In Washington, the most important force is the calendar—and New York House Republicans are responding.
The calendar is relentless and unforgiving, and one date dictating behavior is Nov. 3, midterm election day—and House Republicans have to decide whether to stand by President Donald J. Trump or not.
Now comes word that some House Republicans are coalescing behind the DIGNITY Act of 2025, H.R. 4393, written and sponsored by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), and now getting a big push.
Republicans joining Salazar are Long Island Rep. Nicholas J. LaLota and Michael Lawler of the 17th District.
Lawler frames his support for the Salazar bill as reasonable reform that would improve the enforcement of immigration laws, but frankly, the enforcement of immigration laws does not need legislation. The real purpose of the bill is to provide a roadmap to employers to regularize their illegal wage slaves. It is amnesty dressed up like an ICE officer.
Lawler is in a contested seat, while LaLota is in one of the safest House seats in the inventory. In 2024, LaLota beat Democrat John Avlon with 55 percent to the Democrat’s 45 percent.
LaLota’s decision to buck Trump on immigration opens up one of the old wounds of the post-World War II Republican Party, which is the GOP practice of congressmen and senators in safe seats joining with Democrats to thwart conservatives.
This is the opposite of how Democrats play it. Democrats use their safe seats to push the ideological envelope, taking tough votes and giving cover to Democrats in battleground seats. Republicans, instead, expose their battleground officeholders, so that Conservatives are always fighting uphill. The other dynamic is whether House Republicans bolt from Trump en masse.
Senate campaigns turn on statewide issues or personalities, but House races are nearly always tied to the president, and nearly always in the midterms, voters choose House candidates from the opposite party in the White House to send a message.
President Barack H. Obama saw this coming in January 2010, when he told House Democrats at their annual policy retreat to stay the course. Obama, still two months away from signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, said: “Don’t abandon me. I’m going to stick with you. Let’s keep the team together.”
Aside from the rumblings from the emerging Tea Party movement, these House Democrats would have all remembered when President William J. Clinton triangulated against them—literally running against them—for the benefit of his own 1996 reelection campaign.
In 2010, House Democrats ran for the hills from Obama, but there was nothing they could do. They lost 62 seats, giving the GOP a 243–193 advantage, and its largest majority since the 1928 midterms gave them a 270–164 advantage.
The 1928 election was bad for Democrats, but in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt led the party back into power for the next 60 years.
Democrats suffered in 2010, lost the Senate in 2012, and lost the White House in 2016, but they came back, too—and despite the ranting and raving of Republicans, Obamacare remains the law of the land.
Chances are good that the DIGNITY Act never makes it to the House floor, let alone the president’s desk, but the question remains whether Lawler and LaLota turning on Trump over immigration is signal or noise.