DREAMERS/ELECTION/GOP/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP PEOPLE: “In all of his campaigns for the House, Representative Jeff Denham has never seen anything quite like the rolling circus that trails him through his sprawling district in California’s Central Valley — the “Dump Denham” signs, the papier-mâché effigies, the shouting. He says it does not faze him, but there is nothing like the political gallows to focus the mind of an endangered politician, and Mr. Denham, a Republican, is responding in a way that touches almost everybody here in California farm country: He is leading the charge on Capitol Hill to pressure Speaker Paul D. Ryan to hold a vote on legislation to protect the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. Nearly two dozen other House Republicans — about half of them politically vulnerable and many in districts with large Hispanic populations — have followed suit, affixing their signatures to a petition that is just a few votes short of forcing Mr. Ryan to act. If it works, it will push the party into a divisive, and politically risky, election year debate on immigration…From Miami to the Rocky Mountain West to Texas and to California, the petition’s signatories form a renegade band that is not only making life difficult for Mr. Ryan but also standing up to the conservative Freedom Caucus, which so often dictates policy in the House. Of the 23 Republicans on the petition, 11 are in districts that are clearly in play. Another five have announced their retirements or have already left the House.”
-Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Vulnerable Republicans See Immigration as Political Salvation,” The New York Times online, June 1, 2018