{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20140223025700/http://denham.house.gov/news/buzzfeed-meet-republican-sticking-his-neck-out-immigration-reform", "Buzzfeed: Meet The Republican Sticking His Neck Out For Immigration Reform", "2013-11-01", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "CA", "Jeffrey Denham", "D000612", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON \u2014 On a normal day it\u2019s hard to miss Jeff Denham on Capitol Hill. The California congressman towers over most other members at 6\u20195\u201d, and when he attempts to speak quietly to reporters in the Speaker\u2019s Lobby, even the most casual eavesdropper would have no trouble hearing his extraordinarily loud voice.\nBut after recently becoming the first Republican to sign on to an immigration bill sponsored by 185 Democrats, Denham is being heard well outside the halls of Congress. He can be found on television almost daily explaining why he broke with his party to support a bill \u2014 championed by Nancy Pelosi, no less \u2014 that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.\n\u201cI\u2019m elected to be a leader. I needed to get out front on this issue and show not only my community but show the entire nation this is something that needs to get done,\u201d he said.\nIt\u2019s a calculated risk that could alienate him in the already polarized GOP conference, and one that could be seen as a blatant re-election move by his fellow Republicans. But there\u2019s at least one obvious reason Denham is breaking ranks with his party on this issue: Unlike most of his colleagues, he represents a significant number of Latino voters.\nDenham is a rare breed in the House of Representatives, where the vast majority of Republicans have isolated themselves from the demographic sea change taking place in America by occupying carefully drawn, and overwhelmingly white districts. Forty percent of his district is Latino, and is he one of the only Republicans to occupy a district won by President Obama.\nA perennial target of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Denham is currently taking considerable heat back home for voting against the plan to reopen the government and raise the debt limit. His support for the immigration reform bill could help with his reelection, but he insists it has nothing to do with politics.\n\u201cI am not concerned about my re-election, I am concerned about doing the right thing,\u201d he said. \u201cI think if you are a leader and you focus on solutions, people will re-elect you. I\u2019ve taken some controversial positions and I\u2019ve had to go back and explain to my district why I did that.\u201d\nRather, Denham points to his own family\u2019s experiences with immigration as the impetus to take up the cause of comprehensive reform: His wife is a first-generation Mexican-American and he helped his father-in-law become a citizen.\n\u201cThis is something I\u2019ve been working on for years. I\u2019ve had life experiences that have helped me along,\u201d Denham said. \u201cI served with a lot of immigrants who gained their citizenship through the military, but working with my father-in-law was a different perspective \u2026 Seeing the process he went through was slow and cumbersome \u2014 as it should be \u2014 but it was very humbling to watch somebody that was in the later years of their lives and was proud to become a citizen struggling to take a citizenship test. I imagine there are members of Congress who would have a hard time taking a citizenship test.\u201d\nShortly after Denham signed on to the bill, Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and David Valadao joined him \u2014 giving immigration reform advocates new hope that the issue isn\u2019t quite dead yet. Denham\u2019s support earned a giant thank-you from America\u2019s Voice, a group pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, in the form of a banner flown over his hometown.\n\u201cIt shows a lot of foresight and courage, and it\u2019s really appreciated,\u201d said Rep. Joe Garcia, a Florida Democrat who is the lead co-sponsor of the bill.\nAfter the Senate passed its own version of comprehensive immigration reform back in June, the House approach has been to move very slowly, passing several piecemeal bills \u2014 none of which have made it to the floor. Congress has also been consumed by budget crises and a government shutdown that took much of the air out of a push for immigration reform.\n\u201cIf one of those issues comes up that sucks up all of our attention, we need to not put this on the back burner,\u201d Denham said in an interview. \u201cI want to elevate this issue as much as possible and make sure other members of Congress know this is something that needs to get done this year.\u201d\nThe DCCC has hammered Denham for some of his past statements on immigration, and they\u2019ve argued his current support is nothing more than a conversion that\u2019s a result of his political vulnerability. A brutal web advertisement released in September charged that Denham \u201csays he supports a pathway to citizenship but his extreme record says otherwise.\u201d\nAmong other things, they point to the fact that Denham had voted against California\u2019s version of the DREAM Act as a state senator and that he once said he \u201cfully supported\u201d Arizona\u2019s controversial immigration law.\nIn response to questions about his past positions, Denham said in an email that there has been \u201ca patchwork of varying state laws put into effect because of Washington\u2019s failure to address immigration reform over the last three decades. The federal government has the responsibility of resolving our broken immigration system now.\u201d\nDenham says that his goal now is to try to convince as many Republicans as he can to join him. He swears he has the word of House leadership that immigration will be taken up sometime before the end of the year, although House Speaker John Boehner has not committed to that publicly, saying only that he\u2019s \u201chopeful\u201d the House will be able to do something.\nAnd even if something were to come to the floor, it\u2019s unlikely that it would be a comprehensive bill like the one that Denham is pushing. A bloc of Republicans have said they\u2019ll oppose any bill that could lead the House to a conference with the Senate, and even more have said they won\u2019t consider any legalization without border security first.\nThat\u2019s not stopping Denham from trying to make his appeals, either publicly on television or privately during Republicans\u2019 weekly conference meetings.\n\u201cRight now we have a window,\u201d he said. \u201cMy concern is if it goes to January, we\u2019re going to have the CR and the debt ceiling and then it\u2019s going to be election season, and I think the American people deserve a full debate on this.\u201d\n\t\tDenham for now seems optimistic that his message is not falling on deaf ears. He said there are members who are so deeply opposed to any kind of comprehensive immigration reform he \u201cdoesn\u2019t bother talking to them,\u201d but for the most part, people he\u2019s spoken to have at least kept an open mind.\n\u201cI have a friendly relationship with the majority of members of my caucus. A few people have ribbed me a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cI think most people understand not only why I\u2019ve done this and how important it is to me, but it\u2019s opening up a much greater dialogue.\u201d\nSource:\u00a0http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/meet-the-republican-sticking-his-neck-out-for-immigration-re", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20140223025700/http://denham.house.gov/news/buzzfeed-meet-republican-sticking-his-neck-out-immigration-reform"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9597649332135916, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}