M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Sanders tweaks stump speech amid pressure

DES MOINES — After coming under attack this week for ignoring immigration issues, Bernie Sanders answered back Friday by inserting new passages on the issue into his stump speech.

“We need a rational immigration process, not the Republican alternatives of self deportation or some other draconian non-solution,” the Vermont senator said in front of a packed auditorium at Drake University. “We need a plan which provides a path to citizenship, and I agree with President [Barack] Obama’s idea to do through executive action what the Congress refuses to do through legislation.”


His new comments come the same week that Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, one of the most outspoken advocates of immigration reform in Congress, had harsh words for Sanders questioning his commitment to the issue. And they come amid several reports from progressive blogs and news outlets — including Daily Kos and Salon — that he hasn’t spoken out enough on racial justice issues, even when given a tailor-made opportunity at his campaign kickoff speech in Burlington, Vermont.

The additions to the speech, which were well-received by the audience here, don’t indicate new positions for Sanders. Like the other Democrats in the field, Sanders supports comprehensive immigration reform and has endorsed even more aggressive executive actions than Obama has pursued. His advisers note — with some consternation — that he is the son of a Polish immigrant, will discuss immigration at a speech in Nevada next week and campaigned for Hispanic Chicago mayoral candidate Jesús “Chuy” García — who lost to incumbent Rahm Emanuel (whom Gutierrez endorsed).

Sanders also boasts a liberal record on racial justice issues — he was a civil rights activist and participated in sit-ins in the 1960s, decried the Supreme Court’s decision weakening the Voting Rights Act and has pursued economic reforms in inner cities. Recently, he has introduced a youth jobs bill and chided the media for failing to cover a speech on African-American unemployment — a topic he often discusses.

Sanders’ campaign, though, has been laser-focused on income and wealth inequality, climate change and campaign finance reform. His advisers have said it’s important for Sanders to introduce himself to voters on these issues, and he has been reluctant to stray from those areas.

At his campaign launch speech in Burlington, Sanders never mentioned immigration, a contrast to former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who was introduced at his announcement speech by a DREAM-er. Sanders instead was introduced by labor leaders, affordable housing advocates and campaign finance activists.

O’Malley’s team has also noted that the former governor has shown a deeper commitment to the issue by discussing immigration extensively in Iowa and New Hampshire — heavily white states — while front-runner Hillary Clinton has discussed it only in Nevada, a state with a large Hispanic population. In a recent interview with POLITICO, O’Malley said a man teased him at a New Hampshire town hall for discussing the issue in the state — an anecdote, he said, that indicates his belief that immigration is a core national issue, not one for individual constituencies or states.

Immigration reform advocates have praised Sanders for his views, some have also wondered aloud why he hasn’t spent much time talking about such pressing issue — most notably, Gutierrez.

“I don’t know if he likes immigrants, because he doesn’t seem to talk about immigrants,” said the Chicago Democrat, a Hillary Clinton supporter, in an interview with Larry King. “Sooner or later, he’ll tell us. I hope he likes immigrants. I haven’t heard him say anything. He’s been kind of quiet and silent. So, I hope that when he sees this program, he sees there’s a lot of people waiting to hear from him.”

Other liberals have argued that Sanders simply doesn’t show enough interest in immigration and racial justice issues. “To be crystal clear, the problem wasn’t Sanders’s bona fides on those issues; his record shows consistent support for both immigration and criminal justice system reform. Rather, it was the sense that he didn’t think to mention them in such a critical address,” Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas wrote in a recent op-ed for The Hill in reference to his launch speech.

The Sanders camp bristles at the notion that he isn’t sufficiently committed to matters of such concern to the left.

“He has talked about these topics before and will again,” said spokesman Michael Briggs, who didn’t address whether Sanders had changed his speech due to increased pressure.

It’s clear that Sanders, a message-disciplined candidate and senator, is most comfortable talking about populist economic issues. When asked about racial justice, he often addresses the problem head-on but typically pivots to his core message; namely, that economic policies favored by corporate interests sell out working people, many of whom are inner-city minorities. In an MSNBC interview during the Baltimore protests, Sanders called for body cameras for police and said he would address police brutality. “But the underlying issue,” he continued, “in terms of Freddie Gray’s community, as I understand it — do you know what the unemployment rate there is?”

One Sanders adviser has acknowledged that the senator, 73, is of an older generation — one a bit less comfortable discussing identity politics than the younger segments of the progressive base. But it’s also true that the senator’s frame of reference is limited — he represents Vermont, one of the whitest states in the country, and also a rural state with relatively few immigrants.