Many conservatives view GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio as an establishment candidate and haven’t forgiven him for his part in the Gang-of-Eight battle on immigration reform. But is there a conservative case to be made for Marco Rubio? Sarah Rumpf at Legal Insurrection think so.  She offers several points in Rubio’s favor.

Rumpf establishes Rubio’s conservative credentials by going back to his record in the Florida legislature, where Rubio quickly rose in the ranks to Speaker of the state house. “For Republican voters who want to see a proven record of actually enacting a conservative agenda, Rubio’s tenure in the Florida House of Representatives should be extremely encouraging,” Rumpf writes.

Chief among Rubio’s accomplishments in Florida were a strong anti-Kelo property rights bill (in contrast to the Kelo-loving Donald Trump) and tax reforms negotiated with the liberal Florida Senate and then-governor Charlie Crist.

According to Rumpf, “The way he led the Florida House as Speaker would leave a lasting impression not just on his fellow representatives, but statewide, laying the groundwork for his successful Senate run.”

Many of us remember the tea party victories of 2010, but few were as dramatic as Rubio’s win against liberal Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist. Rubio initially polled at 3 percent, and Crist was seen as the inevitable frontrunner. But Rubio gained momentum by meeting conservative activists “a few dozen at a time” until Crist’s lead shrank to the point that he dropped out of the Republican primary altogether and ran as an Independent. Rubio easily defeated the establishment figure and was hailed as a tea party champion.

Another Look at the Gang of Eight

Was Rubio’s role in the “Gang of Eight” — the group of senators who worked on an immigration bill in 2013 that never passed — an act of betrayal or an attempt to keep a bad situation from becoming worse? Rumpf argues that “the whole reason Rubio was willing to sit at the table was to push the bill as far to the right as possible.” She continues:

It’s easy to throw around the word “amnesty,” but there was never a version of the bill that granted citizenship without background checks, fines, waiting periods and other security provisions, and any action that would have allowed those here illegally to obtain any form of legal status was contingent on first increasing border security funding.

As the conservative member of the Gang of Eight, Rubio was on the receiving end of criticism from conservatives. Rumpf argues that Rubio then did what he has done since his days in the Florida legislature: he listened. “Rubio’s constituents in Florida and conservative activists around the country strongly objected to the bill, and he changed his mind. Isn’t that what we want?” Rumpf asks.

Also, in 2013, Senator Rubio predicted that if Republicans didn’t moderate and enact bipartisan immigration reform, President Obama would get his own extreme version via executive order. And according to Rumpf, Rubio was largely correct on that score.

Rumpf takes the most sanguine view of Rubio’s Gang-of-Eight efforts. John Hawkins at Townhall is far more skeptical, painting the Gang-of-Eight bill as an unmitigated disaster, and Rubio’s involvement in it a betrayal of his get-tough-on-immigration stance that he ran on in his successful senate race. Rubio argues that he learned a lot from the Gang-of-Eight experience, and that the rising threat of terror from radicalized Muslim immigrants has increased the country’s need to tighten up its borders. Again, Hawkins is wary:

… many of Rubio’s establishment backers are behind him specifically because they are expecting him to break his word again and back an immigration plan similar to the Gang-of-Eight bill.

That’s all worth keeping in mind because Marco Rubio wants to be President and he’s promising to get tough on illegal immigration. If he’s telling the truth, he might be a decent candidate. If Rubio’s lying, it doesn’t really make much of a difference over the long haul whether you elect him or Hillary because his immigration policies would permanently cement liberals in power without securing the border or doing anything of significance to stop illegal immigration.

An additional complicating factor for conservatives is that an extreme anti-immigration stance isn’t intrinsically conservative or small government. Jay Richards and James Robison delve into the complexities of the issue here.

If Rubio is Establishment, Why Hasn’t the Establishment Rallied Around Him?

Then there is the more general question of whether Rubio is “too establishment.” Political analysts at FiveThirtyEight wonder if the anti-Cruz elites have failed to rally around Rubio precisely because he is too conservative for the establishment. Why else wouldn’t they choose a candidate who polls so well against Hillary and promises to bring more Latinos into the Republican party than any of the other GOP candidates likely could?

Rumpf insists that Rubio is exactly the sort of conservative we need:

He has a long track record of listening to grassroots conservatives, gathering the resources and expertise needed to turn ideas into bills, and then the political negotiating skills to turn those ideas into actual laws. You can see that in both his successes in the Florida House, and in stumbles like the Gang of Eight bill (again, conservatives told him they hated the bill, and he listened). Rubio is also one of the only ones who has been able to actually take action against Obamacare, forcing the rollback of the risk corridor provisions that has sharply limited how much taxpayer money could be used to bail out insurance companies, and may hasten the bill’s demise.

Multiple metrics show Rubio has a solidly conservative — and even anti-establishment! — voting record. Add in his electability and appeal to independent voters the GOP desperately needs and the Florida Senator deserves to be on any conservative’s short list for the nomination.