Jackson: Obama’s big immigration ‘if’ looms over GOP plans

With midterm elections all but settled and the historic Republican majority they produced preparing to command the levers of power on Capitol Hill, the only remaining issue of any importance between now and when the new Congress convenes Jan. 3 hinges on a single two-letter word: If.

If President Obama goes ahead with long-rumored executive action on immigration, he will trigger an avalanche of metaphor-driven condemnation not seen around Washington since Democrats discovered the economy in the ditch and Republicans drinking Slurpees.

Moving unilaterally to suspend the threat of deportation for as many as 5 million illegal residents — the pivotal element of a 10-point plan that leaked Wednesday — would “poison the well” (Speaker John Boehner), “make the issue absolutely toxic for a decade” (Rep. David Schweikert, Arizona), wave “a red flag in front of a bull” (Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell) and cause “an explosion” (Rep. Hal Rogers, Kentucky).

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While somewhat less bombastic, two Nature Coast congressmen whose statures were surely boosted by the GOP wave are no less wary. Palm Harbor’s Gus Bilirakis, whose district embraces all of Pasco plus portions of northern Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, has an unwavering record of opposing any immigration reform that lacks, as the president’s proposal appears to, toothy border enforcement.

Dunedin’s David Jolly, who sees 2015 needlessly turning into a battlefield if Obama acts “outside his constitutional authority,” took a stab at conciliation. In a letter to the White House, Jolly invited the president to send his plan to Congress as a legislative proposal, shifting “responsibility and accountability … fully on us.”

Obama might not — probably wouldn’t — get everything he wanted, Jolly says, but the alternative is a legislative bloodbath, beginning with the continuing resolution that funds federal government operations through Dec. 11. If — that word again — the president signals a willingness to cooperate with the new Congress, plans to extend the resolution, locking in place current funding levels, would sail through the lame duck session.

Fresh from winning his first two-year term after prevailing last March in a special session to succeed his longtime boss, C.W. “Bill” Young, Jolly knows that kind of talk rankles his more conservative colleagues and constituents who regard budgeting as political philosophy on a spreadsheet.

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But GOP leadership in both houses has vowed to avoid a government shutdown, and Jolly has their backs. “People want to see the trains running and the government kept open,” he says. Besides, if life at Young’s elbow taught him anything, it’s who wins budget fights: “The president, always. It’s important to recognize that.”

If Obama does as he has threatened, however, Republicans are prepared to go to the mattresses with legislative language that would block continuing resolution dollars from fulfilling his order. And if they’re stalemated at the deadline, it’s an open question whether the GOP will, for once, have created enough deniability about wanting a shutdown to avoid responsibility.

As Bart Mancuso says at the climax of “The Hunt for Red October,” “The hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch.” Would Republicans risk a torpedo? Evidently. GOP voters, especially, are keen on securing the border as a prerequisite to addressing the status of folks here illegally.

But Jolly, representing much of a county that gave a plurality to Charlie Crist in the governor’s race and a Democratic majority to the county commission, recommends caution. “Despite all the Republican wins, it doesn’t feel like the Republican revolution of 1994 or the Tea Party revolution of 2010,” he says. Americans gave the GOP their trust, and he hopes they can make good on it with quick action on an assertive jobs bill, smart tax reform and, at least, putting on the president’s desk repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate.

Big plans. Big ideas. First, alas, we have to see how the “if” question plays itself out. Attach your own metaphor here.