Thanks to a reader for the link.

Lindsay Graham has repeated his observation that the health care vote has poisoned the well in the Senate and not to expect any action on the issue this year. According to The Hill:

Graham, who's sought to work with some Democrats on the controversial issues, said that healthcare efforts had 'poisoned the well' for bipartisan cooperation going forward.

'When I say immigration's dead in the Senate, risk-aversion abounds,' Graham said during a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday. 'Some of my colleagues will lose over healthcare. The consequences of this vote are going to be long-lasting politically.'

But Graham said that winning the support for any legislation was all but impossible in the wake of a divisive healthcare debate that's wrapped up this week in Congress.

'If you think you've created a problem for yourself on healthcare, why would you move onto immigration?' Graham asked, pointing to the number of centrist Democrats would be wary of signing on to support such an effort after already being bruised from the health debate.

I suspect the tantrum Republicans are throwing right now will not last very long. The President and the Democrats have gotten a substantial boost in the polls since the health care bill was signed and public opinion polls now show people are much more supportive of the legislation. Democrats seem to be getting more of a boost from actually passing a bill than they were from trying to be bipartisan.

The GOP risks solidifying their image as the "Party of No" - actually, the party of "Hell No" if you listen to Sarah Palin and John Boehner. That may appeal to the Tea Party crowd, but GOP strategists read polls like everyone else and when they see their prospects for major gains in November start to dwindle, you're going to see the rhetoric start to change. And you'll see the sane wing of the GOP start to break ranks in actual votes.

In the mean time, the Democrats have a lot to gain by pushing immigration this year, even if they ultimately lose. First, they can force the GOP to oppose the bill, something that GOP leaders know will cause them long term damage trying to court Hispanics. The GOP would rather the Democrats not bring immigration up at all so they don't have to cast a vote at all rather than vote no. In the mean time, Democrats will be able to solidify the support they've gotten from Hispanics over the last two election cycles.

Democrats also don't risk very much because polling consistently shows that the public generally does not consider immigration a major issue for them. In fact, it usually doesn't even break the top ten list of issues. Like health care, people are upset that the broken immigration system is getting ignored and they will reward the party that appears most interested in actually trying to solve it. If the Democrats actually won on the issue, they would likely get rewarded by the public simply for doing something.

Anti-immigrants who are upset about any kind of legalization are going to vote Republican anyway. Those folks are small in number and they are going to vote in November regardless of what the Democrats do. The voters Democrats need to worry about are Hispanics. If they don't vote in large numbers in November, close races are going to go the GOP way. And polling has showed these voters are deeply disappointed with the Democrats lack of action on immigration. If they are not energized by November, a number of Democrats will lose their seats.

Losing on comprehensive reform may not be the end of the world either. If CIR fails this time, it's proponents will at least have had their day in court and we might be able to return to some normalcy in immigration law making and focusing on small, passable bills, particularly relating to legal immigration. Not voting on CIR at all will simply put the discussion off another one to three years and by that point, the Democratic majority is likely to be less since that's been the trend historically. And desperately needed changes short of a broad legalization program will be ignored while we wait.

I may be a little light in posting today and tomorrow because I'm in Washington to walk the halls of Congress to talk about the need for immigration legislation.I'll be joined by more than 250 other members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association here to explain to members of Congress what families and employers are experiencing in the field. It has been ten years since Congress last passed a significant piece of immigration legislation and a large number of changes are needed to reflect current realities.

I'm also here for a meeting tomorrow at USCIS I've helped to organize that will address the impact of the January Neufeld H-1B memo on the health care sector. The memo was largely USCIS' effort to assuage protectionist members of Congress targeting the IT sector, but the memo is having a host of unintended consequences in other sectors, especially health care. I'll be talking about the need for either scrapping memo or at least making serious changes to it so that the supply of health care workers in this country is not affected. The reality is that USCIS has gone far beyond its mission of administering the law and going after violators to trying to carry out the will of a few members of Congress who lack the votes to accomplish their goals the proper way. Hopefully, USCIS will back down on this before a judge orders them to do so.