The failure of the Democrats on immigration

Peter Brown:

The immigration mess showed that not every divisive issue in American politics is partisan. Much has been made of the split among Republicans over immigration, but in the end it was the division among Senate Democrats that was the most surprising.

The key question this raises is whether Democrats, who regained their congressional majority with candidates who might not adhere to every tenet of party orthodoxy, can control those folks when they need them.

Of course, immigration was a defeat for President Bush. But given his dreadful poll numbers, it is no surprise he can't control Republicans on an issue in which the majority fundamentally disagree with him.

If the Democratic leadership can't control its troops, then it won't be any more successful than were the Republicans in recent years when it comes to getting Congress to tackle the big stuff that Washington, D.C. seems unable to solve.

Just as in recent years when Bush often could not win over GOP lawmakers who weren't sufficiently conservative, the Democrats have a problem with their members who aren't die-hard liberals.

Any notion that the Democrats' bare 51-49 Senate edge and similar percentage margin in the House translates into real control is illusionary. And, ironically, the reason is a result of the way they fashioned their new majority.

To be sure Democrats and Republicans have differing views and values, but the inability of Congress to come up with an acceptable immigration solution stems from as many intra-party divides as partisan ones.

There were both Democratic and Republican senators who thought the measure did not tilt enough toward immigrants' rights, and those who thought it unacceptably slanted in that direction. At the margins, the majority of Republicans wanted to err on the side of toughness and the Democrats wanted to make it less onerous for illegal immigrants.

Democrats took Congress last November by winning the deciding seats in conservative states where the party had suffered recently.

Many, perhaps naively, assumed that the results meant that the country was moving further left from its more conservative perch that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

...

When the Democrats had a majority in Congress for nearly 40 years they maintained it with southern conservatives and liberals from other parts of the country. They eked back into a majority of sorts in 2006 by electing conservative Democrats in some districts and states which allowed them to take control of committees, but did not give liberals a ruling majority. Conservatives can put a majority in place for bills that stir their passions.