With headlines like “Dreier slams immigration compromise” and “Dreier rejects Senate version of immigration bill” you’d think Dreier might have learned a lesson from 2004, when talk radio decided to eat its own. Here’s an account from Wikipedia (if someone has another source, I’d appreciate it):

In the run-up to the 2004 elections, their main issue was fighting what they saw as misguided policies of the federal and California state governments to encourage illegal immigration. John and Ken devised a “competition” that they dubbed Political Human Sacrifice, in which five Republican Representatives from California were grilled regarding their stance on illegal immigration. The “winner” would be the Representative whom the show’s listeners saw as the worst on illegal immigration restriction; John and Ken would endorse his or her opponent in the general election and urge listeners to vote for the opponent. Political Human Sacrifice was conducted in a fashion similar to reality television series such as Survivor. U.S. Representative David Dreier won the nomination as the “victim” of the “sacrifice.” John and Ken also designated a Democratic Congressman, Joe Baca, to be “sacrificed” in the general election. The comments about Dreier resulted in a complaint to the Federal Elections Commission being filed by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which as of September 30, 2005, has not resulted in any action taken. As it turned out, both Dreier and Baca won reelection, but this apparently has not deterred John and Ken from their activism on this issue. Dreier outspent his opponent by 30 to 1 and won with 54% of the vote versus 43% for his opponent, his lowest percentage in 24 years. ^[1] On the other hand, Baca appeared to have been unaffected as he garnered 66.4% of the vote in 2004, exactly the same percentage as his 2002 vote.[2][3]

Wherever Dreier is now on immigration (pro-guest workers, anti-amnesty?) the anti-immigrant crusaders are having none of it:

The immigration legislation proposed by some in Congress would terribly diminish the well-being of our children and future generations, and the American people must remind their representatives to whom they are responsible.

The campaign by Rep. David Dreier to legalize 20 million illegal aliens in our country is appalling. Such a perfidious action would inevitably lead to even more illegal entries into our country as did the amnesty of 1986. The resulting chain migration of family members could explode our population to half a billion by 2050.

The L.A. Times article of Jan. 16 quoted Dreier saying “any final bill that emerges from the House and the Senate must include a guest-worker program both for future migrants and for illegal immigrants already here.”

Dreier’s “guest worker” plan would let the 20 million people here illegally continue to reside, work and have families here and then irrationally expect them to voluntarily return to their home country after several years or allow them to remain indefinitely.

The Dreier camp excuses this plan by saying it is not “amnesty,” as though that makes any difference, but that is dishonest semantics. What else is it if you allow law-breakers to go unpunished and even reward them by letting them keep what they obtained by breaking our laws?

I believe the best solution is to end Dreier’s 25-year stay in office. And the best way to accomplish this is to elect the one candidate who pledges to enforce our immigration laws and secure America’s borders. He is Sonny Sardo, lifetime Republican, community activist, combat veteran and a devoted family man. And, as a successful businessman, he means what he says.

So what does Russ Warner think about immigration?

Warner understands the immigration issue and his response is very reasonable: to crack down on the big businesses that encourage illegal immigration by hiring illegals.

Sounds sensible enough. Anyone have more details?

Posted: 05|29|06 at 1:40 am. Filed under: David Dreier, immigration.

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