Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D. NV) is determined to make immigration reform a reality and he's doing so by using it to campaign against Rep. Joe Heck (R. NV-03):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
When anchor Jeff Gillan suggested that Heck has expressed support for immigration reform in spite of his tendency to vote with tea party Republicans, Reid butted in.
"You know I have to interrupt you. That, it just galls me -- what do you mean he supports it? Let him vote that way," Reid said. "He had one chance to vote. He voted to do something that is important to 800,000 to a million Americans, to give them some relief to the country. It's the only country they know and he voted against that."
Reid added that any attempt by Heck to present himself as a supporter of immigration reform was "hypocritical," saying Heck could easily "get things done" as a member of the majority party in the House of Representatives, if he so chose.
"He can't get things done because he votes with the tea party folks every time," Reid said. - Huffington Post, 12/4/13
Reid's not alone in putting the pressure on Heck:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/...
Left-leaning political advocacy groups have been campaigning for Nevadans to give Republican Rep. Joe Heck a mouthful. The question is whether they’re wasting their time.
Members and volunteers of a coalition called the Cost of Inaction are walking the streets, talking to voters, running advertisements, sending press releases, holding prayer vigils outside Heck’s office, and generally doing everything and anything they can to get people to tell him to support an immigration bill.
They say Heck isn’t doing enough, but Heck says he’s done plenty in Congress when it comes to immigration.
House Resolution 15 would give people in the United States illegally a pathway to citizenship, expand border security measures and reform the nation’s visa system.
“We need everyone’s voice in Congressional District 3 to convince Joe Heck to take action,” Anthony DeAngelo, communications director at the Nevada AFL-CIO, said to a group of volunteer canvassers last weekend. “We’re asking him to take action so we can actually solve the problem.”
One of those volunteers was David Faris, a member of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Faris walked around a Henderson neighborhood last weekend knocking on doors and talking to anyone who answered about immigration reform.
He told one woman that “it just takes five minutes to make one call and to tell him (Heck) you’re for immigration.” - Las Vegas Sun, 11/24/13
Heck is also one of the Republicans Democrats are hoping to defeat next year and have been piling on the attack ads:
http://thenevadaview.com/...
Facebook ad 1:
This ad sponsored by the National Pro Life Alliance, caught my eye. They are presumably raising questions about Heck’s pro-life position. See ad here:
Facebook ad 2:
This ad, sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reminds folks that as long as Congressman Heck is in office, government shutdowns are a recurring possibility.
Web Ad:
The Cost of Inaction campaign is targeting Joe Heck for failing to support a bill on comprehensive immigration reform that has already passed the U.S. Senate with bi-partisan support. Heck’s campaign says he supports “immigration reform,” but it is always in some nebulous terms which allow him to avoid any true commitment to real change. 74% of his constituents support immigration reform with a path to citizenship, a hanging point for Mr. Heck. - The Nevada View, 11/12/13
To his credit, Heck has made some effort in the House to get some for of immigration reform passed:
http://www.latinopost.com/...
In the wake of an upcoming election, Republican Rep. Joe Heck is shopping for an immigration reform bill that would appeal to the large Asian-American and Hispanic-American populations within his Las Vegas district.
The draft bill would cancel the deportation of young immigrants who were brought to the United States before age 16, granting them conditional resident status and eventually a path to citizenship, reports 89.3 KPCC.
The bill appeals to the "DREAMers," one of the most vocal reform groups. In the bill, individuals who graduated from high school or earned a GED and who are attending college or technical school, have begun an apprenticeship or joined the military and have stayed out of trouble would be able to apply for conditional permanent resident status.
Later, they would be eligible for naturalization.
Heck, a two-term Republican lawmaker in Nevada, presented the bill last week to a group of local and national immigration reform groups, labor unions and business and education groups at the Humana Green Valley Guidance Center in Henderson.
Whether or not Heck takes the next step and introduces the reform bill in Congress depends on the buy-in he gets from constituent groups. So far, no other House Republican has moved ahead on a similar DREAM bill. - The Latino Post, 12/2/13
But Reid's overall goal is to pressure vulnerable Republicans to get Speaker John Boehner (R. OH) off the sidelines and actually do something. And Reid believes that this pressure is really getting to Boehner:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
“I feel positive we will get an immigration bill passed,” Reid said Tuesday in an interview with the Las Vegas Sun's editorial board.
For months immigration reform has stalled in the House, where Republicans took issue with the Senate's comprehensive reform bill because it contained a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, among other gripes.
Reid told the Las Vegas Sun that a minority of House Republicans would have to join with Democrats to pass reform legislation containing a pathway to citizenship. But he predicted Boehner was "going to cave in," citing polls that showed Hispanic and Asian voting blocs support a pathway to citizenship.
The GOP will bow to pressure from those minority groups if it "ever wants to elect a Republican president again," the majority leader said. - TPM, 12/4/13
And there's some strong evidence that Reid might be right. Boehner recently hired Rebecca Tallent, the immigration policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, to help out with immigration reform:
http://www.msnbc.com/...
Becky Tallent, an immigration policy wonk, is a well-known figure among immigration advocates, having helped spearhead Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform under President George W. Bush. This year, she took a prominent role in the debate as director of immigration policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, where she organized a team of pro-immigration Republicans and Democrats, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell in an effort to craft a workable policy proposal. - Benjy Sarlin, MSNBC, 12/3/13
And here's why that's important to know:
http://www.msnbc.com/...
To be sure, a new policy aide does not a position make, and the Speaker hasn’t played a constructive role on immigration all year. But it’s hardly unreasonable to think Boehner wouldn’t bother hiring Tallent if he intended to let immigration reform wither on the vine in 2014.
Indeed, as Sarlin added, far-right immigration opponents are well aware of Tallent’s work and are not at all pleased with the Speaker’s choice in aides: Mark Krikorian of the hardline Center for Immigration Studies derided Tallent as “McCain’s amnesty captain” on Twitter and warned Boehner was signaling his intention to push for reform.
Former McCain aide and reform proponent Ana Navarro added, “You don’t hire Becky Tallent if what you want is someone to twiddle her thumbs and just buy you time. You hire Becky to help craft solutions and turn them into law.” - MSNBC, 12/4/13
Reid's feeling confident but you can tell he likes a sure bet. That's why he's calling out Heck on action, especially since both Reid and Heck hail from a state with a thriving Latino population. If you live in Nevada, please do tell Heck that actions speak louder than words and to put pressure on Boehner to bring immigration reform up for a vote:
202-225-3252
https://heck.house.gov/...