Alongside President Bush, Arlen Specter was a consistent Republican supporter of comprehensive immigration reform. Given the Obama administration's recent murmuring about prioritizing the issue -- a commitment some have doubted -- the loss of bipartisan support could represent a setback for immigrants' rights.
After the June 2007 defeat of the McCain-Kennedy immigration compromise, Specter wrote a Washington Post op-ed outlining a third approach he believed would gain more GOP support: giving green cards to the nation's 12 million undocumented immigrants, but withholding citizenship and the right to vote. That, of course, would prevent an influx to Democratic Party voting rolls.
Now that he's a Democrat, will Specter continue to promote this idea, or will he be on board with a path toward full citizenship? And are there any Republicans or moderate Democrats out there who would've used Specter's Republican support as cover to support immigration reform themselves? One guy to watch is McCain, who flip-flopped on his own immigration bill during the campaign season, and in 2010 will face re-election in Arizona, a state with a nativist right-wing base. The other prominent Republican immigration moderate is South Carolina's Sen. Lindsay Graham, who has recently criticized Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for not requesting more money from Congress for border security.
On the Democratic side, a number of senators from swing and Rust Belt states voted against comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, including Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jim Webb of Virginia, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Jon Tester and Max Baucus of Montana. Of course, the electorate has moved left over the past two years -- but the simultaneous deepening of the economic crisis could raise some voters' hackles about job competition from immigrants.
--Dana Goldstein
