Putting the Immigration Risk in Bush's Lap

WASHINGTON (By Dan Balz, Washington Post) April 9, 2006 — The bipartisan breakthrough on immigration in the Senate underscored the urgency among leading Republicans to undo the political damage they feel was inflicted by a punitive measure passed earlier by the House. But the pending deal puts pressure on President Bush to guide his fractured party to a final compromise that can win approval of both chambers of Congress.

For the past six years, Bush has sought to expand the GOP coalition by appealing to the fast-growing Hispanic community. That project has produced enough success to convince many Democrats that unless those gains are checked or reversed, Republicans could enjoy a long period of political dominance.

But Republican divisions over immigration put the Bush political project at risk. The president finds himself caught in a battle pitting what has been his most important constituency -- conservative Republicans angry over the flood of illegal immigrants -- against what he and advisers such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove regard as an emerging GOP constituency -- Latinos.

Many Republican strategists fear that the wrong outcome on immigration, one that deals with border security without dealing with the status of the roughly 12 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally, could set the party back a decade or more in its efforts to attract Latino votes.

GOP officials see the House bill as embodying exactly the wrong outcome and point to California as the example they hope to avoid. Twelve years ago, then-Gov. Pete Wilson (R) pushed an anti-immigration ballot measure that sought to deny state assistance to undocumented immigrants. The initiative passed and helped Wilson win reelection, but it triggered a surge of new Democratic Latino voters in subsequent elections that have left Republicans deep in the minority in the state.

Recent demonstrations against the House bill have only added to GOP concerns about the direction of the immigration debate, and it was against that backdrop that the Senate negotiations have taken place.

Democratic and Republican proponents of a comprehensive plan in the Senate that would allow some illegal immigrants to move toward legal status have given ground in a display of bipartisan legislating that has become rare. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), co-sponsors of the bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee last week, yielded to evidence that they could not get enough votes to shut off debate on their bill.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who introduced a tough border enforcement bill, has moved to embrace a comprehensive bill. Even Bush, who long has advocated a comprehensive measure, has been forced to move as the negotiations over a new compromise authored by Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) that provides a path to legal status for at least half of the 12 million illegal immigrants have neared completion.

The question facing Bush now is what to do if the Senate compromise wins approval. Will he insist, as some congressional Republicans do, on finding a solution that can win a majority of Republicans in the House and the Senate, or is he prepared to broker a coalition that includes some Republicans and a majority of Democrats?

House leaders have warned there will be tough bargaining ahead to reconcile the House and Senate bills. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has sent signals of being willing to look for a compromise, but spokesman Ron Bonjean said yesterday: "We have to wait and see what a conference committee would produce. But we would want a majority of House Republicans to support it."

Republican strategists said yesterday that party leaders are debating whether to delay final debate until after the November elections. That would avoid having to choose between angering conservatives who want tougher measures such as a fence along the Mexican border and deportation of illegal immigrants, or Hispanics -- legal and illegal -- who want action to bring undocumented workers out of the shadows.

"Postponing gives you some room," said one GOP strategist who asked not to be identified to explain the party's internal deliberations. "But at the end of the day, you have to do something. I'd rather see them vote on November 10th than on November 1st."

The confluence of the breakthrough in the Senate, the announced resignation of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and the imminent arrival of White House Chief of Staff-designate Joshua B. Bolten also presents Bush with an opportunity to signal a fresh start in his governing and legislative strategies that in the past have generally favored partisan confrontation with Democrats rather than cooperation.

Now the question is whether Bush will seek greater bipartisanship. "It's more than a test, it's conceivably a turning point," said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, who added: "In the president's beleaguered circumstances, I think that bipartisanship may be the lifesaver."

Others, such as Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution, said bipartisanship may work only on an issue such as immigration, where Bush's ambitions to win more Latino support for his party inevitably led to a split within his party. On most other Bush initiatives, Mann said, Republicans and Democrats will remain divided.

"Democrats are unlikely to be pulled in on other issues," he said. "I think Democrats sense they are on the verge of benefiting from the first tidal-wave election since 1994 and the last thing they're interested in doing is being co-opted."

For those reasons, whatever strategy Bush pursues on immigration may prove the exception to the rule. In any case, the choices he faces are difficult and politically consequential, both for his presidency and for his party.