would close off any chance to win legal status, as a threat to their attempts to broaden the party's appeal to Hispanic voters.
House Republican leaders saw Bush's approach - calling for tougher enforcement as well as avenues to legalize the illegal work force and create a possible path to citizenship - as a threat to House Republicans already fearful of a setback in fall's elections by angering voters who viewed the plan as amnesty.
Bush's first attempt to advocate for the measure was described even by allies as initially muddled and tentative, permitting opponents to build a case against it before he made his Oval Office address.
Republicans' apprehensions were cemented in June, when, in a special election for a vacant House seat in California, Brian Bilbray, who ran on a pledge to build a fence along the border with Mexico, was elected after running against the president's position on immigration.
Coming in the same week that the White House showed effectiveness in rallying Republicans behind the war in Iraq, the setback raised questions about Bush's chances to achieve major domestic victories from a solidly Republican Congress. Unless a compromise is reached, it will mark the second time in two years, after Social Security in 2005, that Bush has failed to steer his major domestic initiative through the friendly terrain of a Republican Congress.
"This immigration legislation is very important, and if he doesn't get something in his administration, it will hurt his legacy domestically," said James Thurber, a presidential scholar at American University in Washington.
White House officials said they could point to several areas of progress in Congress - on extending tax cuts, pushing a line-item veto and overhauling the pension system. They said that they were under no illusions about the difficulties facing the immigration plan, but that it would never have gotten this far without the president, who will keep pushing for it. Aides say that it is still possible to reach a compromise after the November elections, if not before. "We believe by being patient and sticking with it, in time people are going to be pretty happy with what the president proposes," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman.
But several analysts were skeptical, noting that in just the past week a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona called for building prison camps for illegal immigrants. And the first campaign advertisement for Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who many believe is the most endangered Republican in the Senate, featured him talking about border measures.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 2:54 PM
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