Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller has recently come out as a big supporter of the pending immigration bill, which is currently being massaged in the US Senate. But there are some hurdles republicans will have to get over and past to make it possible for them to vote FOR any immigration reform.
First the national republican quandary:
Everyone knows republicans are in a real messy situation when it comes to this immigration reform issue.
For republicans to remain somewhat in the good graces of their base, republicans can't come out and support immigration reform (IR), without putting up some sort of hurdles that will hinder any path to citizenship.
The far right GOP base of tea party and the more "immigrant intolerant" segment of the GOP will not accept any real immigration reform. This fact is being seen with the split within the republican party where some are saying "if the GOP doesn't embrace IR, then the party is doomed in the near future" as Hispanic and minority voters are on the increase in just about every state of the union and those future voters will not be voting republican. Others are taking the hard line against IR, holding to the liking of their far right voting base and trying to fend off any potential backlash by the tea party by being forced into a primary election fight by outraged tea party and the far right.
So what are republicans to do?!?! They can't cheese off their hard core voting base by just passing a simple pathway legislation...........they can't hard line IR as their base probably would prefer, because that means the GOP will be on the shit list to huge numbers of immigrant and minority voters.
So the only middle ground republicans can take, is to get multiple amendments to the IR bill, that basically make the US - Mexican border a second version of the Great Wall of China!!
So now we have "conservative", "have to stop the spending" republicans tossing billions of dollars at the border as a condition for republican support for immigration reform, in a lame attempt to appease their base and also make it look like they are a friend to immigrants, Hispanics and minorities.
The Dean Heller Quandary:
Dean Heller's situation in Nevada is a microcosm of the national GOP problem.
Heller was in the US house, where he had a generally safe district of rural GOP voting Nevada and his home turf in Washoe County, Douglas County and Carson City......pretty safe and not a district where one need pander to Hispanics or minorities!
Now Heller finds himself in the Senate and suddenly Hispanic and minority rich Clark County (where 70+%) of the Nevada's population lies. Now all of a sudden Dean Heller sort of needs to reach out to the Hispanic voters in southern Nevada, an area he could ignore in all his other elections!
Heller didn't poll well with Hispanics in Clark County, and thus his sudden flip on immigration. See this article from November 2012: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/15/heller-positions-himself-help-broker-immigration-r/#axzz2XMmyhgMy
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