Lead House Dem frustrated over immigration's pace

HARRISONBURG, Va. – The frustration is evident in Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s voice.

Gutierrez and other immigration advocates viewed the November re-election of President Obama as a clear referendum for comprehensive reform, and the issue quickly became Obama’s top domestic priority.

Yet while the Senate passed bipartisan legislation in June, immigration reform is languishing in the Republican-controlled House.

The veteran Democrat is known as one of the Capitol’s eternal optimists, but as he chats with reporters before a rally in a Republican district, he is struggling to chart a path to final passage for comprehensive immigration reform, the issue he has championed for two decades in the House.

“I was hopeful we would be in a better place today,” Gutierrez (D-Ill.) conceded.

Nowhere is Gutierrez’s frustration more apparent than on the topic of the bipartisan House group that has worked for years to craft an immigration overhaul. The legislation is drafted, but the three Republican negotiators have yet to sign off, and whether the bill ever sees the light of day remains to be seen.

“I will be very clear and succinct: I have already signed off,” Gutierrez said in an interview. “It is now time for my Republican colleagues to step forward and to announce a date. If they give me a date, I’ll be there and we’ll present legislation and present it to the public.

After working in secret for nearly four years, the eight House negotiators went public with their effort earlier this year and over the past six months have repeatedly declared themselves to be close to a deal.

Continuation of article:

But in June, the group lost a key conservative member, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who quit in a dispute over healthcare language. As the Judiciary Committee moved ahead with a series of partisan bills, the bipartisan group lost steam, and the remaining seven members decided not to introduce their proposal before Congress departed for the August recess.

In a significant obstacle for the group, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has declared that any immigration measure must earn the support of a majority of the Republican conference – a caucus long dominated by conservatives resistant to offering path to citizenship to illegal immigrants.

The GOP leadership has not brought any immigration bills to the floor, and with fiscal fights expected to dominate an abbreviated September legislative session, the full House may not consider the issue until October or later.

There’s a simple reason the Republicans in the group have not signed off on the bipartisan bill, said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), a GOP negotiator: The bill as written would not win the support of a majority of House Republicans.

“There’s a lot of good conversations taking place, but right now we don’t have the votes to move forward,” Diaz-Balart said in a phone interview. “But we’ll get there.”

With Republicans wary of large pieces of legislation, the 500-page proposal will now almost certainly have to be broken up into pieces if it is ever introduced. And Republicans have demanded stronger language to ensure that the Obama administration could not choose to ignore or delay enforcement of any of its provisions.

“The Republicans do not trust that the president will endorse the law,” Diaz-Balart said.

Without Labrador, a former immigration attorney, in the group, it has become more difficult for the remaining conservatives, Reps. John Carter (R-Tex.) and Sam Johnson (R-Tex.), to endorse and defend the proposal, according to people familiar with the group. Neither Carter nor Johnson responded to a request for comment Wednesday.

It is also unclear whether the four Democrats in the group – Gutierrez and Reps. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) and John Yarmuth (Ky.) – would agree to any more changes.

The bill is already more conservative than the Senate bill. It contains a longer and more arduous path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, as well as harder border security and enforcement triggers.

In the interview, Gutierrez said a significant obstacle for the House group was a lack of backing from party leadership. While Boehner has spoken positively of their efforts, and Gutierrez and others have kept in close contact with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), no senior Republicans have thrown their full weight behind the proposal.

“I think it is very, very important to understand, that unlike the Senate, the group has not received any support,” Gutierrez said. “In the Senate, whether it was [Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell (R-Ky.) or Majority Leader [Harry] Reid (D-Nev.), the judiciary chairman, or any part of the leadership, it was clear that the group of eight was going to have the support, and that there would be hearings and there’s was going to be the main bill.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “in the House, there’s been anything but this kind of support.”

Gutierrez vowed to press on with or without the group’s proposal.

“If the group of 7 doesn’t have a solution, then we’ll build a new group,” he said. “We’ll build a new group until we have a group of people that allows us to have 218 votes one day. But we refuse to take no as an answer.”

Third World mealy-mouthed Cong Gutierrez (Dem-Mexico) said just the other day (cackle), “We (meaning the Third World) got the votes.” Now he's singing the blues. Does this sucker know who's killing img/reform?

Mmmmmm.....sure would like to see Dem internal polls. Obama’s approval ratings sink....and more and more pols are scared to death to get on-board img/reform. Isn’t it odd that Dems can’t seem to grab onto a message that resonates with the public these days....even w/ all that “magic” in the WH? ROTFLOL.

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OUR CONGRESS GOT "SECRET ORDERS" FROM THE THIRD WORLD (hums theme from "Jaws")

1. Breitbart News ^ | 18 Jul 2013 | Matthew Boyle / FR Posted by george76

The Senate's controversial immigration reform bill passed in late June contains a Medicaid mandate similar to a provision found in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) financial impact score of S. 744 shows that it would in fact impose a $20 billion Medicaid expansion on states. According to the CBO, this provision would occur over a decade-long period after the President signs the bill.

"In assessing the impact of the bill on the federal budget, CBO estimated its effect on federal and state spending for Medicaid. S. 744 would have the result of increasing the number of individuals who would become eligible for either full Medicaid or for more limited emergency benefits,” the CBO writes in the section of its Senate immigration bill score on mandates to states. (Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

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2. STINK FACTOR Senate Immigration Reform Bill Protects Crooked corrupt Latino Public Officials in US positions from prosecution.

NANCY SUCKS UP FOR VOTES Ntl Assoc of Latino Elected and Appt Officials Gala in DC L-R--Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ); Salomon Melgen, VOXXI Chman (now under investigation); Rep Nancy Pelosi (D-CAL); Francisco J. Sanchez, US Under Secy of Commerce for Intl Trade, Emilio Sanchez, Pres/CEO of VOXXI at the Ntl Assoc of Latino Elected and Appt Officials Gala in DC. (Photo/ Voxxi---Melgen's ethnic solidarity web site)

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3. The Senate immigration “reform” bill includes two “slush funds” amounting to hundreds of millions of tax dollars that may be supplemented with additional taxpayer dollars for years to come, earmarked for non-profit organizations such as the blood-thirsty La Raza.

La Raza Studies do not even try to sugar-coat its anti-America agenda and its bloodthirsty plans to kill off Americans: Raza Studies textbook “Occupied America,” by Rodolfo Acuña, includes a violent and blood-curdling speech given by university professor Jose Angel Gutierrez: “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is, if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him,” (pg. 323). The following is taken directly from La Raza's Occupied America: “.......execute all white males over age 16,” (p 167--AKA the Plan of San Diego).

America-hating Raza Studies teach (1) violence, (2) undermining US ntl security, and, (3) the need for Mexico to "re- take seven states in the Southwest...in order to make the SW a Chicano nation. "

SCHOOL BOARD NUT CASE Adelita Grijalva is the woman on the Arizona school board pimping La Raza indoctrination programs in Tuscon schools. Adelita is all up in arms about Raza Studies getting tossed via the AZ state legislature's action...she is the daughter of Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-7) who was just narrowly re-elected to our US Congress. Cong Raul Grijalva is one of Mexico’s most productive and loyal Fifth Column in the US Congress....aiding and abetting the latino criminal underworld, colluding to take back the SW, and loot and pillage the US treasury.

Raul and friend.

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