Will Lindsey Graham Listen to His GOP Colleagues on Immigration?

To recap: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the three senators working on a comprehensive climate bill, withdrew from the process over the weekend to protest Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) plan to act on immigration reform before climate legislation. Reid has since offered signs that he’s willing to first focus on climate, but it seems that’s not good enough for Graham, who’s insisting that the Senate will not tackle immigration at all this year.

Never mind that just last month, Graham expressed his interest in passing immigration reform this year. The question now is whether Graham is willing to budge on the issue. And now it appears that some of Graham’s conservative GOP colleagues would very much like him to.

Dave Weigel reports:

Right after his not-so-secretly preferred U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio comes out against Arizona’s new immigration reform law, Jeb Bush lends his name to an under-the-radar conservative campaign for federal immigration reform this year. On Thursday, Bush will headline a “nationwide strategy call with key business and Evangelical leaders to share convictions around the need for immigration reform this year,” according to Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

If more Republicans come out in favor of immigration reform, it’ll be interesting to see if Graham is willing to get back to work on the issue — after all, he’s one of two senators crafting the immigration reform bill — or at least to drop his opposition and allow climate legislation to proceed.