GOP Promise: Hey, We’ll Pass Let’s-Not-Call-It-Amnesty If We Retake The Senate

The Republican Party is set up quite nicely to regain control of the Senate this election cycle. And, of course, Republican pundits were wondering just how the GOP would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Well, here’s on big way

(The Hill) Senate Republicans say they’ll try to pass immigration reform legislation in the next two years if they take back the Senate in November.

The Republicans say winning back the Senate will allow them to pass a series of bills on their own terms that have a better chance of winning approval in the House.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a central member of the coalition that passed a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate last year, said he would craft a better legislative approach if Republicans control the upper chamber in 2015.

That would give his party a chance to pass immigration legislation before the presidential election, when Hispanic voters will be crucial to winning the White House.

What a super duper awesome idea! Because it’s worked so well in the past. The Republican base has zero confidence that any immigration legislation will be anything more than long on amnesty and short on enforcement. Every time this comes up, the details of the proposals fail to match that talk that this will be tough, and that there is no easy pathway to citizenship.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is poised to take over as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he will vote to pass immigration legislation in the next Congress if Republicans ascend to the majority.

“We’d start over again next year,” Grassley said, when asked about the next steps if Congress does not pass immigration reform by September.

This is the kind of talk that will keep Republican voters at home. And this election cycle will very much be about turnout. Democrats know their agenda is unpopular with the voting public. They barely want to discuss their policies and plans, instead focusing on feelings based stuff and smears like the “war on women”. They will try to crank their base up to get them to vote D simply for the sake of voting D. Republicans will have to match that enthusiasm. Promising “immigration reform” will deflate that enthusiasm.

Perhaps this time they’ll get it right. But there’s zero trust that that will happen.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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