Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The Iowa bureau of the Associated Press looks at the role of grassroots organizations, the Internet and the election cycle played in the demise of the illegal immigrant amnesty bill.

Online groups took credit Friday for leading the grass-roots opposition against an immigration reform bill, saying they persuaded Americans to flood Congress with hundreds of thousands of phone calls, faxes and e-mails. The proposal, backed by President Bush, would have created a path to legal residency for illegal immigrants.

The conservative Grassfire group's Web site has more than a million contacts nationwide that led to more than 300,000 "citizen contacts" with senators offices over the past few days, said Steve Elliott, president of Grassfire.org, headquartered in tiny Maxwell [Iowa]. The contacts included phone calls, visits to lawmakers' offices and faxes marked with a giant letter "A" -- which the group dubbed the "scarlet letter of amnesty." More than 725,000 people signed a Grassfire online petition, sent to President Bush and congressional members, against what they were calling the Bush-Kennedy Amnesty Bill, organizers said. Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was his party's lead negotiator on the bill.

Another group, Eagle Forum, led a coalition of about a dozen groups including NumbersUSA, Let Freedom Ring and Concerned Women for America, said Jessica Echard, Eagle Forum's executive director. They combined Internet activism with bloggers and others in Washington who alerted group members if a lawmaker appeared to be wavering on his or her vote.

Brian Darling, a congressional analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, credited groups for using the Internet to oppose the legislation. Elliot's group, Grassfire.org, targeted 17 senators of both parties, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. McConnell voted against the bill. So many calls came into the office of Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin that the Democrat's phone system crashed.

Harkin voted against the amnesty bill.

David Redlawsk, a University of Iowa political science professor, noted to the AP that 11 senators who are up for election in 2008 switched their votes on immigration reform.