It comes from both Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Democratic Senator Evan Bayh (an interview with whom Dionne referenced), of Indiana, in this recent Dionne column. In discussing the failure of the recent immigration bill to pass, Bayh and Dionne blame what they see as conservatives' (read: the Bush administration's) use of government:
"And the strongest arguments in the restrictionists' arsenal played on a widespread belief that the federal government was too incompetent to enforce whatever tough provisions the bill contained. Bayh pointed to poor planning for the Iraq war and the failure to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as leading inevitably to skepticism. "A government that's going to permit that is suddenly going to know how to make an entirely new employment system work?" Bayh asked."
Hmmm. Really? That explains it? One can't deny that some people may have felt that way. But what about the fact that the last time we passed an immigration "reform" bill, the legislation called the Simpson-Mazzoli bill of 1986, it too promised a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants...and tougher border enforcement. And what did we get? In 1986 there were approzimately 3 million illegal immigrants in this country. Today, the "official" count is 12 million; I suspect there are more than that. So the public rejection of this bill didn't necessarily have to do with revulsion at the Bush administration and its use of government; maybe instead it had to do with a lack of faith in immigration legislation, period, dating back over two decades.
