No, this isn't the big Texas Senate diary I've been talking about but I read an article in on Huffington Post today from Frank Sharry, founder executive director of America's Voice, where he talks about the role Senator John Cornyn (R. TX) could play in derailing immigration reform. Sharry highlights how this would be the first time Cornyn derailed immigration reform while making himself out to be a supporter of immigration reform:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
From 2005 through 2007, the group I headed worked closely with Senators McCain and Kennedy to pass bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform. In 2005 and 2006 Senator Cornyn teamed up with Senator Kyl of Arizona to propose an alternative bill. He made eloquent speeches about the need for reform. He issued positive press releases on his hopes for reform. He held meetings with advocates for reform. We believed -- and hoped -- he was positioning himself to be the deal maker on a bill that would fix our immigration system once and for all.
Unfortunately, Cornyn turned out to be typical politician. All hat and no cattle. As the immigration bill moved to the Senate floor in 2006, he proposed poison pill amendments to weaken support for it. He voted against it, even though 23 other Republicans voted for it. It turned out all that posturing was aimed at undermining, not enacting, reform.
In 2007, Senator Cornyn's hardline friend, Jon Kyl, decided to fight for reform rather than against it. Kyl engaged in bipartisan negotiations. The bill that emerged was similar to the earlier Cornyn-Kyl bill. President Bush and Senator Kyl fought for it. Senator Cornyn proposed poison pill amendments to weaken support for the bill. He then voted against it.
It was June 28, 2007. The bill negotiated by Kyl to win over Republicans such as Senator Cornyn had just gone down to defeat. And then, none other than Senator Cornyn stood up to give a speech on the Senate floor -- about the need to pass immigration reform!
He said, "This is a big issue, one that is worthy of the greatest deliberative body in the world -- the U.S. Senate -- and it is an issue on which I assure each of my colleagues that I intend to do my part to try to solve." But we all knew reform would be derailed for years after this defeat, and when Cornyn had his chance to resolve it just moments earlier, he voted no. - Frank Sharry, Huffington Post, 4/12/13
Sharry also points out that Cornyn derailed immigration reform again in 2010. This time it was the DREAM Act that fell victim to Cornyn scumbag tricks. Cornyn called for immigration reform then voted against the DREAM Act. Lately, he's been calling for more border security even though numerous reports showing that the border is more secure than it's ever been:
http://lubbockonline.com/...
Doubling down on their vows to focus on border security before considering immigration reform, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, will file legislation on Tuesday, April 9, that will further scrutinize how well the federal government protects the U.S.-Mexico border.
A Cornyn aide said the Border Security Results Act will “lay down a marker for what must be done on the border security front before we can reform our broken immigration system.”
Cornyn currently serves as the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security Subcommittee, and McCaul is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Cornyn and McCaul’s border security bill will require the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, to readopt the metrics by which it determines if a portion of the border is under “operational control.”
Under operational control, illegal crossers are either detected, deterred or apprehended at the border or within 100 miles of the border. A 2011 Government Accountability Office study found that about 875 miles of the 2,000-mile southern border were under operational control. - Lubbock Avalanche Journal, 4/9/13
Sharry's suspicion that Cornyn will pull the same dirty tricks is justified. It's not just his past actions that are evidence, just look at who's been funding his campaigns:
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/...
What did that money buy? Earlier this month, Cornyn tweeted, “Friend on border sez 300 ppl coming across his property every night. And Napolitano sez border is under control?”
Cornyn’s idea of “robust” border security was made clear in an amendment he offered during debate over a supplemental spending bill three years ago. Cornyn’s amendment called for $3 billion to be spent on a mix of drones, border security guards, funding for 3,300 beds for immigrant detention over two years as well as 500 additional detention officers. In 2005, Cornyn’s immigration reform legislation called for 10,000 new ICE detention beds. - The Nation, 2/27/13
But Cornyn's tricks in derailing immigration reform might be the final straw for him in next year's election:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The growth of the Latino electorate has led some demographers to predict that Texas will go the way of California -- where an ascendant Latino electorate has now become the Republican Party's single biggest impediment to winning statewide office.
Cornyn would do well to study the recent history of Ronald Reagan's home state. The rise of the Democrats in California was caused not by the Democrats' electoral strategic brilliance - but by the political harakiri committed by the GOP in the 1990s.
In 1994, Gov. Pete Wilson, until then a rising star in the national GOP, got behind a very unfortunate voter initiative -- the now infamous Proposition 187 that was backed by leaders of the anti-immigrant movement. This popular measure called for, among other things, denying access to public education to undocumented kids.
Millions of American Latinos in California who had never before participated in politics took notice. Not surprisingly, the shock of having your friends' and neighbors' kids targeted by a mean-spirited law, pushed by a governor using the dog whistles of racial division, was a disaster for the California GOP. Latinos started to register to vote in droves. Many long-time green-card holders became American citizens -- with the express purpose of voting. Latinos now make up 38 percent of California's population -- and it is the critical pivot vote for any statewide office.
Today, thanks to Wilson's Proposition 187 and the effect it had on American Latinos, there is not a single statewide GOP elected official in California. Like the Dodo, the functional extinction of the state's GOP has occurred.
In Texas, a not dissimilar process is under way. Share of the Latino vote grew from 20 percent in 2008 to 25 percent of total votes cast in 2012. Should this trend continue, and demographers say it will, American Latinos will be a crucial voting bloc in elections in 2014, 2016 and beyond. Former Gov. Jeb Bush, rumored to be considering a run in 2016, has already predicted that in fact Texas could be turning purple as early as 2016.
But with a Republican lockdown on the white vote, the Texas GOP remains dominant in the state. Another shoo-in re-election victory for John Cornyn in 2014, right? - Fernando Espuelas, 3/25/13
I will be writing soon about how I would love to make Cornyn a top target in next year's election. If Espuelas is right, Texas could be moving into the Toss Up category sooner than we think. And if John Cornyn derails immigration reform, we'll have him to thank for helping turn the Lone Star State into a Purple State.