Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Stinging Tea Party Scorpions

An old fable gets a new twist: House Tea Party diehards face retribution from the immigration tortoises they are trying to drown.

Backers of reform will spend $1 million dollars in the districts of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Darrell Issa and eight others to blast them for refusing to deal on the issue that Republicans only a few months ago recognized as crucial to their future chances to win the White House.

But now, just as a GOP scorpion stings the tortoise carrying him to safety because “it’s in my nature,” immigration proponents are striking preemptively to hit the Tea Party where it hurts.

As House leaders stall on the bill passed by the Senate last week, a huge coalition supporting reform says it will launch an “all-in throw-down” this month to force a vote. “We need a vote on citizenship,” says a labor union spokesperson. “The immigrants deserve that, and our country deserves that.”

As the Obama Administration disappoints ardent supporters by announcing a one-year delay in implementing health care reform, the immigration pushback is a heartening sign that Democrats may be gathering their forces to solve the President’s overriding problem: cutting down the Tea Party faction that is blocking everything he is trying to do by unseating some of them in next fall’s elections.

If Boehner. Cantor and their recalcitrant cohorts start to feel the heat of voter wrath, there could be a start to loosening the Congressional logjam on other issues. Somewhere, at long last, even scorpions must have a survival instinct.

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