Will the House stand firm against Senate’s immigration bill?

The Senate passed the “Comprehensive Immigration Bill” by a wide margin. The bill was full of pork — it had something for everybody with the one exception that it did not have anything for those who wanted the United States’ borders secured. The border security amendment praised in the press had holes in it so large you could drive a space shuttle through any of them.

It seems that every Senator was able to put an exception into the bill that supported some local voting bloc (Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich had an Alaska seafood provision added, for example, and New York’s Chuck Schumer added a requirement guaranteeing a minimum number of Irish immigrants). Ted Cruz (R-Tx) on the Senate floor might have revealed the most frightening provision, one fining small businesses that hired American workers over the provisionally legal immigrants.

Nevertheless, an immigration bill passed in the Senate and attention is turned to the House of Representatives which, unlike the Senate, has a Republican majority. Will the House leadership stand firm and create a bill that protects our borders, or will they fold under the pressure as they have done so many times before?

I asked a friend, a House GOP aide, if the leadership realized that “rubber-stamping” the Senate bill would split the party and perhaps force conservatives to leave the GOP. His answer was that leadership was “smarter than the base gives them credit for.”

I’m not sure if my friend’s words were that reassuring, but what was calming was the petition of more than 70 members of the House GOP Caucus (including Long Island’s Peter King) who demanded/forced a caucus meeting. At the meeting, Speaker Boehner was told in no uncertain terms that an immigration bill like the Senate’s would cause a revolt in the GOP ranks. Boehner told the caucus he would not bring the bill to the floor unless it had the support of a majority of the caucus.

On Thursday, during his weekly press conference, Boehner said the Senate bill isn’t going anywhere in the House.

“The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes,” Boehner said before going on to attack the Senate version as too weak on border security.

In reality, Speaker Boehner and the House GOP leadership have three choices:

n Do Nothing. Immigration reform is a key item on the Democratic Agenda, but not a priority to the American people. The last Rasmussen poll that looked at voter priority of national issues had immigration ranked tenth behind economy, health care, jobs, social security, government spending, corruption, taxes, education and national security. Boehner could simply announce that the economy, jobs, and the deficit are more important, and the House will take up immigration after they are done with the other nine items.

n Pass their own version of a comprehensive bill and send it to a conference committee. This is both the least likely to happen and the one which frightens the conservative base the most. Agree or disagree with him, Boehner is not a stupid man. This option has no upside because the Democrats will not agree to any compromise that protects the border. Boehner will not go this way.

n Piecemeal: This approach gives the speaker the most options and therefore is the most likely approach. He will split the issue into its component parts and bring up each part as a separate bill.

The first step will be border security. The House will pass a border security bill, which will die in the Senate.

At the same time the House will ready a bill that fixes our present immigration system and a third bill offering a pathway to citizenship. Most conservatives realize the pathway has to be done eventually because in the end, those 11 million illegals aren’t going anywhere. However, the only way Boehner will be able to get this through is if a border security bill is passed by the Senate first (very unlikely).

That will be his carrot: If the Senate passes the secure border bill, the House will be ready to pass the next two. But in order for this approach to work, each of the bills must be simple, no half-ton of paper-type, something-for-everyone type of bill. Simple and transparent is the way the House needs to go (as opposed to the tome coming out of the Senate).

I wouldn’t worry about anything happening too fast since all of Congress is on vacation for the July 4th holiday. They come back for two weeks and then they go into recess till September.

When the House comes back in September, their first two priorities will be the debt ceiling and the budget (and don’t forget the ongoing Scandalabra). It will be very surprising if the House takes up immigration in a major way before the clock strikes 2014.

Stay calm about the bill passed in the Senate last week, because the gang of eight had their moment in the sun; that monstrosity isn’t going anywhere.