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No containing the grassfires |
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Posted: 06/26/07 07:39 PM [ET] |
Business and agriculture lobbyists this week try again to push immigration reform through the Senate, but the issue may be beyond them.
David French, lead lobbyist for the International Franchise Association, said his group hoped changes added since the bill was last on the floor would appease its conservative critics. Those changes include providing more money for border security efforts.
French equated opposition to the bill with a “grassfire” that has been tough to contain. Critics present a united and vocal front of opposition to the bill, which would provide a path toward citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
“This is a very emotional issue,” French said.
Since the bill was pulled from the floor after a failed cloture vote, opposition to the measure seems to have grown. Lobbyists said whip lists look even tougher now.
Business groups have tried to counter the resistance through their own grassroots efforts that included sending executives to Washington, having local business leaders phone congressional offices and writing letters of support to senators on the fence.
The Agriculture Coalition of Immigration Reform held a conference call yesterday that 100 different organizations participated in.
“Pretty much everyone is engaged,” said Craig Regelbrugge, who helps direct the ag coalition, which has been among the biggest proponents of the Senate measure.
The coalition supports the bill because it promises to streamline the process through which foreign farm workers come to the United States to work temporarily. As many as 70 percent of seasonal farm workers are thought to be in the country illegally.
Particular attention was being paid to Georgia, where Regelbrugge participated in a radio talk show program yesterday. Georgia’s Republican senators have expressed increasing wariness with the measure despite having participated in the negotiations that led to its creation.
Business’s support was partly due to a growing fear that states “will try to fill the vacuum” with a variety of measures that would be difficult to comply with as Congress struggles to reach consensus on immigration reform, French said.
More than 1,100 bills have been introduced locally relating to immigration; 200 of those would impose new or stiffer penalties on businesses that employ illegal workers, French said, quoting numbers compiled by the National Council of State Legislatures.
Still, other businesses are pushing to change the delicately crafted compromise that emerged from bipartisan, closed-door talks a month ago.
The high-tech industry backs an amendment authored by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) that would increase the number of visas available for highly skilled workers.
The amendment would also delay imposition of a point-based system that high-tech lobbyists had complained would restrict a company’s ability to hire specific workers.
Robert Hoffman, vice president for federal affairs at Oracle, said he believed the amendment would pass and that the industry would support the new measure.
The HR Initiative for a Labor Workforce, meanwhile, wrote a letter yesterday supporting an amendment offered by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
The amendment would ease the burden on businesses to verify that each employee is a legal worker. Employers would only have to check the identities of new workers or workers flagged by the Homeland Security Department.
“[The] requirement in the current bill that all current employees also be subjected to reverification … is a recipe for disaster,” said Daniel Yager, senior vice president and general counsel to the association.
Some lobbyists, however, view the Grassley-Baucus-Obama amendment as a poison pill. The administration said last week it opposed the change.
Although business has generally supported the bill, some lobbyists said criticism leveled at parts of the grand compromise may have undermined the effort to pass it by giving the impression that industry support for reform was soft.
Attempts to alter the legislation was “creating a lot of choppy water for the bill,” one business lobbyist said.
Hoffman disputed the suggestion that the high-tech industry’s efforts had undermined support, saying the main obstacle to the bill was whether it provided “amnesty” to illegal immigrants and how many low-skilled workers it allowed entry to the United States.
“The Cantwell-Kyl amendment improves the bill,” he said.
Western governors, where agriculture worker shortages have been most severe, also urged Congress to support comprehensive immigration reform.
“Western farmers and other businesses need to have a steady supply of workers where there are no willing United States workers otherwise available,” read a letter signed by Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.
Meanwhile, the Hispanic group National Council of La Raza and the New Democrat Network (NDN), plan to release figures today that show Hispanics are increasingly voting Democratic and are voting in higher numbers.
That spells electoral doom for Republicans, if the party is seen as the main obstacle to immigration reform, said NDN president Simon Rosenberg.
“We fought this debate out in ’06 and the Republicans lost,” he said. “This was fought out in every race in the country. … The only thing Republicans have to show for it is guys like [former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.)] losing.”
Some business lobbyists, however, said Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) deserved some blame if the bill fails for pulling the measure two weeks ago.
America’s Community Bankers (ACB) and the American Bankers Association (ABA) announced plans to merge yesterday.
The new group would retain the ABA name. Ed Yingling would retain his title as president and CEO of the ABA. Diane Casey-Landry, president and CEO of ACB, would have become executive vice president and chief operating officer of the new ABA. |
