Gibbons, Porter are juggling stance on immigrants

J. Patrick Coolican and Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, May 16, 2006 | 8:44 a.m.

Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter voted for a House bill approved last year that would crack down on illegal immigrants and those - including businesses, churches and unions - who support them. The bill offered no guest-worker program or plan to move illegal immigrants toward citizenship.

Monday, however, the Nevada Republican congressmen said they favor the approach President Bush outlined in a nationally televised address. Bush's proposal includes a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship once illegal immigrants clear a set of hurdles. Bush also announced that he was sending 6,000 National Guardsmen to help secure the border.

Porter and Gibbons said in interviews that they had not changed their positions. They said the plan all along on Capitol Hill was to pass a tough border-protection act in the House and then compromise with a Senate bill. Drafts of the Senate legislation call for reforms similar to those outlined by Bush.

"The arrangement was for both houses to do border security, and the Senate to do a guest-worker program, and then bring them together," Porter said.

"Our bill wasn't intended to become the final product," said Gibbons, who's also a candidate for governor. "It was meant to start the ball rolling."

House Republican leaders and many party conservatives, however, are standing by the House bill and continue to express opposition to basic elements of the Senate legislation.

The Washington Post recently reported that House Majority Whip Roy Blunt does not favor offering the path to citizenship called for by Bush, unless it forces illegal immigrants to return home first.

Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and author of the House bill, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last month that he's "disturbed" by Bush's attempt to create a path to citizenship.

Culinary Union Staff Director Kevin Kline said Monday that Porter and Gibbons had indeed changed their position on immigration reform. The shift came after casino executives and workers met with the lawmakers in Washington last week and delivered 42,000 signatures on a petition calling for a way for illegal immigrants to become legal workers and, eventually, citizens, Kline said.

"When we left for Washington, D.C., they were in the other column," Kline said of the two Nevada representatives. "When we came back, they had changed."

These conflicts underscore how politically perilous immigration is for Republicans, who do not want to alienate Hispanics or the industries that employ them in large numbers, but also have to answer to the party's working-class base.

Congressional Republicans have received tens of thousands of letters and phone calls, with the vast majority demanding greater border security above all. Lawmakers say they have rarely seen such intense and one-sided feeling on an issue.

A spokesman for Sen. John Ensign, the one member of the Nevada delegation who continues to favor tough border security before a worker program, said that between April 15 and May 15 constituents sent 4,500 messages by e-mail, regular mail and telephone, with the vast majority favoring tightened security and law enforcement.

Republicans are fearful of a restive base, which, if it stays home in November out of dissatisfaction with their elected officials, could deliver one or - possibly - both houses of Congress to the Democrats.

At the same time, the GOP fears alienating Hispanics, a rapidly growing demographic, many of whose children are American-born citizens who will be able to vote in the next decade or two.

The potential of an active Hispanic political community was in evidence during massive rallies recently held around the country.

"If they lose the Latino vote the way they lost the black vote, they'll be out of power forever," said David Lublin, an expert on Congress at American University.

Porter faces a well-funded Democratic challenger in Tessa Hafen, who has the financial and political support of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and has deep Nevada roots. Porter's district is evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans.

In his gubernatorial race, meanwhile, Gibbons is running statewide, fending off primary challengers before meeting either Nevada Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus or Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson.

Although the issue is also risky for Democrats, their base is not as moved by the issue, according to polls, which gives them more leeway.