Immigration Law

NEW HOUSE IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE NAMED

By Greg Siskind

Chair: Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Ranking Member: Steve King (R-IA)

Democrats:

Howard Berman (D-CA)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Maxine Waters (D-TX)
Pedro Pierluisi (D-Puerto Rico)
Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)
Linda Sanchez (D-CA)
Anthony Weiner (D-NY)
Charles Gonzalez (D-TX)
Bill Delahunt (D-MA)

Republicans:

Gregg Harper (R-MS)
Elton Gallegly (R-CA)
Dan Lungren (R-CA)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

A few observations. First, we're going to be keeping Congresswoman Lofgren as chair and that should be seen as good news. Lofgren has gained a reputation as someone who can work with Republicans and that's likely why she got the Ethics Committee chair as well as the Immigration Subcommittee.

The Democrats bigger majority has translated into a new seat for them and one less seat for the Republicans. Charles Gonzalez and Pedro Pierluisi are new members of the committee on for the majority party.

The Republicans, aside from only having six members of the committee compared to ten for the Democrats, have several new faces.

Jason Chaffetz replaces Chris Cannon, previously the sole pro-immigration member on the Republican side. Chaffetz beat Cannon in the Republican primary for his Utah seat largely on an anti-immigration platform. Also new are Ted Poe of Texas and Gregg Harper of Mississippi who, like Chaffetz, are also freshmen. Gone are Louie Gohmert of Texas, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Randy Forbes of Virginia.

Unless Poe and Harper surprise us, it is fair to say that the Republicans on the Committee are now 100% anti-immigration, something that will surely upset moderate members of the GOP who now realize that their party will be in a permanent, shrinking majority as they further alienate Hispanic voters. Of course, with only six out of sixteen votes, they can make noise, but can't really do much to stop the Democrats if their counterparts are relatively united on an issue. And that may be very important this year.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on January 22, 2009 (boomark / email).