RALEIGH — Republican U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers believes immigration reform is necessary, and she plans to continue a deliberate, fact-finding approach for solutions. Frank Roche, who is challenging Ellmers for her U.S. 2nd Congressional District seat, said he’s already written the book that defines the problems and prescribes answers.
Illegal immigration and the amnesty question have taken center stage in the May 6 Republican primary showdown between Michigan native Ellmers, a nurse and small business owner now living in Dunn, and Roche, an economist and radio host who worked in international banking in New York City and now lives in Cary.
Ellmers, with the support of grass-roots Tea Party activists, defeated seven-term Democratic Rep. Bob Etheridge in 2010 to win the 2nd District seat. Roche ran for statewide office in 2012, losing the GOP nomination for state treasurer to Steve Royal.
Roche said Ellmers is part of Washington’s “establishment Republicans,” and her votes on debt, deficits, trade issues, National Security Agency surveillance, and drones were “failed efforts.” But it was her decision “to take the lead on amnesty, doubling illegal immigration,” that led him to challenge her.
He advocates heightening border security, and disconnecting illegal immigrants from social services to cause them to return to their homelands through attrition. But he also believes there should be “a sharp reduction” in legal immigration.
Rather than family reunification or emotional issues, immigration should focus on the nation’s economic needs, and industries that are dependent on immigrant labor, Roche said. That approach could reduce the number of new immigrants to below 500,000 a year.
“This is, for me, an economics issue,” Roche said. He said his book The Five Structural Barriers to American Strength and Prosperity “identified through empirical evidence that immigration is the No. 1 barrier for Americans” with respect to jobs, wealth creation, the wealth gap, and long-term unemployment.”
“It’s not the No. 1 issue that my constituents care about. My constituents’ concerns are about jobs, the economy, Obamacare, and how it’s affecting their lives,” Ellmers said, and her priorities align with those.
She said it is “an incredibly wrong and unfair approach” to accuse those who discuss immigration reform of advocating amnesty or a pathway to citizenship… “which of course I am not,” Ellmers said.
“I’m … just trying to gather the facts, have the conversation, listen to everyone that’s involved in this issue, especially my constituents, and then putting a plan forward that will bring about real reform. It’s a national security issue, and it is an economic issue” for immigrant-dependent industries such as agriculture, Ellmers said.
The North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation lists the Second District as Strong Republican, despite Democrats slightly outnumbering Republicans among registered voters, 35.5 percent to 35.1 percent. Seventy-four percent of registered voters are white.
According to federal campaign finance reports for the period Oct. 1, 2013, through March 31, 2014, Ellmers spent $560,386, and still had $433,787 cash on hand. Roche spent $11,404 and had $8,842 cash on hand remaining.
Roche is characterizing the primary as a litmus test for the soul of the Republican Party.
“What is our brand? Is our brand more of the same? Is it establishment Republicanism, because that’s where $18 trillion in debt lives,” he said. “Are we going to be conservative and move the party back to the right, or are we going to be Democrat lite?”
He said the two-term congresswoman “has come to you twice and sold herself to you as a conservative who cares for your interests. … She is deceiving the voters of the 2nd District, speaking one way and voting another.”
“I ran for office because I knew how Obamacare was going to affect every American. I knew how it was going to affect them from a health care perspective being a nurse, and I also knew as a small business owner how it was going to affect the economy as a whole,” Ellmers said.
“I still am committed to full repeal and replace of Obamacare with good, patient-centered alternatives that truly provide health care coverage that’s affordable, and at the same time taking care of those people we need to take care of. That’s probably my top [priority],” Ellmers said.
Ellmers said she supports the House budget drafted by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., that eliminates Obamacare, and favors the American Health Care Reform Act that would end “government-mandated control of what health care you’ll receive.” She was on the Republican Study Committee that drafted that proposal.
“I believe Obamacare should be repealed,” Roche said.
“I have no doubt that the free market is the best way to allocate insurance and medical care with a government safety net there with fewer promises,” he said. “Government invasion” and heavy-handed regulation of health care must be reversed. “We can’t be tepid anymore.”
Roche, who said he’s been studying the national economy for 30 years, sees the debt as a national security issue. He would replace the income tax with a consumption-based Fair Tax, sharply cut spending, and push for a balanced budget, resulting in $600 billion to $700 billion of debt reduction in a year or two.
Debt continues to skyrocket because Keynesian economic policies favored in Washington pump stimulus money into the economy during downturns, but the costly stimulus programs are never withdrawn once the economy corrects, he said.
The Ryan budget proposal takes a big whack at the federal debt, Ellmers said.
“We were able to go in and cut $5.1 trillion over the next 10 years, and eventually get that spending under control,” Ellmers said.
“We’re still looking to create jobs. I helped pass a bill that I sponsored that would help small businesses start up and grow jobs and thrive, and we’ve created thousands of jobs as a result of that,” she said. The Creating Jobs Through Small Business Innovation Act of 2011 was a reauthorization of an existing program to feed federal research grants to small companies.
“Those are the things we need to focus on in spite of President Obama and the Democrats that continuously try to put forward ideas like raising the minimum wage, and extending unemployment insurance, and targeting women and saying that Republicans don’t care about their issues,” Ellmers said.
“Women in this country care about all issues, not just a couple,” said Ellmers, chairwoman of the Republican Women’s Policy Committee.
Roche said Ellmers voting twice to support the Patriot Act that enables widespread NSA surveillance of Americans, and voting to support the Federal Aviation Administration program allowing drones to fly around the country “were a big mistake” on constitutional privacy grounds that conservative Republicans should oppose.
“A full, straight-out repeal of the Patriot Act I don’t think at this point is a wise move. I think that we need to make sure that every American is being protected,” Ellmers said. Parts of the act might need reform, she said.
Roche said Obama is overstepping constitutional boundaries, creating legislation by signing executive orders.
“We have a combination of an aggressive president and a kind of a wimpy Congress that’s allowing this to happen,” Roche said. “It’s dangerous.”
“He does have executive power. He is that executive branch of the federal government,” Ellmers said. “He will continue to use [his power] numerous times where he feels it is appropriate to bypass Congress.”
Neither candidate believes full answers have been given in the IRS targeting scandal, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious.
“You’ve got to give credit to the Obama administration for being more aggressive in defending its failures than the Republicans and Democrats in exposing the truth of what happened,” Roche said. He believes more lawsuits and the use of special investigators are warranted.
“We’re the ones standing up for the American people and looking to the Obama administration for answers” without much success, Ellmers countered. “We deserve accountability.”
Dan E. Way (@danway_carolina) is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.