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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Tennessee State Rep. Joe Carr told Breitbart News on Tuesday that he is
running against Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in the state’s GOP primary for
U.S. Senate over Alexander’s vote for the Senate’s “Gang of Eight”
immigration bill.
In a phone interview shortly after he announced his candidacy on a local
radio station, Carr told Breitbart News exclusively that Alexander’s vote
for the Gang of Eight bill “is going to be one of the three critical issues
in the campaign going forward.”
“Sen. Alexander’s support of the Gang of Eight Senate bill doesn’t
address the problem with the illegal immigration issue in the United States
and likewise in Tennessee,” Carr said. “The reason I know something about
this is I’m the author and architect of every single significant piece of
legislation in Tennessee that deals with immigration, whether it’s E-Verify
or no sanctuary cities or identity theft and fraud, it doesn’t matter. I
have authored and passed about half a dozen different bills specifically
dealing with the activities of illegals in Tennessee and ensuring that
Tennessee is a place of enforcing the law when the federal government doesn
’t or won’t do so. We’ve been so successful we’ve never been sued,
unlike Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia or Alabama. We’ve been very, very
successful and I’m very proud of that.”
Carr added that there is no way to know if America’s immigration system is
“broken,” as many advocates for amnesty argue, until President Barack
Obama actually steps up and enforces the laws already on the books. “My
point is this: We don’t know if our immigration laws are broken because
what we have is a failure on the part of the president to enforce the law,”
Carr said. “So, you don’t know if a law is broken if it’s not being
enforced. What we have is we have a broken federal government system and
executive branch that refuses to enforce laws. That’s the biggest problem I
see. So, until such time as we enforce the law, I think it’s a little
disingenuous--in fact, not just a little disingenuous, it’s crazy--to pass
any new laws that the president won’t enforce.”
When asked why Sen. Alexander would vote for such a bill, Carr responded: “
I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him. Why would any of our senators up
there vote for, propose, sponsor or sign onto a 1,200 page bill that
essentially grants amnesty to 11 million illegals? Especially with the
unemployment problem that we have and the educational problems that we have.
We’re going to burden the court system, the healthcare system, the
educational system, with 11 million illegals? It defies logic if you’re
concerned, like I am, about the sovereignty of the United States.”
Carr said instead of focusing on granting illegal immigrants amnesty,
Congress should be focused on getting Americans back to work. “Of course we
should,” get Americans back to work before we even deal with those who are
here illegally, Carr said. “In fact, we wouldn’t even be having this
discussion if we applied the rule of law to everybody equally, but we don’t
. That’s the big challenge. Either our immigration laws are the law of the
land and they’re to be taken seriously enough to be enforced, or they’re
not. If we don’t like a law, we don’t have the luxury of not enforcing it.”
Carr said the Republicans on a national level seem to have been hoodwinked
by the Democrats, who have different and more political motives to pass an
immigration bill. “There’s an ulterior motive on the part of the Democrats
to front load the voter rolls with Democrats,” he said. “The Republicans
have bought the lie which escapes logic because we’ve never gotten a
plurality of Hispanic voters in a presidential election year. Never. So, I
don’t understand the big get here from a political standpoint.”
Ultimately, Carr said there are three major issues thus far he is going to
focus his challenge against Alexander on: his vote for the Gang of Eight
bill, his voting record’s alignment with President Obama’s policies and
his refusal to fight Obamacare by joining Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz
(R-TX) to defund the healthcare law in the upcoming Continuing Resolution (
CR) that funds the government.
“Generally speaking, Lamar’s voting record [will be another focus of the
campaign],” Carr said. “What I mean by that is this session Lamar has
voted with the president 62 percent of the time. President Obama lost to
Mitt Romney by over 20 points in Tennessee in 2012. For a U.S. Senator who
claims to be a conservative, even though we all know he’s not, yet he votes
with Obama 62 percent of the time probably means that he voted against
Tennessee 62 percent of the time. I don’t think it’s wise to vote against
the taxpayers and citizens or hardworking Americans in Tennessee 62 percent
of the time and still keep your job. So, this is going to be a referendum on
his job performance.”
“The other third thing is Lamar’s refusal to work with Sens. Lee and Cruz
on the defunding of Obamacare via the Continuing Resolution,” Carr added.
Carr thinks there is a distinct possibility that the support various
establishment-centered lawmakers around the country had for the Gang of
Eight bill, and other immigration proposals, could become 2014’s version of
2010’s Obamacare, which with the Wall Street bailout sparked a massive
grassroots uprising that led to the Tea Party movement helping the
Republicans take control of the House of Representatives.
“I think it could,” Carr answered when asked if the amnesty bill is
shaping up to be 2014’s version of 2010’s Obamacare. “I really do. I hope
it does because I think it’s a critical issue, both financially and with
regard to the rule of law. The constitutionality of this president to
selectively enforce laws and not enforce other laws, I think it’s a
potentially huge issue.”
Carr added that Obamacare and immigration are intricately linked as means
towards an end of big government. “If Obamacare is the millstone around the
neck of the American economy, then illegal immigration is the rope that
ties in the healthcare system,” he said. “The two are conjoined together
because in many ways once they [illegal immigrants] get in here, they’re
going to be getting those taxpayer-funded services that they will not be
able to pay for.” |
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