[Mb-civic] Putting the Risk in Bush's Lap - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Putting the Risk in Bush's Lap

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; A10

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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040601893.html?nav=hcmodule
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