Marco Rubio gets Florida Legislature to eliminate early primary in 2016

@MarcACaputo and @MikeVanSickler

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio persuaded state lawmakers to make a last-minute change eliminating Florida’s early presidential primary – a race in which the Republican could be on the ballot.

Rubio’s main concern was shared by lawmakers and operatives from both parties: Ensuring that Florida’s 2016 primary vote counts. The measure, barely discussed, was tucked in an election-reform bill that passed the Legislature by wide margins Friday.

Right now, the Sunshine State’s early primary violates Democratic and Republican national party rules, which penalizes the state by severely devaluing the vote of its delegation to nominate each party’s presidential candidate.

Florida Republicans, for instance, would only have 12 delegates instead of 99 if the state kept its early primary in January or early February.

“We would go from being the third-largest delegation to being the smallest,” said Todd Reid, state director for Rubio.

Asked about Rubio’s potential bid for president in 2016, Reid said the changes had nothing to do with the senator’s political future and noted that Democrats support the changes as much, if not more, than Republicans.

"Marco Rubio's getting his ass kicked," Luntz says in secret recording about "problematic" right-wing radio

@MarcACaputo

In a secret recording of an off-record chat about right-wing radio, GOP word-meister Frank Luntz told a group of college students that it has become "problematic" for the party and, specifically, for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as he promotes a bipartisan immigration plan.

Said Luntz in the recording obtained by Mother Jones:

"And they get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it's really problematic. And this is not on the Democratic side. It's only on the Republican side…[inaudible]. [Democrats have] got every other source of news on their side. And so that is a lot of what's driving it. If you take—Marco Rubio's getting his ass kicked. Who's my Rubio fan here? We talked about it. He's getting destroyed! By Mark Levin, by Rush Limbaugh, and a few others. He's trying to find a legitimate, long-term effective solution to immigration that isn't the traditional Republican approach, and talk radio is killing him. That's what's causing this thing underneath. And too many politicians in Washington are playing coy."

From shadows to spotlight, Mario Diaz-Balart plays powerful role in immigration talks

@MarcACaputo

Mario Diaz-Balart spoke bluntly to his fellow U.S. House Republicans during a closed-door meeting at Washington’s Capitol Hill Club.

“Immigration is the 800-pound gorilla,” the Miami congressman told the room of vote-counting whips just seven days after last November’s election.

“The 800-pound gorilla just punched us in the face.”

Indeed, Hispanic voters had turned from Republicans in record numbers, in heavy measure because of the way the party’s candidates handled immigration.

But beyond the political numbers, Diaz-Balart said, the immigration policy data mattered even more.

About 11 million immigrants illegally live in the country. The system is broken. The time to fix it, he said, is during a non-election year.

“After I was done speaking, unlike in previous years, a huge number of my colleagues on the whip team came up to me to tell me it was time to do it,” Diaz-Balart told The Herald.

“What really changed,” he said, “was a willingness by many to confront the small handful of members who have been very vocal against doing anything, against doing anything realistic.”

That day, Nov. 13, marks not just a turning point in the immigration debate, but a significant moment in Diaz-Balart’s political career.

Today, the longtime lawmaker plays one of the most-crucial Washington roles in immigration that many have never heard about.

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/20/3355230/from-shadows-to-spotlight-mario.html#storylink=cpy

Mario Diaz-Balart: Grassley’s terrorism-immigration bill link “not appropriate at this time.”

 @MarcACaputo

“Lower the rhetoric. Lower the decibels.”

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart was giving that advice to the conservative Hispanic Leadership Network conference in Coral Gables during a talk about immigration reform – just as Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley appeared to have done just that in Washington.

At a committee hearing, Grassley said the immigration-reform bill ought to be discussed in connection with the Boston Marathon terror attack.

“Given the events of this week, it is important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system,” said Grassley, a Republican like Miami’s Diaz-Balart, a House leader on immigration.

Bloomberg gun group bashes Marco Rubio on guns, "turning his back on the overwhelming majority of Florida voters."

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group founded and funded in good measure by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is holding a protest press conference today in Doral to draw attention to Sen. Marco Rubio's no vote yesterday on expanded background checks for gun buyers.

Before the vote, the group already announced a small ad buy in the Tampa and Orlando that accuses Rubio of making Florida "less safe" because his opposition to more background checks would allow "criminals and the mentally ill" to more easily get guns.

The press release for today's press conference is below the ad:

Not quite 'The Hug,' but President Obama praises 'positive force' Marco Rubio on immigration

@MarcACaputo

First dinner with the president? Now some love?

Alas, the handful of Florida tea partiers who rallied against Sen. Marco Rubio for his role in drafting an immigration reform compromise, now have more reason to get all protesty.

Check out what President Obama said about the Republican's handling of immigration as part of the Senate's so-called Gang of Eight.

“I think that he has been a very positive force,” Obama told NBC's Savannah Guthrie, adding he feels this way about "all the senators who’ve been involved."

"We’re a nation of laws and a nation of citizens, that helps our economic growth, that helps us attract incredible talent to our shores. But I also hope that it kinda restarts muscle memory in Congress for getting bipartisan legislation done.”

Obama said he was "reasonably confident" immigration reform would pass.

The bill was released about 2 a.m. The text is here: Download Immigrationbill

Obama has politically been much more helpful to Rubio than many realize. The president's literal embrace of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in 2009 -- now simply known as "The Hug" -- over the stimulus bill helped seal Crist's fate as a Republican. Rubio used Crist's position on Obama's policy and his contact with the president to chase Crist out of the GOP and then beat him in the general election in 2010 to win his U.S. Senate seat.

Some tea partiers aren't buying Marco Rubio's explanations about immigration

@MarcACaputo

After a brief lull, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is again hitting the right-wing media circuit to sell the so-called Gang of Eight's immigration-reform plan, which has all but been released. His office this afternoon sent out a transcript of an interview with Michael Medved.

But Rubio's office didn't send out a copy of a letter that, according to the conservative Breitbart website, Rubio issued to the Tea Party Patriots who protested at a Florida office and accused him of supporting a bill that's going to be rammed through Congress.

The Martin County 9/12 Tea Party Committee also protested. And not all tea partiers are upset, as Rubio's office points out. Indeed, there's a faction of the extreme right (as with the left, but not to as great a degree, it seems) that's never satisfied.

From Breitbart:

“First, there is absolutely no truth to the idea that I will support any immigration legislation that is rushed through Congress in typical Washington fashion,” Rubio wrote. “Already, I have fought and continue to fight to secure commitments for greater transparency through committee hearings and mark-up sessions that will allow senators on the Judiciary Committee ample opportunities to review and amend any immigration legislation before it is considered by the full Senate for additional debate and scrutiny. As a result, not only has the Judiciary Committee agreed to delay its first hearing on this issue, it has agreed to add an additional one next week.”

Pitbull's rap response to Jay-Z's Cuba-trip Open Letter is a headscratcher for some

@MarcACaputo

Miami rapper Pitbull released a rap response to Jay-Z's "Open Letter" rap response to Miami's Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Marco Rubio for criticizing his recent trip to Cuba. (Yeah, it's confusing. Here's the last link that has other links).

Partisans in the Twittersphere seem confused. Is Pitbull taking sides? The wondering is understandable. Pitbull is a party rapper not known for subtlety (Rubio said as much on Twitter before clarifying his remarks).

But this is different.

Pitbull's track is less a political statement than a stream-of-consciousness that sounds like a rhyming history of Cubans in Miami, touching on everything from Scarface (the movie soundtrack appears to be sampled, FYI) to the Mariel boatlift crime wave to Operation Pedro Pan to Hermanos Al Rescate to Elian Gonzalez

Pathway to citizenship doesn't look like easy...er...amnesty street under Senate bill

Pathway to citizenship? Try pathway of probation.

Though bashed as "amnesty" by hardliners, the congressional plans to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants treat them like law breakers who need to watch their step for more than a dozen years.

They’ll have to pay fines, get fingerprinted, show they’re crime-free taxpayers and — little reported until now — check in periodically with a probation-like immigration system to make sure they’re in good standing with the law, according to Democrats and Republicans familiar with the Senate’s proposed legislation, which will be released Tuesday.

Those who miss a scheduled payment of their fines, upwards of $2,000, could lose the right to stay in the United States.

The earliest that most of the currently undocumented immigrants could become citizens: 13 years from the date of passage of the act.

That timeline becomes longer if the federal government doesn’t meet timelines to make good on creating a new visa-tracking system, ensuring employers don’t knowingly hire the undocumented and securing the border — at a cost of at least $5 billion, according to one version of the Senate bill.

The long path could mean that 10 percent or more of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country probably won’t be legalized at the outset of the act’s passage. Thousands more probably won’t become citizens.

The bill’s law-and-order aspects are a must to ensure passage in the conservative House.

Less reported: the measures could prove too conservative for liberals and Democrats, who control the Senate and White House.

“It’s a delicate balancing act,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican and leader on the issue in the House.

“The extreme left and the extreme right will bash us, criticize us,” he said.

Diaz-Balart refuses to discuss any details about a House plan that will be released in the coming weeks. His Republican Miami-Dade neighbor, Sen. Marco Rubio, is giving more details Sunday by appearing on every major talk show, including Univision’s “Al Punto.”

Under the Senate plan pushed by Rubio and the Senate’s so-called “Gang of Eight,” immigrants who came illegally after Jan. 1, 2012, can’t apply for legal status. They face living in this country illegally until they leave or are deported.

The window to apply for legal probationary status may vary from six months to a year after the act’s passage. And that window won’t even open for six months or more — when the federal government is supposed to present a plan for border security.

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/13/3342625/undocumented-immigrants-face-major.html#storylink=cpy

What Beyonce and Rep. Castor have in common: neither cares much about Cuba human rights, says Rep. Diaz-Balart

What do Jay-Z, Beyonce and Tampa U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor have in common?

All went to Cuba last week.

And all have shown relatively little concern for human-rights violations on the island controlled by the Castro dictatorship, said Miami U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who serves with Castor in Congress.

Castor’s office disputed the criticism, pointing to press statements where the Democrat has met with Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez and called for independent investigations into the deaths of others.

But it’s not enough for Diaz-Balart, a Republican leader in Miami’s exile community who raised questions last week about the legality of Jay-Z and Beyonce’s trip to Cuba. That visit overshadowed one made by Castor, who travelled on an unrelated mission to increase business opportunities between Tampa and Cuba.

“She [Castor] has been consistent in trying to help business groups and big-business interests do business with the dictatorship,” said Diaz-Balart. “Unfortunately, she has not been very concerned about human-rights violations, about demanding freedom of the press... about free elections."

Diaz-Balart noted that Beyonce performed for the family of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 at a private concert attended by Jay-Z and others in the Caribbean.

“She [Beyonce] has a history of not being too concerned about human rights,” Diaz-Balart said.