All tonight's GOP Prez Primary winners want mandatory E-Verify, but House GOP leaders say a bill would hurt GOP Prez chances?
All three Republican candidates who won all 10 state Republican Primaries tonight support national mandatory E-Verify to take jobs from illegal aliens and put millions of unemployed Americans back to work.
But the House Republican leadership won't bring a mandatory E-Verify bill to the floor because they apparently feel it would hurt Republican chances of winning the presidency in the fall.
What's wrong with this picture?
Publicly, the House Republican leaders aren't explaining why they have stonewalled the Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 2885) after it came out of the House Judiciary Committee last September.
But behind the scenes, this is one thing we hear from sources across Capitol Hill and from Republican political consultants: The House GOP leaders believe that voting on any bill that reduces illegal immigration will so inflame Hispanic voters that a Republican candidate for President won't be able to win in the fall.
We are left with that as the primary description of what is going on, since the House GOP leadership won't give a public explanation for blocking an E-Verify vote.
My first reaction is that if this is their excuse, I am outraged that they would be willing to keep hundreds of thousands of Americans jobless this year alone because of raw, partisan political maneuverings.
My second reaction is that the Republicans running for the Presidential nomination perhaps ought to be the ones determining whether an issue is good or bad for them.
My third reaction is that the Republican Presidential candidates have already pretty much ruined the House GOP strategy anyway. The three winners last night -- Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney -- have all been clear in their campaigning for months that national mandatory E-Verify is a cornerstone of their plans to deal with illegal immigration.
The top winner last night -- Romney, who now has more delegates than the other candidates combined -- has made national mandatory E-Verify one of the things he boldly makes a lead item in his campaigning.
I'm pretty sure that all the open-borders forces that will be trying to demonize any candidate who opposes illegal aliens having jobs will be targeting the Republican nominee with full force regardless of what the House votes on the floor.
So, what is going on here?
Is this a case of House GOP leaders illogically and blindly following some out-of-date game plan that some consultant laid down for them last year? Or have they leaked this story of their concern about Hispanic voters as a smokescreen for the fact that they really are just protecting some high-roller donors who profit off illegal immigration? What is your sense of why they won't allow an E-Verify vote?
One thing for sure: The three leading GOP Prez candidates are not afraid of E-Verify. They've seen the polling that shows only 1 out of 8 likely voters of any Party opposes national mandatory E-Verify.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA