Remember How Gun Control Legislation Was a Sure Thing After the Newtown Shootings? – Immigration Reform Is Headed Down the Same Road

And You Are Surprised Why?

The spring’s big political news was how immigration reform passed the United States Senate and because it was politically advantageous for both parties to enact reform, passage in the House was practically a given.  The so-called, self designated smart folks in the room all said that the Republicans would never, ever stand in the way of reform and alienate an important block of voters.  Well a funny thing happened along the path to citizenship.

In a sign of diminished expectations, the House Judiciary Committee chairman said there is nothing wrong with having a debate that doesn't end with an immigration bill being signed into law.

"We pass bills all the time that don't get passed all the way through and signed into law, because we want to spell out to the American people what we think the right solutions to our problems are," the chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), said in an interview. "I don't believe immigration reform should be any different than that."

At the same time, Mr. Boehner faces considerable pressure from business groups, evangelicals, law enforcement and some GOP donors for action on immigration legislation.

House leaders will check in with lawmakers returning to Washington next week to see if there is a groundswell for action. But absent an unexpected reversal, advocates of an overhaul are predicting action may have to wait until 2014.

Bottom line, the House ain’t gonna take it up this year.  And if anyone thinks it will come up in 2014, well there’s a nice bridge in Brooklyn for sale, just contact this website.

The problem is not House Republicans acting irrationally, it is House Republicans acting rationally.  The gerrymandered House is so safe for most Republican seats that the only risk to an incumbent is a challenge in a primary from the right.  And the surest way to generate that challenge is to push for immigration reform.  As for the national Republicans, the ones that want to win the White House in 2016 here the message from the House GOP

“Boys and girls, you’re on your own”.

Think they will get it?  Probably not, they don’t get much.