Remember when immigration reform was going to be the occasion for a big bipartisan love-fest? Republicans, the thinking went, knew they couldn’t afford to keep alienating Latino voters. The party’s corporate funders were solidly on board. Even Sean Hannity said he’d “evolved” on the issue.
Those were the days. Now we’re seeing reports that negotiations in the House are on the verge of collapse. And in the Senate, Marco Rubio, in what Steve noted yesterday is a pretty stunning turnaround, is now saying that without stringent new border security provisions that Senate negotiators already rejected, he won’t support the bill he helped negotiate.
How did things go downhill so fast?
For one thing, conservative House Republicans are now insisting that immigrants be cut off from the benefits of Obamacare during their 15-year path to citizenship. In other words, as New York magazine’s Jon Chait puts it, “House Republicans’ hatred of Obamacare is at such deranged levels that it is leeching into even largely unrelated problems.” And Rubio, of course, is hampered by his presidential ambitions, which dictate that he not alienate his party’s right-wing base by appearing to concede too much to Obama and congressional Democrats.
But Republicans’ hatred for Obamacare, and Rubio’s presidential ambitions, both existed a month or so ago, when immigration reform was going swimmingly. So what’s changed? How about the confluence of Obama administration “scandals”—the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups, the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of journalists, and the ongoing Benghazi saga—that have re-energized the GOP?









