Neil Munro, Breitbart, May 23, 2018

A GOP business donor from the high-immigration, Democrat-dominated state of Illinois is threatening to defund GOP legislators who do not support an amnesty which will deliver many more future Democratic voters into their districts.

John Rowe, the former chairman of Exelon Corporation, is “blackmailing them to commit political suicide,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. She added Rowe is:

An identity-politics capitalist … the epitome of a Country Club Republican who uses immigration to bring in servants for his lifestyle, despite the effects on ordinary Americans, and who is completely insulated from the negative effects.

Politico quoted Rowe threat to deny funds to GOP legislators who do not sign the discharge petition which will create an amnesty for at least 2 million DACA migrants, plus many of their chain-migration relatives:

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While attending a recent fundraiser for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, Rowe said he was direct with the Louisiana congressman: “There’s a whole bunch of Republicans like me who simply aren’t going to keep giving money if you don’t get an immigration bill done.”

Rowe’s open threat exposes the cheap-labor lobby that dominates the GOP’s donor class and also helps to explain why so many populist voters walked away from Rowe’s preferred candidates in 2016. {snip}

Many in the GOP’s donor class strongly opposes Donald Trump’s low-immigration/high-wage policies and are using the discharge-petition amnesty to block Trump’s reforms. For example, the huge Congressional Leadership Fund is backing 11 of the 16 GOP candidates who had signed the petition by May 23. Five additional signers are not running or have resigned. Fundraising for the CLF fund is supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan.

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Rowe supported President George W. Bush’s amnesty push in 2007, and he supported President Barack Obama’s “Gang of Eight” amnesty-and-cheap-labor legislation in 2013

In February 2016, GOP primary, Rowe backed the cheap-labor policies pushed by Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio. Both were quickly defeated by Trump’s blue-collar voters:

Rowe, a devotee to “the so-called establishment” said his heart moves to Ohio Gov. John Kasich but his head goes to Rubio, whom he described as “smart, young and seems to fit what people are after.”

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It is a perfect illustration of who it is that wants amnesty and ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ and more and more immigration. This guy is openly trying to buy votes for an amnesty that is contrary to the [economic and civic] interest of Americans and is bad public policy, and he’s trying to blackmail members of Congress by threatening to withhold support from them if they don’t sign on to this damaging discharge.

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Amnesty advocates rely on business-funded “Nation of Immigrants” push-polls to show apparent voter support for immigration and immigrants.

But “choice” polls reveal most voters’ often-ignored preference that CEOs should hire Americans at decent wages before hiring migrants. Those Americans include many blue-collar Blacks, Latinos, and people who hide their opinions from pollsters. Similarly, the 2018 polls show that GOP voters are far more concerned about migration — more properly, the economics of migration — than they are concerned about illegal migration and MS-13, taxes, or the return of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

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In turn, poll ratings for Trump and the GOP are climbing upwards before the elections. If the GOP embraces Rowe’s cheap-labor identity politics, said Vaughan, “it will come back to haunt them in November … that is why blackmail is a bad thing.”

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