By Jack Roberts
Once upon a time, Oregonians expected to be leaders. The beach bill, the bottle bill, the aerosol spray ban, the initiative and referendum, even the gas tax -- all were Oregon innovations. But now that we are about to allow Oregon high school graduates who were brought here illegally as children to
, it seems we are lagging -- not leading -- the march of history in dealing with illegal immigration.
As an example of how far we've fallen behind on this issue, when the Oregon Senate joins the House in passing
and the bill goes to the governor's desk for signing, we will finally have caught up with Texas.
Historically, hostility to immigrants and immigration mostly came from workers who felt their livelihoods threatened by the competition from cheap (and hardworking) immigrant labor. Republicans, as the party of business, were initially more supportive of immigration, which critics claim is because we like cheap labor. That began to change with a strong backlash from conservatives to the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
This took a strong (and, many of us believed, disastrous) turn for Republicans in 1994 when California Gov. Pete Wilson tried to revive his political standing by pushing Proposition 187, which sought to deprive illegal immigrants of access to any government services. The measure passed easily, even among Latino voters, but the tone of that campaign began driving those same voters (the fastest-growing demographic in the country) away from the GOP.
The implications of this finally became clear last year, as the large turnout of Latino voters was a major factor in Democratic victories across the country, including several swing states. When Sean Hannity, a conservative talk show host on Fox News, suddenly announced that he had "evolved" on the issue of illegal immigration -- long a hot-button issue for him -- it was clear something had changed.
Enter "Immigration Wars," a new book that came out Tuesday and, thanks to Amazon's Kindle, I was able to start reading that very morning. Written by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and constitutional lawyer Clint Bolick, the book was intended to offer Republicans a more moderate and realistic approach to immigration reform.
Bush, whose wife, Columba, was born in Mexico and didn't become a U.S. citizen until several years after they were married, has long had a strong personal interest in immigration. Like his brother President George W. Bush, he has also been one of the Republican Party's most vocal supporters of a more tolerant and humane policy for dealing with illegal immigrants.
Bush and Bolick began writing this book last summer on the heels of a grueling Republican presidential primary season in which harshness on immigration seemed to become a litmus test for winning the nomination. Against that backdrop, the book they produced was intended to be a model of moderation and prudence.
But as with Oregon, by the time the book made it into print, events seem to have left at least a portion of their proposal behind. Eager to avoid being accused of supporting amnesty, they proposed permanent legal status for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as adults, but not a path to full citizenship.
In reality, that ship has already sailed. With eight Republican senators, including Florida's Marco Rubio and Arizona's John McCain, already supporting a path to citizenship, Bush and Bolick's proposal now seems punitive rather than generous. Fortunately, Bush himself recognized this and quickly expressed his willingness to support a path to citizenship the day the book was released. Unfortunately this has distracted attention from the very real value of the rest of the book.
Many people see this book simply as an attempt to launch Bush's 2016 presidential campaign. That's too cynical. It's more likely an effort to capitalize on all this early political speculation in order to draw attention to an issue that has long been close to his heart. Meanwhile, the fact that what was intended to be a bold new approach now seems almost retrograde is a testament to how far the country and Republicans in particular have come in just a few months.
Jack Roberts is a Eugene businessman and former Oregon labor commissioner. His columns appear on alternate Thursdays.