This August, tell Congress what you think -- Aug. 1, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

With Congress on a five-week vacation, it’s your chance to give your House member and senators a piece of your mind.

An old-fashioned town hall meeting is probably coming your way. Yes, tweeting is faster, but getting in a lawmaker’s face? Priceless.

When Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., sponsored a town hall meeting in Lynchburg last month, the last person to stand and speak was Dulce Elias, 16, whose parents brought her to the United States when she was 3.

“I love it here. This is my country. I want to keep on pursuing my education and I want to serve my country. But I can’t because I am undocumented,” Elias said, choking up, the News & Advance reported. 

Please, she implored Goodlatte, help the children whose parents brought them here and have done nothing wrong.

Goodlatte, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, strongly opposes immigration reform until the borders are secure and enforcement is tightened. He’s no fan of citizenship for all 11 million undocumented individuals, but he said he would look into the issue.

“Maybe for someone like you, it could include a pathway for citizenship,” he said.

In 2009, tea party activists hijacked town hall meetings and turned them into shouting matches over health care reform and federal spending. In 2010, many Democratic members of Congress skipped town halls to avoid a scene with constituents. Nobody loves being yelled at. This year, though, Democrats say they won’t cede the field and intend to talk about immigration reform. Republicans want to focus on, what else, the evils of “Obamacare” and big government.   

The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill June 27 that includes a path for citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. The Republican House leadership rejects that comprehensive approach and may vote on several separate bills this fall.   

Progressives will use the summer recess to pressure the GOP. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., had a warning for House members: “If you have a town hall or if you don’t, we’re going to find you in the grocery store because this is it. We’ve never been this close,” he said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Polls show public support for a path for citizenship, but House Republicans fear GOP challengers from the party’s anti-immigration wing. So Republicans in the House plan to focus on topics the party faithful can agree on.

To fight Obamacare, Heritage Action, an offshoot of the conservative Heritage Foundation, plans town hall meetings in nine cities between Aug. 19 and 29 -- Fayetteville, Ark.; Dallas, Tampa, Nashville, Birmingham, Ala., Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburgh, and Wilmington, Del. – The idea is to kill the health care law by starvation.   

“We’ll make sure lawmakers understand the American people expect then to defund Obamacare in its entirety,” said Heritage’s Michael Needham.

Democrats have warned that trying to defund the health law will result in a government shutdown, and that could have disastrous consequences for the economy.

Responsible Republican members of Congress who want to keep the government open have a tough job going against the anti-government tide. Video snippets posted online of a town hall meeting Monday in Wetumpka, Ala., illustrate the problem.

Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., 37 and a second-term House member, met with skepticism from a tea party audience when she said shutting down the federal government was a bad idea.    

“If we shut the government down, I believe that’s exactly what Barack Obama wants us to do,” Roby said, explaining that Obama would win more seats in Congress in 2014, dooming Republican chances to repeal the health law.

“The last thing we need to do is to give this guy unfettered control for two years,” she said.

That wasn’t enough for a woman named Jody, who called Roby on the carpet for being too close to the “moderate elite establishment of the Republican Party, in particular John Boehner.” Roby tried to explain why being able to agree – and disagree -- with the House Speaker might be a good idea. No go.

Oh, the drama. I’m waiting for the reality TV folks to discover “Real Congress of Grassroots America.” Until then, check out a town hall meeting in a town or city near you this summer.

(Marsha Mercer writes from Washington. You may contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com)

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Readers advise GOP: Change now -- July 18, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Last month, I asked readers how the GOP could freshen its appeal to young voters and avoid another presidential election drubbing. Today we’ll hear their advice.

  

“Change. Develop and implement policies that benefit young voters. Reduce student loan costs and or the need for student loans,” wrote David Browning of North Chesterfield, Va., in a letter to the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Browning had other good ideas but let’s stop at student loans. Congress has been stymied trying to roll back interest rate hikes on new Stafford student loans, which doubled this month to 6.8 percent. This week, there were signs of progress. Senators of both parties agreed Wednesday on a deal to lower rates temporarily, and the White House indicated President Obama would go along. Look for action before the August recess.

   

A reader named Robert who described himself as an “old time, left out Republican” emailed me to say that Republicans have “forgotten their roots: Lincoln. Roosevelt. Eisenhower, and the good side of Nixon…the Republicans need to be born again.”

He advised:  “Tune out the radio talking heads and turn off Fox TV. Young voters are interested in jobs, education and the environment. They believe in science. They have gone to school with other races and with immigrants. They know gays and lesbians…Young people cannot relate to the racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant attitude of many of the GOP leaders.”

There’s a lot to think about in that one paragraph, but immigration tops the list for a successful Republican future.

The Republican National Committee’s “Growth and Opportunity Project” report released earlier this year said Republicans must “embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform” if they’re to have any hope of attracting minority voters. Young voters also overwhelmingly favor changes in immigration policy.

Among 18- to 29-year-old voters, 68 percent say illegal immigrants should be given a chance for legal status and only 28 percent favor deportation, the Pew Research Center reported after analyzing exit polls from the 2012 election.

Voters under 30 are the most ethnically and racially diverse of any age group, says Pew. The share of  young voters who are white has declined 16 percent since 2000. Back then, 74 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 identified themselves as white. By 2012, whites were 58 percent of the voters under 30. 

Eighteen percent of voters under 30 said they were Hispanic, 17 percent African American and 7 percent mixed race.

   

So, while some analysts say the GOP hasn’t tapped out on white voters and could still win elections by attracting more whites, a single-race strategy is more than a bad idea. It’s also likely a short-term one.   

Ethnic diversity is as American as tacos, but House Republicans have stalled efforts to pass immigration reform -- comprehensive or piecemeal. Supporters of reform are talking about a major push to sway House members during the August recess, Aug. 5 to Sept. 9. If they’re successful, watch for votes in September.    

What besides a change in policy might Republicans do to attract young voters? A reader named Mary proposed a marketing campaign to rebrand the party: train candidates in the art of public speaking and language, divide the “market” into special interest groups and appeal to each group with buzz words, and build relationships with public figures.

That sounds promising, except that the rising young stars in the GOP – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, 43; Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, both 42, and Rand Paul, 50 – appeal to right-wing believers, not to a new target audience.   

Freshman Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., 36, has wowed conservatives by condemning a path to citizenship and any compromise on immigration. Cotton has “the poise of Bill Clinton but the politics of Rush Limbaugh,” Robert Costa wrote in National Review Online.

Democrats like to say the new breed of Republicans has young faces and old ideas. The GOP may need to be born again politically but change will be a tough sell to the Republican base, especially if change smells like retreat. Here’s one more reader’s advice:  

Republicans should simply “cite facts, logic and history” to young voters, the man wrote, adding, “And for God’s sake don’t apologize – for ANYTHING!”

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Enough crust already -- it's time for Romney and Obama to roll out policy -- June 21, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wrapped up a bus tour of rural America in Michigan, where he rolled out a crust for an Honest Abe cherry-apple pie. When it came to policy, though, the five-day trip offered only crumbs.

President Barack Obama flew to an international summit in Mexico that yielded moody photos of the president on the world stage along with reassuring words about progress – and little of substance.

To hear Romney talk, Obama is a job-killing big spender who wants to put America on the path to Europe. Obama contends that Romney wants to slash taxes for the wealthiest while cutting the jobs of teachers, firefighters and police. Fact checkers say both camps are stretching the truth.

For voters who are sick of the endless “trust me – not him” attacks -- and that’s most of us, right? -- there’s good news. The stars may be aligning to force Obama and Romney to show their policy hands.

The Supreme Court likely will issue blockbuster decisions this week on health care and immigration. If, as many analysts expect, the court strikes at least part of the Affordable Care Act, Obama will be called on to explain the next phase of his health reform strategy.

Publicly, the president says he believes the law will be upheld and has made no contingency plans. At fundraisers behind closed doors, however, he reportedly has said he won’t give up on reform. He needs to tell the rest of us his plans.

Romney promises to repeal “Obamacare” his first day in office, but he also promises to save the most popular parts of the law, such as parents’ insurance coverage for children up to age 26. Romney has been vague about whether he’ll ensure that people with pre-existing conditions are covered under his plan. He will be pressed on how his plan would work, absent the linchpin of the individual mandate, which requires everyone to purchase insurance, spreading the cost.

On immigration, Obama showed the power of the incumbency last week when he announced that his administration would stop deporting young people who were brought to this country illegally as children, if they meet certain conditions. Up to 1.4 million children and adults who are in the country illegally could benefit from the change, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center. Nearly two-thirds of likely voters support the change, a Bloomberg poll found.

Romney, who took a hard line during the primaries against illegal immigration, is heading for a kinder, more bipartisan stance. The immigration plan he sketched Thursday included more favorable treatment for “the best and brightest” immigrants and a path to citizenship for military veterans. Romney needs to say whether he would repeal Obama’s non-deportation rule.

Raising the stakes on immigration will be the Supreme Court’s decision on Arizona’s strict immigration law. The Obama administration challenged the 2010 law that requires police officers to ask for immigration papers if the officers believe individuals they’ve stopped are illegal immigrants. Other provisions make not carrying immigration papers and unauthorized work crimes.

Although Nov. 6 is nearly five months away, the calendar also prods Romney and Obama to focus on issues. Thirty-two states allow early voting, and the start dates vary. Voting begins in Iowa Sept. 27. That’s fewer than 100 days away.

Iowa is one of the swing states Obama won last time that Romney visited on his “Every Town Counts” bus tour. The Obama administration released a 32-page report touting its help for rural areas, and the Obama campaign promises an unprecedented ground game in the battleground state.

In a close election, analysts say, rural voters in a few swing states could determine who wins the White House, or Hispanic voters could, or African American or gay voters.

One thing does unite voters as we choose the next president, and that’s the need to look past clever slogans and symbols. Policy may not be as easy as pie, but it matters a lot more.

© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30