This is refreshing
Refreshing, and rare.
But it shouldn’t be.
What’s so refreshing? What’s so rare? A columnist who supports the president’s policy position on immigration—but deplores his doing it by executive action.
Meet Linda Chavez:
President Obama is expected to act in the next few days to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, fulfilling a promise he made before the election.
Giving legal status to people who have lived and worked in the United States for a decade or more ”” paid taxes, kept out of trouble, contributed to their local economies and raised children who are US citizens ”” is the right and moral thing to do.
But the right thing to do isn’t necessarily legal when it means bypassing Congress ”” and Obama’s decision has as much to do with politics as it does morality…
It’s a terrible law ”” and one that is routinely flouted by ordinary Americans and that creates intrusive federal interference in the employment process for businesses.
Nonetheless, it remains the law of the land. The president may drag his feet on enforcing its provisions, but he can’t willy-nilly rewrite it on his own.
The president knows this. He’s stated so numerous times.
This is the sort of thing that used to be (at least, if memory serves me, and if I’m not just looking back on the past with a glow of warm nostalgia), if not common, then at least not all that unusual to hear from liberals. There might be disagreement with conservatives about specific policies, but agreement on the broad outlines of the way government should function if it is to follow the Constitution, and agreement that it should follow the Constitution.
Now such voices are so seldom heard that I feel the need to remark on one when I encounter it (Jonathan Turley, for example).
[ADDENDUM: See the comments section for a discussion of whether Chavez’s policy position on immigration should really be characterized as a “liberal” view or not.]
What Chavez, Turley, et al of their persuasion evidently have yet to realize is that the democrat party has left them far behind… and did so long ago.
Ms Chavez also posits that if you continuously break a federal law but are otherwise law abiding and don’t get caught for long enough, you should get a free pass and a permanent pardon.
I didn’t realize Linda Chavez was now considered a liberal. I remember her from earlier days when she worked for Reagan and G. W. Bush.
Ann:
When I was writing the article, I was trying to look her up to find out more about her, and couldn’t find information as to her political persuasion. However, from the evidence of the column, she clearly is in the liberal camp on immigration policy.
If she’s not a liberal at all, then she doesn’t constitute an exception, despite her liberal stance on this issue.
Turley, too, isn’t exactly a liberal, although he supports many many liberal stances on issues and voted for Obama in 2008. He is somewhat more of a libertarian.
So maybe he and Chavez don’t qualify as purely liberal. But at least they’re people who are supporting liberal policies and yet saying the ends don’t always justify the means.
I wonder if there are any “real” liberals who stick to constitutional guns on process.
Great. Chavez believes that the country should commit suicide by constitutional means. What a patriot.
Also, Ann is correct, Chavez is not really a “liberal” (i.e., leftist), she is an establishment neoconservative. She used to write for Commentary frequently. But she has always been for amnesty and essentially open borders, which is, unfortunately, an obsession the GOP establishment shares with the Democrats and the Left.
djf:
See my response to Ann, above.
Neo, I am vehemently against amnesty and in favor of restricting immigration, but I think you’re a little off in describing the pro-amnesty/open borders position as “liberal.” In fact, this is roughly the position of the GOP establishment (the Bushes, Rick Perry, McCain, Lindsay Graham, most other GOP senators when they’re telling the truth, the RNC, Fox News, Commentary, Fred Graham). Among our ruling class, it is a bipartisan position transcending differences on economis, fiscal policy, foreign policy, social issues. So, unfortunately, holding that position does not make Chavez a “liberal” on immigration.
djf:
The majority of Republicans, even establishment Republicans, do not hold that view. That some Republicans hold it does not mean it’s not a liberal view. The people you cite, such as McCain, adopt liberal views in certain areas.
If most establishment Republicans held that view, the law would have been passed long ago.
In that list of establishment conservative individuals and organizations who support amnesty and expanding immigration, I somehow left out the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which is just as fanatic on the issue as La Raza. As are the libertarians (Cato, Reason, Econlog), to the extent they make a difference.
Neo, I think you’re in denial about the views of the Republican establishment. Twice, once under Bush and once under Obama, the Republican establishment was on the verge of going along with the enactment of immigration “reform” and was only pulled back by rebellion from the base. You may call it a “liberal” position (using “liberal” as a synonym for “left,” which I don’t approve), but that does not really describe reality, either ideologically or politically.
djf:
“Establishment” Republicans have been the majority Republicans, and if they had wanted to pass it, it would have been passed. There were some who wanted to pass it (McCain, et. al), of course. But I repeat: if the entire establishment had wanted to join with Democrats to pass it, that would have been more than enough votes to pass it. That didn’t happen.
Of course, if you define a conservative Republican by whether or not he/she favored immigration reform (amnesty type) and nothing else, than of course all the RINOs wanted it and all the conservatives didn’t. But that’s not the way I define it.
I haven’t done a head count; don’t have time right now. But I don’t see how it wouldn’t have been passed if passing it was the completely accepted establishment position.
I think you misunderstand what I mean by “establishment”: not the majority of people who call themselves Republicans or conservatives, but the professional politicians, political operatives, consultants and functionaries, congressional and legislative staffs, most political journalists and opinions writers, and, probably most importantly, the donors (Adelson, Koch – the money people are almost always amnesty supporters). It is obvious to everyone, except maybe you, that most Republicans and conservatives in these categories desperately want to enact amnesty and increase legal immigration. Unfortunately for them, their political fortunes are tied to a base that does not want these things and is willing to rise up against its betters on this issue when the occasion calls for it. Perhaps you weren’t watching, but the Republican establishment desperately wanted to pass the Gang of Eight bill (which did pass the Senate fairly easily, with many or most Republicans voting for it – haven’t checked), and Boehner was itching to bring it to the floor in the House but the revolt of the base forced him to refrain from doing so.
I’ve followed Linda Chavez for a while — not as a fan of any sort, but as an observer. She ran for Senator from Maryland when I was a resident of that once-great state.
I used to check out Ms. Chavez’s op-ed columns. I have since stopped, because even when I agreed with her, I was learning nothing useful: her opinions were always expressed in what for me was very ho-hum, not clever or at all entertaining, language. For me, she was never insightful, even when I was agreeing with her, which was much more often than not.
Anyway . . . at least the Linda Chavez I used to read, was not “liberal”. Establishment conservative, measured. Civil.
She was a regular on a talk show (“To The Contrary”) hosted by Bonnie Erbe, whose panelists were all and only women, and she was routinely the *only* non-leftie there out of four or six women. She generally took the Republican/conservative view, and she held her own — and I have trouble seeing how she ever remained civil sparring with those hens [especially one or two whom I won’t name].
Must’a’ been something very good in her upbringing.
@ M J R,
She was the token “conservative” (actually, just a nominal Republican) in the same mode as David Brooks on the PBS News Hour.
The fig leaf that allows PBS to feign objectivity.
I also agree that her observations are banal.
PS I also strenuously object to her assertion that amnesty “is the right and moral thing to do.”
There are more people involved here than just Ms. Chavez and the illegal, and some of those people will be hurt by this.
I’m not sure what Obama or Linda Chavez think will happen when the illegals are granted amnesty, but one thing that will definitely happen is that the vast majority will be out of a job, either terminated because the employers can’t pay them minimum wage, or, more catastrophically, when the employers they work for go bankrupt trying to pay them all minimum wage. Much like Obamacare, the numbers simply can’t add up, not that the Administration has demonstrated any inclination to care.
What happens next will depend on how the newly unemployed Mexican-American citizens decide to respond to their mass layoffs. Pack their bags and travel back to Mexico peacefully is the best option, but also the least likely one. Start up their own businesses is another good option, but I wonder how much respect they’ll show the current regulatory climate.
Worst case, they’ll respond to mass layoffs the same way Americans throughout history have responded to being screwed over just when they thought things were looking up: booze up and make the LA riots look like a Girl Scout pep rally in comparison.
Regarding Ms. Chavez’s political persuasion, she might well be conservative on most issues but “liberal” on this one. She’s not wrong, after all. Something needs to be done about illegal immigrants, and we’re faced with nothing but terrible options, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. Mass deportation? Congratulations, you just crashed what’s left of the US’s agriculture and industrial base, because the immigrants were working hard at jobs that we, duped by Wilson’s “Great Society,” made illegal for American citizens to do. Mass amnesty? Better pair it with mass deregulation, or we’ll cause the collapse of our economy on ALL levels, just trying to meet our own impossible standards that require illegal immigrants to fill the necessary roles we made illegal for Americans to fill. Even letting things carry on as they have will eventually cause an overthrow of the existing system as soon as the illegals are rallied to civil war by a more ambitious con artist than the ones that are now rallying them to cast fake ballots for the Democrat party.
There are no good options, and a lot of ways to crash the whole house of cards. It may be that the only thing we can do is let it fall, and hope the majority of the blame lands on the smooth-tongued liberal demagogues that made the collapse inevitable.
Tatterdemalian Says:
November 15th, 2014 at 5:14 pm
I’m not sure what Obama or Linda Chavez think will happen when the illegals are granted amnesty, but one thing that will definitely happen is that the vast majority will be out of a job,
&&&
This happened in 1986-7 after the Reagan amnesty.
On the whole, they promptly went on welfare.
&&&
There is simply no way that the welfare rolls won’t explode with EO amnesty.
Additionally: unemployment insurance is not available to aliens. With EO amnesty, millions of freshly laid off aliens will qualify, tapping out the various state unemployment funds.
Such drains will happen even before the big downturn due to the 0-care tax impact.
We’ve been Hugo’d.
Lest we forget: Congress has the power to nullify EOs at will. It’s been done countless times before.
Such a stinger can be dropped into every critical piece of legislation that hits the President’s desk.
He’ll be forced to veto every act that reaches his desk — until HE shuts down the government.
&&&&
There is a Drudge laugh piece (Fleet Street) about Biden being insurance.
If the nation could survive Andrew Johnson, then Biden is a walk in the park.
FDR and Woodrow Wilson were so ill that they were medically incompetent to stay in office. Yet they did. The staffs picked up the slack and ran things without them. All substantive matters were simply held off until a new president came into office.
THIS is the reason why Harry Truman felt like the whole world had fallen on his shoulders — at once.
He was tasked with a decision back-log that ran back — in many cases — more than a year. (!)
And if Biden screws up: unlikely — then he can be impeached in turn.
Biden is very likely to be a status quo president. He certainly can’t ruin foreign policy — Barry has that covered.
djf:
Fourteen Republicans crossed the aisle in the Senate to vote for that bill, 32 voted against. The fourteen were: McCain, Rubio, Flake, Lindsay Graham, Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Jeff Chiesa (N.J.), Susan Collins (Maine), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Dean Heller (Nev.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). That is certainly not all the “establishment Republicans” in the Senate, with all the rest conservatives. Some of those usually considered conservative voted for it, and some of those usually considered establishment voted against it (most prominently McConnell). It was not just conservatives who were against that bill.
Also, the bill was a far cry from what Obama is about to do. It contained “triggers” to make sure the border was secure before it went forward.
I consider myself quite conservative on immigration, but if the border really were secure, I would consider some sort of arrangement by which the people already here could get some legal status. I don’t consider that unreasonable; I’m not sure there’s any other practical solution. But security must come first, and it must be very effective.
Boehner was not so eager to pass that bill, either. You can say that he was only responding to conservative pressure—and he definitely was under conservative pressure, but there is no indication it was only conservative pressure that made him hesitate. Right after it passed in the Senate, he said:
Here’s another statement by Boehner around the same time:
Doesn’t sound like someone eager to pass an amnesty bill to me.
“Immigration reform” can mean anything at all, including a stand-alone border security bill. You actually haven’t a clue what Boehner would prefer.
Here’s another post I wrote on this topic.
I do not understand why you and others like you think we must have some sort of amnesty/path to citizenship for illegals. Why do you, and others, want to sell my birthright cheap by giving it away to criminals (who are criminals by virtue of being here illegally)? I don’t get it.
RickZ:
Fascinating how you misread what I wrote.
Let me repeat: “I would consider some sort of arrangement by which the people already here could get some legal status.”
I did NOT mention citizenship, nor do I mean citizenship.
“Legal status” can cover a lot of territory, including some sort of guest worker program without citizenship. People would apply to it and there would be rules they had to follow, the border would be securely closed first (as I said) and the law’s continuance would be dependent on the security continuing, and any new people wanting to come would have to abide by the rules. The permit would be for a certain amount of time, would be available only to a certain number of people, and perhaps could be renewable for those already here when the law was passed. The reason to advocate this general approach is simple: the situation was allowed to get so terribly out of hand (which never should have happened) that it is almost a certainty that mass deportations will never occur.
And I said I would consider it. Whether I would support it would really depend on the details of the law.
I try to choose my words carefully. Not that I don’t sometimes make errors, but in general I don’t say what I don’t mean and I do say what I do mean, at least that’s what I aim for. The manner in which you leaped to an incorrect and more extreme (and outraged) conclusion about what I was saying is something I see frequently from a lot of people angry about this issue: the assumption that people are taking about citizenship when they are not.
I not only am not talking about citizenship, I did not say citizenship, and I have never advocated that, as far as I can recall, in any post I’ve ever written.
neo,
You can’t be so naive as to think they’ll only be giving out legal status cards to the current criminals invading our Nation? Remember proggie incrementalism.
Mass deportations may not occur, but if that is not done, bloodshed is certain. There aren’t jobs for Americans now, and we should give legal status to millions of these invaders so they can have jobs?
Barry wants violence, he’s egging us on with his imperiousness. We either back down in the face of cries of racism when we say such things about Chocolate Jesus or we give him what he wants. In spades.
By claiming there is no other practical solution, you are giving up. You are putting out a ‘welcome’ sign, allowing the invading hordes a place to stay at my expense. And we know that these new ‘legal status’ immigrants are not the most highly educated. They will do exactly what happened after the 1986 so-called immigration reform: They will go on the public dole, stealing money from us citizens. Why should we be the welfare capital of the world? I don’t remember that clause in the Constitution.
Seriously, why can we not kick out all the illegals? (Or, even better, make them self-deport by not allowing them to work, cut off public benefits, etc.) I understand we don’t have the balls thanks to PC crapola, but why can’t we enforce our laws on immigration, kicking out those here illegally? We wouldn’t be the first country around the world today to do such a thing.
RickZ:
Of course, any law can be flouted.
In fact, not passing such a law does nothing to avoid the flouting of the laws already on the books, does it?
If the border were to be actually sealed, I would study the proposals for guest worker status and then decide whether I thought much of them or not. I can certainly imagine a law that would be better than the current situation, where they’ll all here anyway, illegal and “undocumented.”
I notice you don’t address the fact that you were so certain I meant citizenship, and you were jumping to conclusions.
We could deport millions and millions of people, if we were willing to spend an extraordinary effort and a ton of money to do so, but we are not. Period. If you don’t understand that, you are the naive one.
Okay, here’s my deal:
1) Border secured, with military if necessary, with warnings that those arrested will be jailed for ten years, then deported.
Since 1) will never happen, I do not want amnesty/legal status/work visa/whatever. You want to come to this country, do so through the front door, not come in by breaking through a back window.
After our allegations about 404Care were proved true by Gruber’s big mouth, how can anyone trust this government when it comes to ‘comprehensive immigration reform’? Better to cut off benefits and have the illegals self-deport. Because once their gravy train ends, they will leave.