By Doug Porter
Despite passage of a bill by the Senate, a sustained campaign by activists around the country, and the commitment of the White House to make it happen, the consensus on Capitol Hill is that comprehensive immigration reform will not be voted on by the House of Representatives this year.
Republican and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy told immigration advocates who were protesting outside his residence last week there is simply not enough time left for action on any bill in 2013. As of today there are just 15 legislative days left on the House calendar for 2013.
Any comprehensive package is dead in the water because House Speaker John Boehner has refused to allow a vote on it unless 150 members of the GOP caucus give their blessing. House members have indicated they prefer a piecemeal approach, but none of those proposals are likely to make it to the floor.
Image Source: Democraticunderground.com
What Politico.com calls the “tenuous” internal political dynamics on the right side of the aisle are likely to prevent consensus. One thing that does appear to unite the GOP is a distrust and distaste for President Obama. They don’t trust the administration to enforce any punitive restrictions on immigrants and fear any movement on this issue will be perceived as a victory for the administration.
The Hill.com is so sure about immigration being dead in the water that they’ve run a two part obituary this week, blaming internal divisions and power plays within both parties for its legislative demise. Ultimately House Speaker John Boehner gets cast as the bad guy who can’t or won’t pressure GOP Congressmen to support immigration reform.
From The Hill account:
Democrats had long since given up hope on the conservative chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who publicly professed support for immigration reform but advanced piecemeal bills through his panel solely on party-line votes. He said repeatedly he looked forward to seeing the group’s bill, but he wouldn’t commit to giving it a vote in the committee.
“Goodlatte is not working to achieve immigration reform. He is working to scuttle it,” a Democrat involved in the talks said.
Goodlatte declined to comment, but a committee aide said he was “working hard to reform our broken immigration system, starting with enforcement.”
Time and again, Boehner’s response was the same. He wouldn’t go around or pressure Goodlatte, and he wouldn’t deem the group’s bill the official House plan.
Meanwhile, reform advocates are continuing their plans to apply pressure in the 2013.
From MSNBC Latino:
“It is an outrage that a member of the House leadership is saying there will not be a vote on a path to citizenship this year. Is he speaking for the rest of leadership?,” America’s Voice executive director Frank Sharry said in a statement Monday.
“The idea that there isn’t enough time to vote on immigration is absurd … Passing immigration reform isn’t a matter of the calendar, it’s a matter of will,” Sharry said.
From the International Business Times:
Despite the negative news from the right, energized advcoates told International Business Times on Monday they are committed to staying the course and have plans to continue reaching out to members of Congress in hopes they will side with the majority of Americans.
More than two-thirds of Americans say they would back a pathway to citizenship if illegal immigrants met criteria such as paying back taxes and fines and undergo a waiting period, according to a CBS News poll last month of 1,007 adults. In contrast, congressional Republicans have a favorability rating of a mere 28 percent, according an October poll conducted by Gallup. {Ed-It’s even lower now}
With numbers like these, advocates say Republicans are bound to pay for their inaction on immigration reform in next year’s midterm election. The only way for the party to save face, they say, is to at least introduce a bill that focuses on legalizing the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in country.
“There is still time in 2013 [to pass immigration reform],” said Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of America’s Voice, one of the most vocal pro-reform groups in favor of a pathway to citizenship. “[Republicans] are always trying to look for excuses not to do their jobs. At least introduce a bill. … We know the votes are there. It comes down to the will on the part of the Republicans.”
Is the Balboa Park Plan Rising from the Dead?
Many people know former mayoral candidate Bruce Coons as the guy who led the fight against the Irwin Jacob’s backed plan for Balboa Park, which disappeared from local radar after being tossed out by a Superior Court Judge. Although Jacobs has told associates that he’s no longer interested in pursuing it, the plan could be revived through a revision in local ordinances.
Coons, who withdrew from the mayoral race and endorsed City Councilman David Alvarez was all over social media (including a comment here at SDFP) last night sounding the alarm that the Balboa Park beast could rise from the dead:
For anyone thinking of voting for Nathan, I just returned today from an appeal hearing in the Plaza de Panama MOU case. Jacobs is definitely planning to revive the Paid Parking, Bypass Bridge project for Balboa Park. A vote for Nathan is a vote for this project…
Keep Up the Great Work Tony Krvaric!
Voting throughout San Diego is already heavier than expected in the mayoral special election. Pro Tip: The phone calls stop when you vote.
The best candidate phone call out there is the one from the breathless woman telling you not to vote for Nathan Fletcher… “Oh, and by the way, they told me I had to say this call was sponsored by the Lincoln Club of San Diego”
Wendy Fry at NBCSanDiego aired a story yesterday about changes in voter registration for San Diego. Almost eight thousand people have registered lately, nearly five thousand of the registering as independent. Democrats have registered 2,741 new voters. And GOP County Chair Tony Krvaric must be beaming with pride at 243 new voters who identified themselves as Republicans.
KPBS has a story up about the various candidates’ social media helpers. All of the candidates are directly involved, but each gets some help in maintaining the steady drum beat of impressions required to keep their names top of mind.
inewsource.com is still chugging along with their handy dandy, updated daily running total campaign contribution infographics on the candidates.
Coming into the stretch it’s Nathan Fletcher with $1,600,000+, followed by David Alvarez with $1,500,000+ and Kevin Faulconer’s mostly anti-Fletcher campaign at $1,100,000+. Mike Aguirre has a little blip at the bottom of the bar chart with just over $5,000 in contributions.
They have added another gizmo allowing you to see contributions by neighborhood in the San Diego area along with background coloration showing the median household income. If you’ve ever wondered how true the common perceptions about the class/racial divisions in San Diego, this should help you understand.
KPBS also has a story up about how Nathan Fletcher’s campaign is splitting San Diego progressives. Mostly I’d say they’re confused by Lorena Gonzalez’s (and her allies) presence in the Fletcher camp.
I hate these kinds of stories because of their focus on personalities. And yes, the constraints of “he said/she said” journalism pretty much guarantee that’s the kind of political coverage we see most of the time.
Those of you who’ve read Jim Miller’s accounts here at San Diego Free Press on the race for mayor should understand that the “divisions” are more about activist (David Alvarez) vs. old style (Nathan Fletcher) approaches to issues.
Coming Soon to a Future Edition of UT-San Diego
Even as the Daily Fishwrap is editorializing today about how confident they are with the Navy’s handling of their ever-widening bribery investigation, another scandal is breaking.
From today’s Washington Post:
Federal authorities are investigating three senior Navy intelligence officials as part of a probe into an alleged contracting scheme that charged the military $1.6 million for homemade firearms silencers that cost only $8,000 to make, court records show.
The three civilian officials, who oversee highly classified programs, arranged for a hot-rod auto mechanic in California to build a specially ordered batch of unmarked and untraceable rifle silencers and sell them to the Navy at more than 200 times what they cost to manufacture, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors.
The purpose of the silencers remains a mystery. According to the court papers, one of the intelligence officials told a witness in the case that the silencers were intended forSEAL Team Six , the elite commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden.
Maybe they can get Congressman Darrel Issa to investigate this one…
Take the North Park Subway….
Walter Chambers, best known for his urban design blog, Great Streets San Diego has hit one out of the park with his vision entitled: Re-Imagine Urban San Diego. Imagine a city not built around the almighty car.
People (mostly) walking are at the starting point and the center of this plan. An excerpt:
• Implement a Pedestrian Priority Policy to be applied the four major General Plan categories: Land Use, Mobility, Urban Design, and Economic Prosperity.
• Adopt urban design and architectural guidelines that encourage people to walk, sit, and stay in the public realm.
• Adopt the Green Hierarchy of Transportation Modes.
• Review and revise zoning maps to bring them into compliance with walkability to employment, retail, services, schools, parks, entertainment, etc.
• All other considerations being equal, when resources are scarce, street space is constrained, or competing classification designations create conflict, prioritize investment and design accommodation with pedestrians as the priority
I think it’s terrific that somebody has posited this kind of vision for the center of our city. I hope you’ll read it and be inspired as I was.
Doug Porter (That’s Me) Makes Gawker
I got an email early this morning thanking me for all my activist work over the years, with the sender saying he’d just read about me in Gawker.com, a gossipy site that’s adding long-form journalism.
The story focuses on one Perry Fellwock, the first National Security Agency to “come out.” I’m a bit player later in the very long story involving Norman Mailer, Congressional Hearings, terrorism and paranoia.
So if you want to know the dirt on me from back in the 1970’s, it’s there. And all the quotes from me are accurate. Suffice it to say I’ve led an interesting life.
On This Day: 1956 – The Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses. 1986 – President Ronald Reagan publicly acknowledged that the U.S. had sent “defensive weapons and spare parts” to Iran. He denied that the shipments were sent to free hostages, but that they had been sent to improve relations. 1997 – The musical “The Lion King” opened.
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Doug Porter
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And Republicans keep right on throwing their so-called “outreach” away – with both hands…
Worth remembering – in a very different vein! – is that San Diego once had a pretty crackerjack citywide streetcar system – which, quite literally, was thrown under the buses that rolled right in to relegate it to oblivion, at the end of the 1940s-early 1950s…