AP: “Republicans and Democrats will put good will to the test when Congress returns this week to potentially incendiary fights over nominations, unresolved disputes over student loans and the farm bill, and the uncertainty of whether lawmakers have the political will to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws. The cooperation evident in the Senate last month with passage of a bipartisan immigration bill could be wiped out immediately if Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., frustrated with GOP delaying tactics on judges and nominations, tries to change the Senate rules by scrapping the current three-fifths majority for a simple majority. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has indicated it’s a decision Reid could regret if the GOP seizes Senate control in next year’s elections.”
Jessica Taylor: “Some Republican lawmakers are increasingly facing a tough choice – support a comprehensive immigration bill and face a backlash from their own voters or oppose efforts to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented workers and contribute to larger GOP losses in the future. Republican strategists are already fretting about the long-term implications for the party if they reject a comprehensive immigration bill, but that’s a bitter pill for conservative activists to swallow, who are promising primary challenges and substantial blowback if lawmakers back reform. With fewer and fewer competitive House districts and Senate lawmakers who voted for the reform bill passed last week already facing threats of primary challenges, conservative activists are threatening to kill the effort, and it’s one reason GOP leadership and House Speaker John Boehner has been hesitant to even bring up the Senate bill for a vote.”
The American Action Network is going up today with a $100,000-plus national TV ad campaign, urging Republicans to support the Senate’s immigration reform bill and trumpeting the border surge in the legislation as the “toughest border security plan ever passed by Congress.” “Our southern border isn’t secure and it’s hurting our country,” said AAN Communications Director Dan Conston. “The conservative border surge plan is tough, enforceable, takes away discretion from the Obama Administration, and that would finally secure the border. We hope Americans call their Congressperson and tell them to support the conservative plan to secure the border.”