With just one year left prior to the midterm elections, advocates for immigration reform hoping to kickstart debate on Capitol Hill intended to target a group of the Republican lawmakers that they believe are the most likely to encounter political fallout should Congress fail to pass reform legislation.
A new campaign is to marry the political and financial power groups of the SEIU and AFL-CIO labor unions with the more small-scale immigration advocacy groups such as PICO National Network, CASA In Action, America’s Voice and Mi Familia Vota, in order to target nine Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives who believe that it would be a good idea to establish a method of offering a pathway to US citizenship to eligible undocumented immigrants.
The campaign is to target Jeff Denham, David Valadao, Howard “Buck” McKean and Gary Miller (all from California) as well as Scott Tipton and Mike Coffman from Colorado, and Daniel Webster, Steve Pearce and Joe Heck. All these Republicans represent districts that have a sizeable population of Latino voters who helped President Barack Obama back to power last year and have voiced public support for a revamp of the country’s immigration laws.
The goal of the campaign, according to organizers, is to put pressure on the lawmakers so that they will back up their public statements by lobbying Republican leaders and colleagues in the House of Representatives to permit votes on immigration bills, a series of which have been introduced in recent months, or else the group intends to campaign to see them defeated in next year’s elections.