House Speaker John Boehner’s on-staff amnesty advocate Becky Tallent is in talks with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s potential presidential campaign for a job, meaning if she takes it she’d leave Boehner’s office.
Tallent is former chief of staff to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)—having personally crafted the amnesty bill McCain and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced in the twilight years of the George W. Bush administration—and then also worked on immigration policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“Jeb’s team is looking to hire Rebecca for policy,” a former George W. Bush White House aide told Breitbart News.
“The fact that they’re talking to Becky speaks to the focus that Jeb puts on getting immigration across the goal line,” a former senior staffer for McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign added.
Neither Tallent nor Jeb Bush’s spokeswoman Kristy Campbell have responded to requests for comment yet, but the mere fact that Bush world is discussing this openly means that Tallent is definitely interested. It’s not finalized, and there’s plenty of things that could derail the opportunity for her and for the Bush campaign. But nonetheless, the mere fact they’re talking is newsworthy—even if Boehner keeps her. If Boehner keeps her after this, it’d mean he is keeping someone on his staff who would even consider working for a politician who believes crossing the border illegally is an “act of love.”
In 2013, when Tallent handled immigration policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center—and was pushing the Senate “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill—Jeb Bush and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour conducted a joint roundtable on the need for amnesty in their view.
“I want to set the stage in a broader way at first about why embracing our immigrant experience, our immigrant heritage, is important for renewing America’s greatness,” Bush said in his opening statement at the event. “I think our country is the only developed country, mature country if you will, that could grow at 3.5, 4 percent per year for the next decade. We have abundant resources. We have great talent. We have the ability to rebuild our demographic pyramid right now that has eroded dramatically as a declining fertility rate—Haley and I are getting older—all the societal changes that are taking place make it imperative for us, I think, to have immigration reform as a key element of an economic strategy for sustained growth. This is a huge opportunity. I don’t view immigration as a problem. I view it as embracing an enormous opportunity for us to fulfill our potential as a nation. It’s within our grasp to do it now.”
Tallent has since handled immigration policy for Speaker Boehner—after the Ohio Republican hired her in December 2013—and has been behind many of the efforts by Boehner to reignite efforts to grant amnesty to illegal aliens and import hordes of cheap foreign labor to take jobs away from American workers. The latest effort she is behind is helping bring back to life the once-dead border bill—a bill that only has 48 miles of double layer fencing, even though 700 miles are required by current law, and it doesn’t stop Obama’s catch-and-release of illegal aliens—from House Homeland Security committee chairman Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX). Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a chief sponsor of the Senate version of the McCaul bill, laid out on the Senate floor this week why Tallent is trying to revive the dead McCaul bill: It’s part of an effort to provide cover to Republicans so they can vote on eventual amnesty and guest worker increase bills while saying they secured the border, even though they didn’t.
Boehner’s office has kept Tallent secretive, frequently refusing to allow her to speak to the public or to media about her views on immigration. Before he hired her though, back when she worked for Bipartisan Policy Center, she appeared on C-SPAN to detail how she believes American workers aren’t good enough for many jobs in this country.
“There are jobs that American workers will not do,” she said in the appearance, among other controversial remarks.
Not many on Capitol Hill had heard of Tallent’s decision to open job talks with Bush’s campaign to join it as a policy adviser on immigration, but when reached throughout the morning Friday several GOP staffers expressed outrage.
“I hadn’t heard that but it doesn’t surprise me in the least,” one GOP congressional aide said. “In a way it would be good because then she couldn’t keep poisoning the minds of credulous staffers and members. I’m sure Jeb’s $100,000-per-ticket donors would be pleased. If they don’t get her, maybe they can recruit someone from Luis Gutierrez’s office.”
“It’s only natural,” another GOP congressional aide added. “Ms. Tallent, Mr. Bush, and the wealthy donors who prize them share identical goals on immigration.”
*UPDATE* Boehner’s communications director Michael Steel, via Twitter, denied the story was true–something that is expected since it’s unlikely that Tallent would broadcast to her current employer she is in talks for a job with a competitor. ‘This story is not true or accurate,’ Steel said.
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