Emanuel got extremely negative marks from anti-immigration groups for his congressional voting record; they saw him as staunchly pro-immigrant. He cosponsored immigration reform without amnesty for undocumented residents, an approach often opposed by both pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant forces. He voted against constructing a wall on the Mexican border and against forcing hospitals to collect information on undocumented immigrants.62 Like most Democrats, he also voted no on the most notorious piece of federal immigration-related legislation in recent history: the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (HR 4437), introduced in December 2005 by Wisconsin Republican congressman James Sensenbrenner.63
The draconian anti-immigrant bill would have criminalized a broad range of everyday interactions with undocumented immigrants. It would theoretically have made teachers, counselors, doctors, landlords, and other everyday people into criminals just for giving undocumented immigrants a ride, renting them a room, or providing them health or social services.64 The House passed the bill 239 to 182 on December 16, 2005. In response, immigrants and their supporters marched by the tens of thousands in cities nationwide. The movement started right in Emanuel’s hometown of Chicago, with the first march of more than one hundred thousand taking the nation by surprise on March 10, 2006.65
Democratic leaders, including Chicago congressman Luis Gutierrez and Mayor Daley, denounced the Sensenbrenner bill and joined immigrants’ rights demonstrations. Many of Emanuel’s Polish, Latino, and other immigrant constituents were among the marchers.
But in a 2010 speech during the Chicago mayoral campaign, Gutierrez said Emanuel put politics before immigrants’ rights during the seminal fight. “Here’s a fact Rahm doesn’t want you to know but one he can’t escape from,” said Gutierrez, who was backing Emanuel’s opponent Gery Chico in the mayoral race. “When the Sensenbrenner bill was on the floor of the House of Representatives, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rahm Emanuel told his colleagues to support Sensenbrenner. He told targeted Democrats in tough re-election fights that he wanted them to vote for this anti-immigrant bill. That’s a fact, an irrefutable fact. . . . When he had a chance to step up as a leading member of Congress and do the right thing instead of the political thing, he refused to do it.”66
Emanuel’s votes often upset progressive, African American, and Latino elected officials and constituents. He voted 128 times against bills or amendments supported by a majority of the ethnic minority members of the Congressional delegation from Chicago, according to a report circulated by former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun, who competed against Emanuel during the Chicago mayoral race.67 Many of those bills were backed by the Congressional Black Caucus and Chicago congressmen Danny K. Davis, Bobby Rush, and Jesse Jackson Jr.68 A number of the bills involved free trade agreements, including those with Singapore, Peru, Chile, and Morocco; Emanuel voted in favor of free trade, while African American congressmen and unions opposed the agreements because of concerns about their impact on US jobs.69 Many of the contentious votes had to do with defense: Rush, Jackson, and Davis tended to take antiwar stances; but Emanuel supported defense spending, military options regarding Iran, and a resolution affirming that the world was safer without deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.70 Emanuel also voted to make provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act permanent—to the outrage of civil liberties groups, which denounced the act for allowing unwarranted spying in the name of the war on terror.71
It was not clear what Emanuel’s own thoughts were about the war in Iraq. He took office after the initial vote to authorize the invasion, but during his congressional campaign he indicated he would have voted in favor of military intervention.72 As a congressman he was relatively cagey about the increasingly unpopular conflict, a stance that came through during his January 2005 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. Emanuel didn’t definitively answer host Tim Russert’s questions about whether he would have voted to invade Iraq knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction. He said, “I still believe that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, OK?”73
Reclaiming the House
In 2004, after the death of former chair Bob Matsui, Emanuel became chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.74 Founded in the mid-1800s, the DCCC is the official campaign arm of Democrats in the House of Representatives, a well-funded organization with a large research staff expert in Emanuel’s early forte, opposition research.75
Republicans had controlled the House since the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, featuring Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.”76 Emanuel’s major goal as head of the DCCC was to reclaim the House for Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections. It was a major challenge: in January 2006, the House had 231 Republican members and just 201 Democrats (plus one Democratic-leaning independent), and Republican George W. Bush was in the White House.77
Emanuel pulled it off.
Several books and documentaries describe a strategically brilliant operation showcasing Emanuel’s cutthroat style and stellar fundraising ability. Chicago Tribune reporter Naftali Bendavid’s book The Thumpin’ described Emanuel masterfully juggling the campaigns of candidates nationwide, down to the smallest minutiae. Candidates rose and fell in his favor based on their shifting political prospects.
That year Emanuel also released his book The Plan: Big Ideas for America, written with fellow Clinton aide and DLC president Bruce Reed.78The Plan outlined their political philosophy and their vision for “a new social contract.” The authors indicated that politics should be driven by ideals rather than cynical pragmatism, denouncing Democrats who “bought into [Republican strategist] Karl Rove’s logic that the most important challenge of our time is how to win an election.” They decried a party driven by focus groups, consultants, and “second opinions,” swaying without an ideological rudder.79
Ironically, the approach condemned in The Plan is very similar to what fans and critics alike describe as Emanuel’s own approach to politics. A prime example would be the 2006 campaigns, where Emanuel pushed candidates to win at all costs. “He had no interest in a Democratic Party that was purer than the opposition if it lost,” Bendavid wrote. “He did not care where a candidate stood on abortion or the Iraq war, or whether that candidate was displacing a ‘better’ Democrat, if such purity cost a House seat.”80
Money had always been central to Emanuel’s political strategy, and as the 2006 midterms geared up, he was only interested in candidates who could raise buckets of it. In their book Winner-Take-All Politics, political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson noted:
Emanuel spent more of his time courting cash than doing anything else. No matter how attractive a candidate or appealing his message, it meant little if he could not advertise on television, print brochures, or pay campaign workers to knock on doors. . . . In the 2006 campaign, Emanuel and his staff were judging candidates almost exclusively by how much money they raised. If a candidate proved a good fund-raiser, the DCCC would provide support, advertising, strategic advice, and whatever other help was needed. If not, the committee would shut him out. . . . Most of Emanuel’s fund-raising time was spent meeting with wealthy lawyers or financiers, telling them this was the year to give.81
One of the hot seats up for grabs in the 2006 race was Illinois’s Sixth District. The district, which enfolds Chicago’s western suburbs, was 78 percent white; relatively well off, with a $65,000 median household income; and politically moderate.82 In both 2000 and 2004, 53 percent of voters had chosen George W. Bush for president.83
Since 1975 the Sixth District had been represented by Henry Hyde, a right-wing Republican who took a lead role in the effort to impeach President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.84 In the 2004 election, a likable software worker and community activist named Christine Cegelis made