Thursday, June 28, 2007
Pre-cloture vote thoughts (June 28th).
The Wall Street Journal is not amused. Via "Beleaguered Immigration Bill Faces Do-or-Die Vote" (June 28th).
House Republicans hurt the president's cause this week by passing a party resolution disapproving of the Senate bill. The sour Senate mood was captured by Sen. Pete Domenici (R., N.M.), who had voted with the president Tuesday to call up the bill, but said he would oppose the cloture motion to limit debate this morning.
"This bill is toast," he said in an interview. "This bill will never become law, and consequently I don't see why I should continue down this path. It's not going to pass the House ever. So we're never going to get a bill. So why go through this torture?"
A supermajority of 60 votes is needed to invoke cloture, and the administration's high-water point Tuesday was 64. A loss of five votes would be fatal, and apart from Mr. Domenici, Sens. Christopher Bond (R., Mo.) and Richard Burr (R., N.C.) are expected to now oppose cloture, and Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) remained uncommitted.
Among Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jim Webb of Virginia are moving toward the "no" column. Also, Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, more-liberal labor Democrats, were up in the air because of family and labor provisions in the bill.
Historical Note: Domenici has consistently voted against official English, dating back to the early 1980s.
Political Note: The Democrats have another presidential debate scheduled for tonight. Does anyone thing that Hillary, Obama, Biden and Dodd really want to continue debating this wildly unpopular bill?
Prediction: all four Democrats will vote for cloture later this morning , but claim that they were only voting to continue debate on a bill about which they still have grave misgivings (an approach adopted earlier this week by Senator Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) "I will vote to proceed, but I think it is very undecided now if the bill will pass").
Reid's Real Role?
I remain convinced that, given the choice, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) wants an issue for his party in 2008, not a signing ceremony in 2007. He wants to kill the bill (for now), but do so in a way that leaves only Republican fingerprints.
Reid's heavy-handed use of unprecedented tactics to deny most Senators any say whatsoever in the bill was bound to create a backlash, even among Senators otherwise likely to be supportive of the legislation.
One last thing, if cloture fails on the immigration bill this morning and Reid pulls the bill from the floor, the bill can return whenever Reid deems the time to be ripe. No legislative victory is ever final until Congress adjourns at the end of its second session.
|posted by Jim on 3:14 AM|
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