Whenever President Barack Obama talks about the American people being ready to address a contentious issue, brace yourself. It usually means that he’s thinking in philosophical terms without committing to any details on areas where the real battles are waged.

Exhorting Congress to get the job done without providing specific direction has contributed to rising tension over health care reform. Look for more of the same on immigration.

As was the case with health care, early signals are bright on immigration. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York and chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, has vowed to introduce in September a comprehensive reform bill that would crack down on illegal immigration and create a path to citizenship for undocumented workers already in the country.

At a July 21 hearing, Schumer outlined a 10-point rubric for an electronic employment verification system that would include a biometric dimension to eliminate identity fraud. He got a couple amens from the Republican side of the aisle.

Schumer wants to overhaul the existing, government-run verification mechanism, E-Verify, which he calls “an example of a halfhearted and flawed system.”

Two days after Schumer’s hearing, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-North Carolina, reintroduced a bill that would expand E-Verify and make it permanent. The Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act almost got enough support last year to force a vote on the House floor over the wishes of Democratic leadership.

It looks as if the bill has momentum again this year, with 77 bipartisan co-sponsors already on board. It will compete for the hearts and minds of lawmakers with a measure backed by the Society for Human Resource Management that would build a verification system alternative to E-Verify.

Shuler wants to bolster work-site and border enforcement before Congress takes up a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Schumer seeks to do everything in a comprehensive bill.

“It’s the only way you’re going to get it done,” Schumer says.

The ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asserts that employment verification must “be done first” in the journey to comprehensive immigration reform.

“I’m agnostic whether it has to be one bill or not,” Cornyn says.

But Capitol Hill liberals don’t temporize about sequence. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus want all elements of immigration reform—addressing illegal immigrants already in the country and enforcement—tackled at once.

“The end of illegal immigration is only possible through effective employment verification as part of comprehensive immigration reform,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, testified at Schumer’s hearing.
 
Conservative Democrats are splitting from liberals on a major issue. Sound familiar? It may become similar to the fight that has broken out in health care reform over the House Blue Dog Democrats’ effort to achieve more savings in the House measure. 

While the verification battle is simmering, the Obama administration is making E-Verify the foundation of its crackdown on employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. The Department of Homeland Security touts the system’s effectiveness and says it is working to correct the identity fraud problem.

“The system has made dramatic improvements in reliability,” says Michael Aytes, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “That’s not really an argument at this point against the system.”

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, negotiators are trying to reconcile two homeland security appropriations bills that include different timelines for extending the E-Verify program.

It will take presidential leadership to sort out the swirl of employment verification activity. Obama will have to let Congress—especially his own party—know how he wants to proceed in order to avoid a breakdown like the one we’re seeing in health care reform.

By the standards of the congressional calendar, health care reform is flying along.

On Wednesday, July 15, the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee became the first Capitol Hill panel to approve a health care reform bill.

The draft measure was introduced a little more than a month ago. The committee then embarked on a five-week markup, considering hundreds of amendments and conducting 45 roll call votes.

Although it was a “long slog,” as Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said, it was a quick journey. And one in which Democrats traveled alone as they put together legislation affecting one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Republican amendments were adopted on only two of the formal votes. The tally on the final bill was 13-10 along party lines.

Despite the usual levels of senatorial collegiality, partisan fissures were apparent as the committee completed its work. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming and the senior Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Republican, said Republicans offered so many amendments because they were shut out of the drafting of the bill.

Enzi warned that the measure, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $611 billion over 10 years, would drive up the cost of health care while adding substantially to the national deficit.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, said the HELP bill will expand access, reduce costs and improve quality. Dodd chaired the markup in the absence of HELP chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who is battling brain cancer.

In Dodd’s view, urgency—and the quality of the bill—trumps bipartisanship. The latter is certainly laudable but not critical.

“I will not sacrifice a good bill for that,” Dodd said in a press conference following the committee vote. “Most of all, the American people want us to act.”

Enzi asserted that Democrats and Republicans should agree. “If the American people are going to be convinced [health care reform] will work, it needs to be bipartisan,” he said in a Capitol Hill press conference.

Tensions between Democrats and Republicans will not ease on the House side. Under House rules, the party in control—in this case, the Democrats—almost always gets its way. As three committees mark up the House bill, it’s safe to say that almost all Republican amendments will be voted down.

The only way that Republican ideas will make it into the bill is if enough moderate Democrats side with them. In a letter last week, 40 members of Democratic Blue Dog Coalition sent a letter to House leaders expressing concerns that the House bill is not deficit neutral and could hurt small businesses. If the 40 Blue Dogs join all 178 Republicans in opposing the House bill, they would add up to 218, or a House majority.

That outcome is unlikely because House leadership will work hard to assuage the Blue Dogs. A final vote on a House bill will be largely along party lines.

The place to look for bipartisanship is the Senate Finance Committee. That panel has been struggling for weeks to craft a bill. Its chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, is a mostly conservative Democrat who has a reputation of working well with Republicans.

He is maintaining that aura during the health care process. Enzi, who also is on the Finance panel, said the committee won’t release a bill until all aspects are final. It has been a struggle so far to keep the cost at a $1 trillion or less.

“I’m hopeful that in the Finance Committee we’ll have a better hearing than in the HELP Committee,” Enzi said. “I appreciate the openness Sen. Baucus has had … the listening.”

But Enzi fears that the Democratic rush to get a health care bill on President Barack Obama’s desk by fall will overwhelm Baucus’ GOP outreach. In addition, the Finance and HELP bills have to be melded, which could create all sorts of complications to bipartisanship.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the process is far from complete. Here are the key remaining questions:

What kind of reception will the Senate Finance bill get when it is introduced?

How will Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa and the ranking member on Finance, react when the negotiations are over? A thumbs down from Grassley means that most Senate Republicans will reject health care reform legislation.

“[A]ll hopes now rest with the Senate Finance Committee to produce a health reform measure that can be supported by everyone with a stake in a reformed health care system,” said James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, in a July 15 statement.

We’ll be watching.

Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota didn’t waste time endorsing a bill that would make it easier for workers to form a union.

In one of his first official acts after being sworn in Tuesday, July 7, the former Saturday Night Live writer and performer co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act. Franken joined the Senate after the Minnesota Supreme Court declared him the winner of the state’s disputed Senate race on June 30.

Franken is a sensation in Washington not for his comedic talent but because he is the 60th Democrat in the Senate. That means that on paper the Democrats have enough members to overcome Republican efforts to block legislation through a filibuster.

Such a move was the demise of EFRA in 2007. But Franken is by no means the savior of the current version of the legislation, which is a long way from achieving 60 votes.

Most of the reaction to Franken coming to the capital has centered on his role as the 60th Democrat. But what people overlook is that the 40 Senate Republicans only need to bring one Democrat to their side to sustain a filibuster.

It’s possible that it may be easier for the GOP to maintain its cohesion than for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, to keep Democrats in line. The clearest example is EFCA.

Sure, the GOP is monolithic in its opposition. But there are several Democrats that oppose a provision that would authorize a union based on a majority of employees signing cards and another that would establish mandatory arbitration for first contract negotiations.

Arlen Specter, a newly minted Democrat from Pennsylvania who switched from the Republican Party in April, is one Democrat who opposes EFCA. Another is Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Arkansas.

Specter and Pryor are both involved in negotiations on a compromise to EFCA. Observers say that an alternative bill may not emerge until late July or in September.

Proponents of the bill contend that it has stalled because of a multimillion-dollar campaign conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups. The chamber rails against EFCA as a threat to secret-ballot union elections and maintains that the measure would raise labor costs at the worst time—during a recession.

But EFCA has more problems than a determined opposition. Look at what William Gould, a Stanford law professor and chairman of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994-98, has to say.

In a May 26 speech at the London School of Economics, Gould indicated that he backs some aspects of EFCA but opposes the two primary parts.

“But I am of the view that the other provisions (i.e., recognition on the basis of union authorization cards and the arbitration process) are either fundamentally flawed or so problematical that they need substantial change,” Gould said.

“[T]here will inevitably be more disputes about cards than there ever will be about ballots,” Gould said. “[T]he statute contains no criteria for the arbitrator to follow, creating bad policy as well as constitutional problems.”

Remember that this criticism is coming from the NLRB chair during the Clinton administration, not a fire-breathing conservative.

The fundamental problem with union elections is the way that they can be delayed by companies, according to Gould. Companies have a great advantage over unions when it comes to the campaign because no employee union organizers are barred from company property.

Charles Craver, a professor of law at George Washington University, also says that employers hold the trump cards.

“Workers really listen” when their supervisors oppose an organizing effort, Craver says. “The company has a fundamental advantage over a union because it controls the worker’s destiny.”

It’s difficult to predict how an EFCA compromise will look. But it’s a good bet that criticisms of the bill by Democrats—and their recommendations for how to improve the organizing process by limiting company influence on campaigns—will provide clues for what will emerge from negotiations.