Appeal of illegal immigration ordinance could give boost to Barletta

Nov 01, 2008 (The Citizens' Voice - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- TWX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The candidate strode out of the U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia on Thursday surrounded by a pack of aides and pin-striped lawyers. Television cameras and microphone-clutching reporters pounced. A security guard kept watch, shooing teenagers out of the choicest camera angles.

For many campaigns, the courthouse backdrop would have been a death knell just four days and 15 hours before polls open.

But for Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, a Republican, the hearing and attention it brings could provide a welcome, though small, bump in support in an election season that has long been shaping up to favor Democrats as a vastly unpopular Republican president winds down his tenure and economic worries send voters looking left for answers.

Though policy statements, stump speeches and candid responses to reporters' questions over the last few months have revealed little difference between where Barletta and his opponent, 12-term Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, stand on illegal immigration, Barletta has owned the issue from the get-go.

His anti-illegal immigration ordinance, which would make it illegal for business owners to hire undocumented workers and for landlords to rent to them, has been the subject of heavy litigation and national television coverage. After it was found unconstitutional in U.S. District Court 13 months ago, Hazleton appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court, which will take at least a few months and possibly more than a year to rule.

Barletta has made the rounds on national talk shows to tout his stance. The re-emergence of the case in court Thursday put him back in the spotlight.

David Sosar, Ph.D., a political science professor at King's College, flipped on the television early Friday morning. CNN was showing a replay of "Lou Dobbs Tonight."

"There, right there staring at me at 3:30 in the morning, was the Hazleton case again," said Sosar, a former Republican city councilman in Hazleton. "It's gotten Barletta exposure in a way that he couldn't have had with his lack of money compared to Kanjorski."

Kanjorski spent more than $1.8 million this election cycle, according to the latest FEC report in mid-October, while Barletta spent $676,303.

Despite the fundraising disparity, Barletta has enjoyed a lead in polls sponsored by the parent company of The Citizens' Voice and conducted by Franklin & Marshall College. In mid-September, Barletta led 44 percent to 35 percent. Four weeks later, however, the gap closed to five points as economic fears weighed heavy on voters.

In the earlier poll, 21 percent of voters tapped the economy as their top issue in the 11th District race, while 17 percent chose illegal immigration. A month later, after the more than $700 billion Wall Street bailout package, 29 percent of those surveyed said the economy was their top issue, while 12 percent said illegal immigration.

Thursday's appeal hearing "does bring back the immigration issue, not necessarily to the fore, but it is back," said Thomas J. Baldino, Ph.D., a professor of political science at Wilkes University. "The economy is still front and center for most people in the district."

G. Terry Madonna, Ph.D., the director of the F&M polls, said the hearing Thursday would "serve as a reminder" in the 11th District.

"Immigration in that district was very helpful to Barletta in the beginning of the contest," Madonna said. "It reminds voters when the importance of that issue that has been receding in district recently."

Illegal immigration has been largely absent from Barletta's advertisements; he has chosen to call for a new voice in the Capitol while attacking Kanjorski for funneling congressional earmarks to a company run by relatives that ultimately failed.

"I think Barletta was more than happy to let his record on this issue speak for itself," Sosar said. "I don't think he could have asked the courts for a better time to hear this case as this story lives out its life for the next few days."

Barletta's camp has been careful to not politicize the hearing, instead focusing on the ordinance's intended effects on Hazleton. Campaign Manager Vince Galko traveled with the mayor to Philadelphia, but only as an observer, Galko said.

"It's nothing compared to (the exposure) when the case was up in Scranton" in U.S. District Court, Galko said. "I think the vast majority of people don't know that the hearing took place yesterday."

A Kanjorski spokesman declined to comment for this story.

nsohr@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2052

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