The return of the Imperial Presidency.

Via WaPo’s lib blogger Greg Sargent:

Today House Dems introduced their discharge petition to force a vote on immigration reform. No Republicans signed it. A John Boehner adviser justified this by tweeting that the votes aren’t there in the House for Dem reform proposals. Okay, but House Republicans won’t vote on their own proposals, either.

Ultimately, though, all of this dithering distracts from the big picture, which is this: If House Republicans don’t act on reform in the next few months, it’s likely Republicans will head into the next presidential election without having done anything significant to fix their Latino problem.

It’s hard to see a scenario in which Republicans act on immigration reform beyond the summer. If summer comes and nothing has moved, pressure on Obama to utilize executive action to slow deportations will be overwhelming. He’ll likely do something. The right will go into overdrive, making legislative reform even harder.

Two immigration reform advocates who have spoken personally with the president in recent days tell me they came away convinced he knows he will have to resort to executive action by summer if Republicans do nothing.

“The president made it clear that three months from now, if there is no legislative action, he will do more using executive authority,” says Lorella Praelli, the director of advocacy and policy for United We Dream, who was in a recent meeting between advocates and President Obama. “That was the message that we got in different ways.”