Immigration, Again
George Will has an interesting take on the immigration debate as have several others over the last week. Base10, frankly doesn't have any idea what will happen. Will thinks that a failure to arive a a compromise bill this session will not be a failure, but rather is evidence that American institutions are working:

But if Congress fails to pass immigration reform, that will not really deserve to be called a failure, for two reasons. First, the moment may not be ripe for reform because the country is of two minds -- actually, more than two -- about the issue. Second, the system the Framers created, with two legislative bodies having different dynamics because their constituencies have different characteristics, is in this instance performing approximately as the Framers intended.

Senators, only one-third of whom are ever facing imminent elections, are somewhat insulated by six-year terms from the public's fevers. And senators represent larger, less homogenous, more complex constituencies than most House members do.

There is more to democracy than government by adding machine -- merely counting numbers. There also should be institutional ways of measuring, venting and accommodating the intensity of factions. The Senate does that by permitting filibusters. In the House, two-year terms guarantee that intensities are registered. As Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., recently told The Washington Post, "House members' elections are not periods with us, they're just commas. We keep our finger on the public pulse all the time, not just every six years.''

The House is supposed to be the barometer that measures the political weather of the moment. It is not failing to do that.

This is certainly true, but could also spell disaster for the Republicans this fall. Many commentators have pointed out that the conventional wisdom about a compromise bill comming out of the diametrically opposite House and Senate versions are completlely deluding themselves. This is probably true. The question for Republicans is really whether the calculus about the damage. If more damage results from failure to pass a bill, compromise will result. Richard Brookhiser in the NY Observer has an interesting take:

But House Republicans are not the most unpopular people in America. That title may be reserved for Senate Republicans, or at least the 23 of them who joined 38 Democrats to pass the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006. Illegal immigrants will not have to know English to understand this bill; it’s a welcome mat, and the Republicans who signed it are the doormats. It is not necessary for House Republicans to muster the energy they have shown on behalf of Congressional freezers to defeat the Senate bill. All they have to do is hunker down, and let House/Senate negotiations break down. If they do that, they may snatch some cred yet.

Is there one more possible savior in the wings for Congressional Republicans? Could it be Congressional Democrats? Frequent elections are the people’s security against rogues and bums. But if the other party also consists of rascals, how can voters, in good conscience, throw the rascals out? Yet we feel that there is a value in change for change’s sake, even as we drain swimming pools and lance boils. So it is with Congress.

- posted by Base10 @ 9:41 AM