The key issue in the primary battle between Utah Congressman Chris Cannon and businessman John Jacob is immigration. And the questions at play are the same being considered by Americans around the country. This week Jacob and Cannon will join us to talk about immigration and some of the other matters in this increasingly tense contest.
John Florez, is the editorialist for this week’s edition of “Speak Out Utah”.
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[Doug Fabrizio, Host]: Political party leaders and observers around the country are watching what happens on Tuesday in the Republican primary for Utah 's Third Congressional District.
The race could be an important indicator for the fortunes of the party's incumbents and it may reveal how the immigration issue is going to play with voters.
Tonight on Utah NOW Congressman Chris Cannon and his opponent John Jacob join us to talk about immigration and some of the other issues in an increasingly bitter contest …
[Fabrizio]:
Hello, and welcome to Utah Now. I'm Doug Fabrizio. As primary battles go – the one in Utah 's Third Congressional District has become about as intense as they get – the race has featured some fairly testy debate confrontations and on the fringe there have been personal rumors and accusations. There's a lot of money being spent in this race – in fact it's the most expensive primary battle in Utah in nearly 15 years. With just days to go before Tuesday's vote - the candidates know a large block of voters is undecided – so they're making enormous media buys and wrangling for endorsements as the tension builds…
Vox Populi
[Fabrizio]:
And people from around the country are watching to see what happens in Utah's Third District… for political party leaders and observers this is more than just a tussle between two conservatives in one of the most conservative regions of the country – what happens to the five-term Congressman Chris Cannon could be an important indicator for the fortunes of Republican incumbents elsewhere…And it could reveal the mood of voters on one of the most contentious issues in the country right now - what to do about illegal immigration – the challenger – John Jacob has made the issue the principle focus of his campaign. For the voters of the Third District – there are a number of issues they're thinking about – but - like other places in the country - immigration seems to be right near the top…
[Man 1]:
One of the biggest political issues that I think is affecting everybody, and what I hear about on radio, talk radio, whatever, is the immigration laws.
[Man 2]:
There are a whole lot of other issues that are involved, I think that's the most visible one that…we have a problem. We have 12 million illegal immigrants here and we need to be able to handle that problem, handle our borders and take control of that problem.
[Woman 1]:
I think the economy can be an issue I think right now it's not really appearing that bad, but again, it could change very quickly.
[Man 3]:
Well, the war. That's the most important to me. That's not been talked about.
[Man 4]:
Well, I think the economics of the country. I think the economics of the country are very good right now and we're headed in a good direction.
[Woman 1]:
Seems like we wait until something happens then we fix it rather than do preventative maintenance,
[Man 2]:
They're platforms are very similar in most everything. The only thing they really differ a lot on is illegal immigration.
[Fabrizio]:
Tonight on Utah NOW we have with us – the two candidates in the primary race for the Third Congressional District…
Incumbent Representative Chris Cannon is with us and his Republican challenger John Jacob . W elcome to you both, thank you for being here …
John Jacob I want to start with you, and ask, what would you do right now, what should happen to the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in this country? What would you do if you ruled the world, say?
[John Jacob, GOP Challenger]:
I would give them the incentives to go home and do it the right way, so that they could become Americans and get in line.
[Fabrizio]:
So does that mean kick them out? Try to round them up? I mean how do you get rid of them?
[Jacob]:
I didn't bring them here, they brought themselves. They had incentives to come here. So we would build incentives for them to go home. I think the most recent thing that I heard on that was called attrition. Right now we have 750,000 coming in each year, we need to have it going the other direction.
[Fabrizio]:
So it took time to get these incentives to get people here, it's going to take time to get them out of here as well? Is that what you're saying?
[Jacob]:
Most likely, yes.
[Fabrizio]:
How do you react to that question?
[Chris Cannon, GOP Incumbent]:
Well, America is doing remarkably well economically. I don't see any reason to handycap that economy, especially when to take away the incentives, to incentivize them to leave is going to mean punishing someone, hurting something. And it may be say if we say to employers we're going to take your employees away they'll come up with automation or technology to replace that but that's a stress that seems to me unreasonable. So what I would like to see happen is create a temporary worker program where they have an incentive to come forward, identify themselves, and that allows us to deal with the really serious problem resolve the criminals hiding among them. In some cases you have 10, but sometimes 20 or 30 percent, three times the amount of illegality in these groups because the groups are not open and forth coming so they're hiding among them.
[Fabrizio]:
So this represents a distinction between the two of you?
[Jacob]:
Actually there's more. And it has to do with what Chris just said. He's worrying about the stress and the injury that might come. I'm worried about the problems that we're having right now. Right now we are losing in our schools, in our hospitals, our health insurance is going up, we have tremendous expenses and jobs are being lost to people who aren't even citizens. And then Chris was correct, he mentioned crime. So when you look at it, you see very clearly that I'm not so worried about what might happen, I'm worried about what is happening.
[Fabrizio]:
But you say they have to go first. You say they don't really have to go, they can stay.
[Cannon]:
I want to solve the problems immediately. In other words I want people to stop having the incentive to go and use the emergency room by coming forward and identifying themselves and among other things being required to have health insurance so they start being a little more wise about their health dollars instead of using the free services they get at the emergency rooms. The criminality is not going to die by attrition. You have to at some point say come out and those of you who are criminals who can't come out we'll focus on you.
[Jacob]:
The concept that they'll instantly have the money to pay the emergency room because they came out and said "we're here," I mean the first person that probably needed to use the emergency room may have needed that desperately. But once it gets on the street that you can do this for free, you could have $100,000 in the bank and still go have free babies. Why would you do otherwise when, in the first place, you're not following the laws of the country you're in anyway?
[Cannon]:
Most the reason you would do it is because you have health insurance, you're identified as a person on a temporary work status so when you go to the emergency room you have to pay.
And having the responsibility of paying means the people are becoming wiser about how they do that. That will never happen, I agree with you as long as you have people hiding in the shadows.
As long as that continues you'll have a misallocation of resources. Don't give them a path to citizenship but get them out of the shadows and identify the criminals and move the criminals into jails around the country.
[Jacob]:
The concept of getting them out of the shadows is why we have a million people coming in now. When President Bush decided to look at amnesty, which Chris was the point man on, what ended up happening is we went from three to 400,000 people crossing our borders to over a million people crossing our borders. Our national guard is making some dent. The first ten days that they were on the border we went down 21 percent compared to last year. But we still had 26,000 people that were caught. That's as big as the city of Springville , in ten days. This is unacceptable. We protect other countries, we need to stop up the borders. That's also a national security problem. We're talking about keeping these and bringing these people out of the shadows we can't do that until we stop people from coming in. The ones coming in will then be in the shadows.
[Fabrizio]:
Congressman?
[Cannon]:
Let me say that in fact you have to stop people at the border. That's true. You have to have a protected border otherwise you have criminals coming across, people who are looking for a better life coming across and becoming criminals in the process. You have drugs and maybe even terrorists coming across. There's no question but you have to stop the border. You have to make that so it is controllable. No question about that. The question is how do you go about doing it? And you do that by having a program that is comprehensive rather than piecemeal.
[Fabrizio]:
Does that seem to be the primary sort of difference, then, between how you go about that?
You seem both intent on securing the border.
[Jacob]:
You can talk now that he's intent on securing the border. There's been ten years of history, here. And what Chris has said in other debates is he voted for this three times, and the president didn't do it. And then he has, you know, where the president's wife comes out and said he's been shoulder to shoulder with the president on protecting our borders. I don't see anybody protecting our borders.
[Fabrizio]:
I want to talk about what we're talking about today but I think it's a legitimate question your past record.
[Cannon]:
Thank you very much because Mr. Jacob has been saying this is a little personal and about as testy as we might of gotten in this race. Let me say, it's been a very genteel race so far. But consistently he's said many times in the paper today, that I flip‑flopped. And I have been enormously consistent. I hope that we'll hear some of the things that you think I've flip‑flopped on so I can at least understand it or at least, or perhaps what is likely explain why I've been consistent.
[Fabrizio]:
Sounds to me like the question of amnesty is one of those areas. Am I right?
[Jacob]:
Without a doubt that's one of the areas. It's not the only one; it's just one of them.
[Cannon]:
But what have I done with amnesty that you would call a flip‑flop?
[Jacob]:
Actually you haven't been able to get it done is the problem.
[Cannon]:
That's not flip‑flopping.
[Jacob]:
Even while you were doing it you were trying to do it. For example on 4437 you tried to put in two amendments, not a lot as you told me the other time, that would have weakened the border control. On Rod Decker, on 4/9 you told him that this 4437 is just a bare step above what we have now. And you repeated it like six times.
[Fabrizio]:
To the point generally that you flip‑flopped you say that you have not. You say you've‑ ‑
[Cannon]:
These are not flip‑flops. Not to get knowledge legislation is not flip‑flopping.
[Jacob]:
What's flip‑flopping Chris, is when you say in the campaign, now, that you've been tough on this.
[Cannon]:
It's true.
[Jacob]:
But two months ago you weren't tough on it, two months ago you told us others on both sides of the moon.
[Fabrizio]:
Gentlemen I want to move on because clearly you're not going to get any concessions there.
John Jacob, should American‑ ‑
[Cannon]:
Let me point out that what I said on Rod Decker was highly consistent. I did attempt two amendments to the bill not about the border it was how we implement it with business. That makes a big difference. There is nothing I believe you can legitimately say I've flipped flopped on.
[Jacob]:
He asked you on the 12 million people that are here, he said Chris honestly on the 12 million people that are here do we send them back? Do we send them back? And you said no, absolutely not. And since that two months started you've been telling everybody yeah we're going to send them back. That's what I've been working on.
[Cannon]:
What I've said is that in the bill that finally passes the house and the senate if we actually get one done, that there probably will be a requirement that they go back. But personally that's not a big issue for me. But for many people it is. There's no flip‑flopping there. There's high consistency.
[Fabrizio]:
I want to get to the question of how this could affect American businesses. Do you think John Jacob that American business people should be penalized in part because of this? They are, in fact, providing part of the incentive are they not?
[Jacob]:
So should Enron use the illegal immigration defense? I mean, I made jobs for people, I'm making the economy go. They lied, but that's okay. And what's happening is it isn't the businesses that should be hurt. It's the government who hasn't provided the ID cards, the ability for a business to be able to tell whether these people are legal or not. The government, or congress has failed them.
[Fabrizio]:
You're saying‑ ‑
[Jacob]:
When the Brady Bill came out on guns within five years they had the ability to be able to tell the very day you go in whether it's right or not. When you use a credit card in 20 seconds you know it's right or not. I think our government has failed our businesses, and I believe a lot of businesses are using that as an excuse to say it's not my fault
[Fabrizio]:
So I'm not sure what you're saying. Should they or should they not be penalized?
[Jacob]:
I think they ought to obey the law. They shouldn't have to enforce it. We're not making it clear to them. It's not easy to see that
[Fabrizio]:
Let me ask that. The simple answer to the question whether or not part of your answer‑ ‑
[Jacob]:
Follow the laws, yes. There's penalties that should be enforced.
[Fabrizio]:
For American businesses?
[Jacob]:
And they should enforce those. And the businesses know what those are.
[Fabrizio]:
And do you want to respond to that? How do you see that?
[Cannon]:
We do have penalties in the law. Businesses comply with the law. The law is, I believe, lackadaisical in this regard. It is true we don't have databases that will allow us to do these kinds of instant checks. A social security database is different from a criminal database that you use in the case of the Brady Bill. Where you get pretty much an instantaneous check. We should be doing those kind of Brady Bill checks because we want to identify the criminals who are applying for jobs and then that's how you do it in part. But remember that we have spent $5 billion on the IRS databases trying to talk to each other and we wrote it off. Six years ago we just wrote it off because government databases are different, awkward, you've been in the FAA and seen the odd ball attempts to help change and upgrade the things they're doing with FAA equipment. Government by nature doesn't do as well some things that business does. So the answer to business is, give them clear rules, and give them a resource. Give them a database they can go to. We have a pilot program it doesn't work very well but let's develop that pilot program and let businesses know who they're hiring so they don't waste money training people who shouldn't be here.
[Fabrizio]:
You disagree?
[Jacob]:
Yeah, you say we wrote of 5 billion dollars? We followed the law we mandated and we actually funded it. Why can't we make that possible for business? You're talking about right now we're talking about how much is this going to affect business? How much it's going to affect everybody. It's all right affecting us to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. And one of the things our government's supposed to be doing is protecting America . Right now, since 9/11, that is, everything's changed. And I don't see that happening right now, it hasn't been happening, and no matter how much Chris may say that he's on that side to do it, the rest of the nation's not doing that. The people who are in favor‑ ‑
[Fabrizio]:
Back to the economic question if I could. This question of, do you think Americans ought to be willing to pay more for services, for food, for example, because there is that argument that illegal immigrants are playing a very important part in the economy of the United States right now.
[Jacob]:
Excellent point. So everything about illegal immigration is wrong. First of all, on the business side, yes, I would pay more for the services.
[Fabrizio]:
To get all Americans?
[Jacob]:
I think they all would. Because the alternative is wrong. Do we, in order to have these services, did we have to have people who are criminals? Do we have to have people in the shadow? They should have the same right if we really need them to have the opportunity to be American just like we are.
[Fabrizio]:
And you think all American's should--
[Cannon]:
Look, you need to have rules, and business needs to have clear rules to live by. The rules that we have right now are not clear, we've been working on those for some period of time. We have a pilot program that's been in existence for five or six years. The key thing here is to not do something that will distort the system or make a problem. Now let me give you a case.
In Utah now our dairy industry is growing like crazy. Millard County is full of dairies that are producing and they have a lot of employees down there. There are families that tend to own these dairies and they tend to have a lot of employees. They mostly speak Spanish. They have the right documentation or they wouldn't be there. I'm not sure that documentation was really valid.
What you have are people making actually quite a bit of money, they're making, eight, nine, 10, 12, $15 an hour working in the dairy but the families running those dares are making a lot of money, depending upon the price of milk based upon the facts that they have a system that works. We are not dealing in a system where Mexicans illegally is in America are stealing jobs from Americans. We have virtually no unemployment in Utah . We have 3.2 percent unemployment.
[Jacob]:
The problem that's left out is in that same area the people are concerned because their crime rate is very high. Right now Arizona has the highest crime rate in the nation according to the news. What happens with that, these are where our snow birds go. I didn't realize they were that kind of criminal they would go down there. What we do is when we turn around and constantly talk about business, we leave out the other side. All of the other things that affects us in our lives. Right now we have No Child Left Behind and it's being damaged because you have so many people in the classrooms that don't even speak English and they still have to pass the test like they'd been speaking English all their lives. There are so many other aspects that are affected that you can't turn around and just allow business to be the only ruling factor in this.
[Fabrizio]:
But it seems like congressman you agree with this.
[Cannon]:
That's right, there's nothing I haven't actually worked on that he's suggesting is important. Absolutely he raised the issue of economics. Economics is an important facet. But it's a complex system, it's a complex area that we need to solve piece by piece in a manner that makes overall sense.
[Fabrizio]:
How much money‑ ‑ Let me move on. How much money, how many officers or troops are needed to really secure the border?
[Jacob]:
You know, again, that's one of the things we're supposed to be doing. Our government is in education, which Chris and I are saying.
[Fabrizio]:
I'm asking you how much you think it would cost.
[Jacob]:
I don't know. I know we're spending $135 billion just in the last bill that was approved for Iraq
[Fabrizio]:
Have you conceived of a kind of a figure that it might cost?
[Jacob]:
No. We have to do whatever it costs. We've got to secure our borders because my contention is that it's costing us more than whatever it might cost on what's happening. For example, they're sending $20 billion is the latest figure I heard, back to their country. That's money that would be staying in America . Just turning it over the six to seven times it's supposed to turn over in the economy, that would give us $120 billion in America . All of the sources that they're using, that's cost to us.
[Fabrizio]:
What I'm trying to ask and I want you to respond to this, you say that Americans would be willing to pay more for goods and services, for example. Would it require taxes to be raised?
Would Americans be willing to pay whatever it might cost?
[Jacob]:
I'm not sure it would require that. One of the things that I've understood if you were to double the amount you were paying somebody to pick lettuce it would raise the cost of lettuce like 4 percent. Chris turns around and says no, it doubles it. I don't believe so.
[Cannon]:
I didn't say that. Let's be clear about that. If you leave lettuce rotting in the field and you don't take lettuce to the stores, lettuce will be up in price and the price doubled when we interdicted the men that were coming across the border from Mexico to pick lettuce. That was not a matter of paying a higher price for labor.
[Fabrizio]:
Let him finish.
[Cannon]:
It's not the cost of labor. That has a significant influence overall. It's the matter of having the people to milk the cows and muck out the stalls. Those are the‑ ‑
[Jacob]:
Then they should be legal.
[Cannon]:
We agree entirely on that.
[Jacob]:
No we don't. I believe people here would take the jobs if they were paid enough to take the jobs.
The problem is the people who are here illegally, I had just in Pleasant Grove a lady that says I need to know how we can change the laws because I have a neighbor's house that has four families in it, and because they're related we can do nothing about it. When you have 16, 20, 40 people in a home and they're sending all the money back home, it's not the same. People in America have to be able to earn enough to live.
[Cannon]:
Can I continue please? You say we have people that will do these jobs and I have two sons and daughters and the daughters have worked and the sons have worked at tough jobs. Two years ago when this was a big issue I had 12 grandmothers come up and wag their fingers in my face and say my grandson can't get a job because of these illegal aliens. I said we have a dairy that was paying $12 an hour plus insurance plus room. About an $18 an hour job. I said if you'd like your grandson can call us and we will get him that job tomorrow. So twelve grandmother's grandsons, how many do you think applied? Zero. I don't know how high we have to get these jobs up but $12 for a high school kid seemed to be a good job. An $18 an hour job is darn good.
[Fabrizio]:
I want to ask you whether or not you think that this is a top issue, or should be? It's clearly a top issue in this race. Is it a top issue among your constituents, do you think, and in the country?
[Cannon]:
I don't think there's any question. The interesting thing in this race is what the voter turnout is going to be because there are people that are very angry about this and who are going to vote against me because I have been there working on the issue, and they don't think it's happened fast enough and Mr. Jacob has made that point many times. On the other hand 75 percent of Republicans and a like number of Americans generally want to see a solution. Not exactly like the senate, but along the lines of what the senate has proposed. So if you take the senate bill which has real stinkers in it and the house bill and put those together we're going to have a solution and a year from now people are going to be happy. They're going to say what about? You'll find we've solved the problem and America 's going to be happy, the economy won't be destroyed. In fact we'll be booming a year from now.
[Fabrizio]:
React to that?
[Jacob]:
An excellent point. I don't know how many times, I don't believe it's ever happened where a person that's very novice in politics comes out and gets 52 percent in the convention over an incumbent. Then to throw the president of the United States , the most powerful man in the world, into a race between a primary, between Republicans, and then to say well is this important? It's obviously transcended Chris and I. No matter how much he may think he's doing this, if you look at just the money that's being donated to him, he said that outsiders shouldn't be able to come in and advertise. They paid $40,000, he's had over $400,000 donated to him that makes it‑
[Cannon]:
Let me respond to that. These are people that live in Utah that are part of associations that give money to their association PAC's.
[Jacob]:
None are from Utah .
[Fabrizio]:
This clearly segues to my final question we have about a minute left. I want to ask you whether or not you have your honest differences in this race clearly. A lot of this has been argued on the fringes of interest groups, as well. I'm wondering if you regret the tone of this race? It's been contentious at times, testy.
[Jacob]:
Only between Chris and I. On my web site I don't have any negative thing about Chris.
[Fabrizio]:
My question, do you regret the tone of this race?
[Cannon]:
He's making a good point here. The tone between our campaigns has been very gracious.
None of these outside issues are John's fault. And we have had, we have done no awful research, John's never said anything that's come out has been anything from our campaign. We've been running a campaign that's straight forward.
[Jacob]:
I'm not sure it's our tone.
[Cannon]:
We've had direct debates. I would like to know what‑-
[Fabrizio]:
I'm guessing since we're out of time you regret the tone it's taken but you yourself figure—it's been gracious.
Speak Out Utah
[Fabrizio]:
Illegal immigration is also on the mind of John Florez - in our “Speak Out Utah” segment–…
[John Florez]:
The scariest part about the debate over illegal immigration is that we have shortsighted politicians who fail to see the big picture and have reduced it to trivial sound bites.
Illegal immigration is not new, but exacerbated by Globalization and a changing world economy that now threatens our way of life.
And many Americans now worry whether tomorrow they will have a job, a pension or college savings for their kids.
As a consequence, we now have fearful and angry Americans looking for scapegoats and some politicians willing to build on those fears.
Though the protection of our borders has to be a priority, it should not detract from the need to solve the social and economic problems due to Globalization – not only in the U. S. and Mexico – but in this hemisphere as well.
Our nations need elected leaders who can see beyond the next election -- and blind allegiance to their party.
The World-Wide Web has brought the world to the doorstep of each of the nations in this hemisphere untold opportunities.
Combining that with the natural resources --- including the human talent of each nation, the only limit would be in their ability to find leaders willing to take the time to understand the problems of the new economy, create a common vision, and work together to make it a reality.
[Fabrizio]:
That's Utah NOW for this evening… thanks for joining us …. Remember you can join the conversation with an e-mail… send us your comments to UtahNOW@kued.org In the meantime - we'll be back next Friday with another edition of Utah NOW… until then, I'm Doug Fabrizio…
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