Eric Cantor And John Boehner Could Never Do The Kind Of Harm To The Democrats That Steve Israel Does

Another vulnerable Republican Israel made sure would have no opponent

Anti-immigrant extremists who follow the lead of Steve King (R-IA) in the House, have been dancing around clicking their heals, claiming that Eric Cantor lost last week because he was "soft" on Hispanics and was opposed enough to giving them a pathway to citizenship. That isn't why he lost his primary, nor is it true that Cantor was sympathetic to the legitimate goals of immigrant reform groups. As he made clear in the expensive directing mailings he did to every Republican voters in VA-07, he was personally responsible for preventing the House from even taking up the bipartisan Senate bill. But when have facts ever stopped the Republican Hate Machine from spouting their crap over and over and over until their feebleminded followers buy in, lock, stock and barrel?

Ironically, the two candidates vying for Cantor's job as Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy and Raul Labrador, are both more in tune with the Senate bill than Cantor was. In other words, the anti-immigrant imbecile celebrating the ousting of Eric Cantor are, in effect, celebrating his replacement by one of two Repiublicans less opposed than he was to comprehensive immigration reform.

If you expect DCCC chairman Steve Israel to take advantage of any of this to beat Republicans in November, you have not been reading DWT carefully or with any regularity. Israel has no interest whatsoever in the issue-- except as a fundraising tool at the grassroots level. As Latino Decisions explained yesterday, despite recent polling that finds that "comprehensive immigration reform is an animating issue for Latino voters and if immigration reform does not happen this year, most Latino voters will hold the Republican Party responsible," the DCCC has done nothing to assist "Latinos and other pro-immigration reform voters to reward or punish members of Congress for their handling of immigration [which] necessitates a competitive electoral environment where marginal shifts in both the composition and preferences of the electorate can make the difference."

The DCCC has ignored all there requests to get serious about fielding and supporting candidates who will benefit by Republican intransigence on immigration. When candidates do work on a grassroots level to take advantage of the issue, the DCCC undercuts them and tells donors to not fund them. Good example would be Jason Ritchie, who is running against anti-immigration bigot Dave Reichert in WA-08, an R+1 district east of Seattle that Obama carried in 2008 and 2012. The DCCC is working against Ritchie and protecting Reichert while funding absurd races by right-wing Democrats in prohibitively red districts-- one with an R+21 PVI. Boehner couldn't have found himself a better DCCC head if he picked one himself. Latino Decisions explained what happened in the CA-25 race, where progressive, pro-immigration reform candidate Lee Rogers-- in the face of 4 years of bitchy hostility from "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel-- was beaten in the dysfunctional jungle primary by two anti-immigration Republicans, Israel having adamantly refused to allow the DCCC to come to his aid. And California isn't the only state where Israel is handing free passes to the GOP.

Perhaps no state better illustrates the Democrats’ recruitment woes than Florida. The Democrats will not have a candidate in Florida’s 13th district. Instead, two minor party candidates will challenge Republican David Jolly, who narrowly won the seat this winter in a special election. The swing district has a 2010 Latino voting age population of 7% and was narrowly carried by Obama (1.5%) in 2012.

In Florida’s 10th, three lackluster Democrats are competing in the August primary to face Daniel Webster. Webster won in 2012 by 3.4% while underperforming Mitt Romney by 3.3% in a district with a 2010 Latino voting age population of over 14%. The Democrats also struggled to recruit a quality challenger in Florida’s 16th before first-time candidate and former professional football player Henry Lawrence filed to run against Vern Buchanan. Buchanan won in 2012 by 7% in a district with a 2010 Latino voting age population of 9%. While Webster has come out in favor of a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, he, like Buchanan voted in favor of Steve King’s DACA amendments.

The Democrats also will not have a candidate in North Carolina’s 9th district to compete against incumbent Robert Pittenger.  Pittenger ran seven points behind Romney in 2012 in a district with a small but growing Latino voting age population.

Other touted Democratic challengers running in key districts are failing to attract party backing. In announcing where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has reserved over $43 million in advertising buys for the fall, only nine Democrats running in Republican held tier one or tier two Latino influence districts are included. To be sure, many of the candidates who will be receiving DCCC support in the fall are vulnerable Democratic incumbents; many representing districts with large Latino voting age populations. Still, eight candidates included in the DCCC’s “Red to Blue” program did not make the cut including three candidates running in Latino influence districts: Erin Bilbray (NV-3), Sean Eldridge (NY-19), and Rocky Lara (NM-2).

Of the three, Bilbary is perhaps the most puzzling. She is the daughter of a former member of Congress who was handpicked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to be the Democrat’s candidate. Her opponent, Joe Heck, represents a district that was carried twice by Obama and has a 2010 Latino voting age population of 13.5%.

Heck’s attempts to navigate the immigration terrain have won him few friends on either side of the issue. After coming out in favor of pathway to citizenship and working for months on legislation akin to the DREAM Act, Heck did not introduce the bill because he was unable to garner support among his Republican House colleagues. Instead, he has voted for Steve King’s DACA amendments and earlier this month, his staff called in the police to disperse a group of immigration reform protestors from his district office. After the episode in which five protestors were cited for trespassing, Heck’s campaign account tweeted “Joe Heck will not be bullied into amnesty by @erinbilbray…”

Updated campaign finance reports indicate that Heck has more than three and half times as much cash on hand as Bilbray, who has raised nearly $800,000. However, without party resources to augment her campaign, Bilbray will have a much more difficult time unseating what should be one of the most vulnerable House Republicans. [Bilbray is one of the only progressives in Israel's Red-to-Blue program this year, which probably explains why he is unenthusiastic about her campaign.]

Indeed, with six months until the 2014 election, the inability of Democrats to make the most of opportunities like California’s 25th, Florida’s 13th, or Nevada’s 3rd, weakens the electoral incentive for House Republicans to move on comprehensive immigration reform even though a clear majority of Americans favor legislation akin to what passed the Senate last June.  Absent these pressures, incumbent Republicans like Joe Heck can continue to mouth their support for comprehensive immigration reform while at the same time voting to support the hardline policies championed by Steve King with little fear of voter repudiation at the ballot box.

With Obama threatening to take executive action to ameliorate the situation for distressed immigrants while the Republicans fight amonst each other and obstruction solutions, some of the worst racists in Congress, like Pennsylvania nativist Lou Barletta, are threatening impeachment. As delusional as he is bigoted, Barletta claims he has the votes to impeach the president if he does anything along the lines of the bipartisan Senate bill on immigration at all.

“He’s just absolutely ignoring the Constitution, and ignoring the laws and ignoring the checks and balances,” the Pennsylvania Republican said of Obama on the Gary Sutton radio show on Monday. “The problem is, what do you do? For those that say impeach him for breaking the laws or bypassing the laws-- could that pass in the House? It probably could. Is the majority of the American people in favor of impeaching the president? I’m not sure.”

And no, Israel didn't recruit a plausible candidate to run against Barletta either.

Israel refuses to assist Issa's Democratic opponent in any way