The losers in Tuesday’s epic bloodbath continue to try dictating terms to the victors. Here’s Rep. Steve Israel, liberal Democrat from a safe seat in New York.
The Republicans crushed the Democrats across the board, increasing their hold on the House, taking control of the Senate, even increasing their numbers far down the ballot.
To the extent that immigration was on the ballot, voters repudiated the Democrats’ point of view. The Republicans held serve in the House for a lot of reasons, and not destroying their credibility with their base by passing that awful Senate bill is high among them.
To Rep. Israel, that just means that Republicans should pass the Senate’s lousy immigration bill anyway. That’s what he said on MSNBC today.
“People need to not go to the corners, but come to the middle,” Israel said. “Democrats want infrastructure to create good paying jobs and sustainable paychecks and rebuild America. Republicans want corporate tax reform. Put the two together and do infrastructure. On immigration, there shouldn’t be paralysis on this. 68 senators from Harry Reid to Marco Rubio agreed to pass a bill. When you can get Harry Reid and Rubio and John McCain to agree on passing the bill, let’s just pass it in the House.”
There’s shouldn’t be any paralysis. Enforce the current law. Do immigration reform piecemeal, with security taking first place. And the president should not even contemplate issuing any executive orders on the subject.
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