WEEK IN REVIEW: WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Some months back, in the heat of the immigration debate on Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave an evening talk at the National Archives about his scrappy roots in Searchlight and life in politics.

Afterward, he sat in an easy chair on a stage in the fairly full auditorium and took questions from the crowd, including one from a young Hispanic woman who asked what the Democratic leader would do about a provision in the immigration bill that would help young people who were here illegally.

Reid vowed that if the immigration compromise broke down, as it appeared headed to do, he would try to separately pass the Dream Act - legislation that would provide young undocumented immigrants who came to this country when they were 15 or younger access to college assistance, including lower in-state tuition. They could also begin to earn citizenship if they had clean criminal records and were enrolled in college or serving in the military.

Reid kept his promise as the Senate tried last week to pass the bill. But like so many Democratic-backed efforts this year, the legislation was unable to move forward after being blocked by mostly Republicans. It was shot down 52-44.

Nevada's Republican Sen. John Ensign voted against the bill. His party said the legislation would have awarded citizenship to more than 1 million illegal immigrants and nearly twice as many family members, essentially rewarding their illegal behavior.

Ensign has worked aggressively throughout the past two years of immigration debates to deny illegal immigrants access to Social Security benefits they have accrued while working under false names.

His past efforts have failed, but last week he racked up a win. The Senate voted 92-2 for his amendment to bar the Social Security Administration from paying benefits for work done under fraudulent or stolen Social Security numbers.

Following the vote, Ensign told stories of identity theft in a news release that said "many Southwest states have experienced a crime spree" because of illegal immigrants using stolen or falsified identities.

The Senate moved on to the next topic after the Dream Act's defeat, but gone was another chance to push the Democrats' agenda forward.

Skeptics say Democrats knew the bill would fail because it did not have widespread support, but figured they would get the political mileage that comes with being able to say they tried while blaming Republicans for blocking aid for immigrant children.

But these days, trying may no longer be enough.

Congress' approval ratings are at all -time lows, and even though Republicans are polling less popular than Democrats, the party in charge is aware of its public relations challenge.

Democrats are trying to get the word out about the party's accomplishments in raising the minimum wage and implementing the security recommendations of the Sept. 11 Commission even as Congress has failed to halt the Iraq war, the top voter issue.

Reid, too, is taking steps to improve the party's message by bringing back his former longtime chief of staff , Susan McCue, who had departed this year to work for Bono's global anti-poverty campaign. She will work part-time on strategy for her old boss.

The narrative of the 110th Congress ' success remains up for grabs, as it has for much of the year. The marketing forces on both sides of the aisle continue plying their craft, trying to convince voters their side is winning in Washington.

In the weeks to come, Nevada House members Shelley Berkley and Jon Porter could find themselves in the middle of partisan warfare.

Berkley, a Democrat, and Porter, a Republican, are both on the powerful Ways & Means Committee , which oversees tax issues, a first for the small state.

The committee is facing a massive tax reform bill, dubbed the "mother" of all revisions to the federal tax code.

The bill was introduced last week, and already the campaigns have begun.

The national partisan wrangling will come home to Nevada as Porter and Berkley join the debate that will surely form another critical chapter in the story line of this Congress.