Advocates of immigration-law changes
are prepared to track down lawmakers doing household chores
during the month-long congressional break that begins next week
if that’s what it takes to get their voices heard.

“If you have a town hall or if you don’t, we’re going to
find you in the grocery store because this is it. We’ve never
been this close,” Representative Xavier Becerra, a California
Democrat and one of the chief immigration negotiators in the
House of Representatives, said in an interview yesterday.

Opponents of an immigration overhaul are equally ready. At
Representative Karen Bass’s two-hour town-hall meeting last
weekend in Los Angeles, about a dozen small-government Tea Party
activists stood among the crowd of 300 to question the wisdom of
legalizing undocumented immigrants.

“The problem with my town hall was making sure the
opponents could speak without being denounced by all of the
supporters in the room,” the California Democrat said.

Both sides are bracing for the unexpected as lawmakers
prepare to leave Washington for home. August is typically a time
for them to hold public forums and talk to voters — a tradition
that became more complicated in 2009, when town halls erupted
with Tea Party members blasting President Barack Obama’s health-care legislation.

Flash Point

This year, immigration could be a flash point, which
supporters of change worry could intimidate lawmakers and stall
action in the House. The Senate on June 27 approved on a
bipartisan vote of 68-32 legislation that includes a pathway to
citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented
immigrants, more worker visas and stricter border security.
Leaders of the Republican-controlled House have said they will
pursue their own proposals, possibly when they return to
Washington in September.

Although polls show public support for a pathway to
citizenship for the undocumented — the stickiest immigration
issue — some House Republicans are reluctant to take up the
issue for fear that it will entice anti-immigration primary
challengers in next year’s elections. A June poll for Bloomberg
News found that 74 percent support allowing immigrants living in
the country illegally to become citizens if they pay fines and
back taxes, wait more than 10 years and don’t have criminal
records.

Change Subject

To avoid political risk, some Republicans leaders are
suggesting members change the subject. An August planning
document by Washington State Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chairman of the House Republican Conference, suggests
coming problems with the health-care roll-out and “stopping
government abuse” as town-hall topics.

Leadership aides say they are briefing members this week on
how to respond to questions about immigration if they arise at
public events next month, said a person familiar with the
strategy who wasn’t authorized to talk publicly about it.

Without specific House legislation on immigration, it’s
difficult to predict how this August will unfold. Groups on both
sides of the issue say they are eyeing as many as 90 House
Republicans whose positions aren’t entrenched. So far they’ve
cataloged 30 or so public appearances to attend.

“We expect to be mobilizing daily,” said Roy Beck,
executive director of Numbers USA, an Arlington, Virginia-based
group that claims 2 million members and opposes the Senate bill.

Pro-Change Advocates

Unions, business and technology groups, and evangelicals
have similar plans in support of revising the law. Advocacy
groups including the Mark Zuckerberg-backed FWD.us and
Organizing for Action, Obama’s former-campaign-turned-activist-network, will spend the month calling and visiting members and
using social media to maintain momentum for immigration
legislation.

Democratic Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Tom Harkin
of Iowa will travel to Ames, Iowa on Friday for an immigration
forum. That’s the home district of Representative Steve King, a
Republican who recently said there are more young immigrants
with “calves the size of cantaloupes” moving drugs into the
country than there are young immigrant valedictorians.

Republican Senator John McCain, who helped write the Senate
immigration plan, said he will hold meetings in parts of Arizona
represented by four Republican House members who haven’t
embraced a comprehensive measure.

Broad Coalition

“If we can galvanize our broad coalition to make this the
highest priority and that they start talking to their elected
representatives if we can do that, then I think you may see a
favorable outcome,” McCain said this week at a lunch sponsored
by Bloomberg Government. McCain and Becerra also pushed
immigration yesterday at an event sponsored by the AFL-CIO in
Washington.

Members of Congress also will head into the break with
fresh reading material.

About 400 businesses and organizations favoring a rewrite
of immigration laws signed a letter yesterday to House Speaker
John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi that said
“failure is not an option.”

Dan Turrentine, vice president of government relations at
TechNet, a Washington-based group of CEOs that advocates for
immigration revisions, said the letter was timed to remind
lawmakers about “the cross-section of support for reform as
they walk out the door and start interacting with their
constituents.”

Also yesterday about 100 Republican donors and fundraisers
sent letters to the House saying that doing nothing on
immigration amounts to “de facto amnesty.”

Donor Appeal

“By itself, hearing from us isn’t going to move the
dial,” said Fred Malek, a longtime Republican fundraiser who
signed the letter and is on the board of directors of the super-political action committee Republicans for Immigration Reform.
“But with what we hope they hear from their constituents next
month and advertising, we hope it adds up to make a
difference.”

Representative Bass predicted House members would hear more
in August from voters about health care than immigration.

“The problem with doing town halls on immigration is that
we don’t know exactly where it’s going,” she said.

That’s if there are town halls at all.

Still stinging from the August 2009 groundswell of
opposition to Obama’s plan to rewrite health-care laws,
legislators are reluctant to publicize or even schedule public
interactions. A survey from August 2011 by the bipartisan group
No Labels showed that 60 percent of lawmakers didn’t hold town
halls that year.

Lawmakers have tried to eliminate the free-for-all of
August public interactions by holding “town halls” by
telephone instead of in person.

Grover Norquist, founder of the anti-tax Americans for Tax
Reform and a supporter of legalizing undocumented immigrants as
part of a comprehensive measure, said memories of 2009 could
work to advance immigration legislation in the House.

“People will come back and say, ‘This wasn’t as bad as I
thought,’” he said. “People’s memory of what an aroused public
looks like is 2009, 2010. Opposition to Obamacare was beyond
intense. You’re not going to see that — not in opposition to
immigration reform.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Julie Bykowicz in Washington at
jbykowicz@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jeanne Cummings at
jcummings21@bloomberg.net