House Democrats continue to batter against the brick wall of Speaker John Boehner's refusal to allow a vote on immigration reform (along with extending emergency unemployment aid, raising the minimum wage, and a host of other popular measures). Democrats are
launching a discharge petition pushing for a vote on a bill similar to the Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill.
Like other discharge petitions Democrats have circulated recently, this one stands little chance of getting the Republican signatures needed. But Greg Sargent points to a way a discharge petition could produce results even without enough signatures:
[T[he more important aim is to give those House Republicans who are generally pro-reform a hook to exert more private pressure on GOP leaders to act, by letting the piecemeal reform proposals that are knocking around among House Republicans get a vote.
I’m told immigration advocacy groups and labor have drawn up a target list of around 30 House Republicans who have previously expressed public support for reform and/or a path to citizenship, to be targeted with pressure back home in their districts.
Among the Republicans on that list: David Valadao, Jeff Denham, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Joe Heck, Daniel Webster, Aaron Schock, and Kevin McCarthy, who is the third ranking GOP leader but represents a lot of Latinos and has expressed support for legal status.
Of course, we hear about a lot of policies a few Republicans support in theory yet mysteriously oppose—it's a question of voting for an actual bill. But the Republicans on this list could potentially put a lot of pressure on Boehner to allow a vote. And while other House Republicans might not currently face electoral damage for opposing immigration reform, they really should look at demographics and consider their party's fate in statewide and presidential elections and in the longer term.