It's pretty clear that President Barack Obama's focus on health care has left other legislative priorities lower on the policy totem pole.
Now, Obama has made a final push for health care reform, and, albeit with plenty of controversy, it seems likely that Democrats will pass their bill. So powerful unions appear to be shifting their resources from health care to another topic: immigration.
While activists in many corners of the policy world feel neglected, some immigration activists feel so slighted that they're boarding buses from Chicago to Washington just to send a message. A send-off tomorrow could represent an official move from health care to other issues on labor's lobbying front.
Organizers estimate that about 6,000 people leave Illinois for the capital tomorrow evening to call for comprehensive immigration reform. Dozens of buses are scheduled to roll out from Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field around 7 p.m., packed with members of labor, faith and community organizations around the city.
Several area political leaders, including Alderman Danny Solis, also plan to attend the rally.
"The reality is that people are in a really bad situation right now," says Laura Garza, vice president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1. "Until we fix our broken immigration system, we're still going to have employers using the workers so they can drive down wages."
SEIU's Local 1 alone represents more than 50,000 workers throughout Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. The powerful national organization poured millions of dollars into the 2008 campaign cycle to help Obama get elected.
The union's intention, Garza says, is to make him and fellow Democrats keep campaign promises.
"People are not going to let this one go," she told me. "We're going to remind Congress and remind President Obama of the promises they made that they were going to have immigration reform this year."
Yet almost a year has passed without serious focus on immigration, and even unions, some of immigrants' most influential allies, have seemed preoccupied with the health care debate.
Garza emphasized that SEIU has always focused on immigration issues. But she acknowledged that the passage of the health care bill could help labor organizations reenergize the discussion around immigration.
"We've never shifted from the immigration focus," Garza told me. "I just think that the resources are going to free up a little bit once we pass health care reform. We're going to get some reinforcement now."
It's not as if the issues are easily separated, however. Activists and legislators across the country have linked health care with immigration.
Earlier this week, Democratic U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez went so far as to link their fates, saying he would vote against the health care bill unless the Obama administration followed through on promises that it would revamp immigration policy. It was a jarring threat from one of Obama's strongest allies in the president's hometown Chicago.
But yesterday, the White House backed a bipartisan "framework" for immigration reform — securing Gutierrez's vote. The political wavering illustrated the level of concern among Latino activists that not enough has been done to help immigrants.
"A lot of this is faith," Gutierrez said in a WBUR radio interview. "The health care vote is but one vote."
Windy Citizen 