Brian’s Utah Weblog

Comprehensive Immigration Reform isn’t going to pass in 2010.  It was introduced only because President Obama promised to try.  Congress isn’t going to advance the bill in a year when there are ten million unemployed Americans and ten million undocumented immigrants working in America.  You can explain why those two numbers don’t have any real connection but congressmen don’t want to go home to their districts before an election to explain that.

But 2010 isn’t the last chance.  Congress could try next year or the year after that.  Now it looks more and more like it might be impossible to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill.  And Utah may have been the state that made it impossible.

Not many incumbent congressmen run for reelection and lose.  Typical reelection rates range from 95% to 99%.  Many fewer still lose in a primary.  But here in Utah we’ve fired one of three congressmen and one of two senators in the past two years.  That’s the kind of record that makes congressmen and senators with their extreme job security and entitled attitudes perk up and pay attention.

When Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT3) defeated Rep. Cannon in the primary, immigration was one of the top issues.  Cannon was a leader for President Bush’s radical open borders immigration agenda.  I heard Republicans talking about Senator Bennett’s vote for the Bush immigration bill at the convention last month before they sacked him.

Now there are always other issues.  TARP passed with 75 senate votes in 2008 including Bennett and Hatch.  It and other multi-billion dollar giveaways to bankers will always pass with plenty of votes as long as Congress can be bought for money.  Whatever Tea Partiers say, being an appropriator and bringing home earmarked capital projects will always be an advantage for a senator like Bennett.  And everybody already knew that treating constituents and partners with disrespect like Cannon did was dangerous.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform is the one issue I see that would likely have passed without Utah’s primaries in 2008 and 2010 but now will face long, long odds.  It’s a classic issue where Washington elites of both parties are nearly unanimously in favor but the people are doubtful.  Usually those eventually pass quietly attached to some other bill.  This time, though, two of the most powerful men in the country have lost their jobs in consecutive elections of the most terrifying kind — primaries.

That’s going to solidify Republican opposition.  In 2006 Bush’s bill passed the Senate with 23 Republican votes.  With only a few scared Republican votes and far less than all the Democrats, the Obama Comprehensive Immigration Reform won’t pass.

Of course the national media will say it was John McCain, enthusiastic proponent of Bush Immigration Reform, who blocked the issue after reversing positions in his primary.  Especially if he loses.  But McCain is sure to take after his good buddy Joe Lieberman who lied to the public about the war through his election and went right back to being a mindless warmonger when he was back in Washington.  Once (if?) McCain is renominated in August, he’ll be a reformer again.  The real effect on congress will be the forty or more Republican senators who get the message and block any progress.  And that is the Utah effect, not McCain’s.

Meanwhile there are at least fifteen million undocumented people in our country with no right to vote, to the minimum wage, to safe working conditions, to go to the police when threatened with a crime, to form a union, to be free from discrimination and sexual harassment, to organize their communities and protect the quality of life, or to petition the government for redress of grievances.  And there’s no prospect things will get better.

It’s simple.  I’ve seen Claudia Wright campaigning and met her friends and she’s great, but she isn’t going to best Morgan Philpot in November.  Jim Matheson will.

Folks who think a Democrat without name recognition and with no intention of getting her hands dirty raising at least half a million dollars can be competitive in the Second district in a Republican year just don’t understand what R+20 means.  An R+20 district is one where a generic Republican can expect to do 20 points better than the national average in a general election.  The Second district is not a swing district like it was before the 2001 redistricting;  it’s strong Republican.

I won’t tell you that Jim Matheson is a closet liberal doing his best in red territory.  If you really listen to him, it’s obvious he’s far too smart and detailed in his convictions in favor of the neoliberal Washington Consensus to be faking it.  But he does good things for us on transit funding , nuclear testing, nuclear waste transport and cleanup, public lands conservation, keeping a Utah voice in the Democratic majority, and other local issues.

The only reason you should hope for Matheson to lose is if you think you’d be better off with a Republican working hard with big money special interests to divide your community, pave your open space, taint your air and water, impoverish your kids’ school, give your taxes to bankers, send your job overseas, and carry out the rest of the Republican platform.

I imagine there are a few Democrats who really think that.  If you’re a citizen of Washington County who loves your bucolic rural small town way of life, you might like having a Republican.  Certainly you would be better off with a representative ranting about the font on the President’s birth certificate than a smart and effective congressman working to drive multi-billion dollar water project subsidies so that developers could pound your county into the next Vegas megalopolis.  But that is the only argument you can make.  It’s not enough that Claudia Wright would be better.  You have to argue that you would actually be better off locally with a bad congressman than one whom you sometimes disagree with.

I’m disappointed in the Republican candidates.

Here in Utah, the Republican candidate usually wins statewide races.  This year we have a United States Senate seat up for election and the two candidates for the Republican nomination are reporting a week before the primary that they have raised only $218,000 and $182,000 each.  That includes all money raised for the convention and testing the waters before the primary.

* - Mike Lee’s reports have not been submitted and processed by the FEC, this data estimated based on old reports and SL Trib article

A US Senate seat is worth raising money for. When you’re so close to the Republican nomination it’s as easy as fund raising will ever get.  If you’re really qualified to manage a three trillion dollar budget, you know people who can send you a lot more money than this for such a good shot at the job. Bridgewater isn’t even trying very hard but throwing his own corporate welfare earnings into the campaign instead, which is a valid but unfortunate choice.

Polls seem to show Lee ahead so far in spite of Bridgewater’s money.

In November, you’ll have the choice of Sam Granato.  As a Democrat in Utah, he won’t find it as easy to raise money as the Republicans;  big donors prefer to give money only to the sure thing.  But he’ll work a lot harder for us.

Standard Oil of California (dba Chevron) was out in force in Liberty Park.  They had a lot of big trucks and one little canoe with a U-shaped boom trying to clean up oil slicks in the pond.  The Trib says the ducks and geese have been taken to Hogle Zoo for scrubbing.

The water looks browner and less green than I’m used to in June, but that’s probably because of all the rain we’ve been getting.