Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) says he’ll take the job as House Speaker only if particular groups — including the important House Freedom Caucus — concede to a list of significant demands. Ryan is demanding support across the Republican conference and says he wants to be “that unifying candidate.”
However, polling data reveals that a Ryan Speakership would do anything but unite the party.On two of the issues of immense importance to GOP voters — trade and immigration — polling from the Pew Research Center shows that most GOP voters oppose some of the key ideological stances to which Ryan is devoted. The issues of trade and immigration also take on an especial importance as the Ryan-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) immigration agenda led to the unseating of former Majority Leader Eric Cantor- which began the leadership shuffle – and the recent Ryan-led Obamatrade push helped bring the base’s criticism of the Boehner leadership team to a fever pitch.
During the 2013 push to pass comprehensive immigration reform, pro-amnesty Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said that Paul Ryan was working “every day” to further the immigration expansion plan. In 2013, while aggressively stumping for Rubio’s immigration plan, Ryan called for the implementation of open borders immigration policies which would allow for the legal and free movement of foreign labor and foreign goods across national boundaries. Ryan insisted that the U.S. needs an immigration system that has, “gates open to the people who are coming in pursuit of their version of the American dream.”
America, Ryan declared, “is more than our borders.”




















