The intertwined fates of Marco Rubio and immigration reform

The bipartisan package won't pass if Rubio backs out. And if Rubio fails on immigration, it could imperil his future political prospects

Edward Morrissey

Perhaps the move by a handful of Senate Republicans and Democrats to press ahead on a compromise immigration reform package will not surprise many observers. The rationales on both sides are clear. President Barack Obama got some backlash during the presidential campaign from Latino voters, who responded to his promise of immigration reform in a second term by reminding Obama that he promised the same thing before his first term, and totally failed to deliver. Democrats have wanted to press forward on normalization for existing illegal immigrants for years, hoping to reap the benefit of the additional voters in years ahead. Republicans, who have balked at reform in part for that reason, saw the changing demographics of the electorate in 2012 and knew they needed to address the issues or risk being shut out of a key bloc of current voters for the foreseeable future. And now, Sen. Marco Rubio, who I interviewed yesterday, is at the heart of this fledgling deal.

The surprise, if there is one, is that compromise arrived so quickly. The Gang of Eight on immigration rolled out their conceptual plan on Monday, just a week after Obama's inauguration. For the last two years, Congress has been singularly unable to reach broad compromises on nearly any issue. The Senate hasn't even produced a normal budget since April 2010, their most basic responsibility, thanks to a failure of leadership and a desire to maintain financial-crisis levels of federal spending without accountability or formal dissent. Neither the Senate nor the House has produced a workable compromise on immigration since 1986, a bill that Republicans mainly remember for a broken promise by the Democratic-controlled Congress to address border security after Ronald Reagan signed off on a general amnesty.

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Edward Morrissey

Edward Morrissey has been writing about politics since 2003 in his blog, Captain's Quarters, and now writes for HotAir.com. His columns have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Post, The New York Sun, the Washington Times, and other newspapers. Morrissey has a daily Internet talk show on politics and culture at Hot Air. Since 2004, Morrissey has had a weekend talk radio show in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and often fills in as a guest on Salem Radio Network's nationally-syndicated shows. He lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, and his two granddaughters. Morrissey's new book, GOING RED, will be published by Crown Forum on April 5, 2016.