TO: Friends

FR: Jim Boulet, Jr.

DT: May 31, 2007

Two developments suggest where we are on the immigration bill in the midst of Congress's Memorial Day recess

(1) President Bush told a Georgia crowd on Tuesday "If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people."

(2) Senator John Kyl (R-AZ), one of the authors of the amnesty bill, told reporters last week that "the number of calls to his office from angry constituents was tailing off, while messages of support had doubled."

The power of the Presidency

On Tuesday, Bush also commended two Republicans for breaking with the base of their party by supporting the Bush bill: "I appreciate the Republicans and Democrats in the United States Senate, starting with Saxby Chambliss and Mel Martinez, who put politics aside and put courage first to work on a comprehensive bill."

By appearing with President Bush, Chambliss has announced his reelection strategy for 2008: Chambliss is counting on the President to raise lots of money for him and/or that President Bush's man at the Republican National Committee, Mel Martinez, will ensure Chambliss has funding priority.

A number of other outspoken opponents of the Bush amnesty plan can expect a combination of White House promises and threats because they too are running in 2008: Sessions of Alabama, Inhofe of Oklahoma and Cornyn of Texas. Add to this number 2008 reelection candidates originally recruited by Team Bush like Coleman of Minnesota, Sununu of New Hampshire and Dole of North Carolina.

The other side of the coin is suggested by columnist Jim Pinkerton today. Pinkerton, a key Bush I advisor, suggested that if Inhofe and others make the Democrats vote on several tough amendments, they might not only kill this bad bill, but save the GOP from damage in 2008.

In 1986, I was told that the Republicans would keep the Senate because they were flush in funds. Alas, their Democratic opponents were more flush in votes.

Republican Senators up for reelection need to ponder whether RNC checks will overcome mass revulsion at a Republican Party-led amnesty for illegal aliens. (There is also the question of whether the RNC will be able to raise money post amnesty.)

Senate math should be on the side of amnesty but is not, thanks to you.

Senate math is pretty basic: your side needs 60 votes from either party to prevail against any filibuster. There are 49 Democrats (including the ailing Tim Johnson of South Dakota) in the 2007 Senate, plus two independents who vote with the Democrats. So most efforts to block bad amendments (or pass good ones) begin down 51.

There are already nine likely Bush bill backers: Kyle of Arizona, Martinez of Florida, Snowe of Maine, Collins of Maine (also up in 2008), Hagel of Nebraska, Dominici of New Mexico (up in 2008), Voinovich of Ohio, Specter of Pennsylvania, and Graham of South Carolina (up in 2008)). This means the White House could have the 60 votes it requires without arm-twisting a soul.

The fact that the Bush Administration's are-twisting has grown more intense and their rhetoric more vehement indicates your calls and e-mails are getting though, no matter what Senator Kyle tells the press.

Remember Harriet Miers?

Those of us opposed to this awful legislation can take heart that the White House seems to be using its Harriet Miers play book again: shun all debates about facts and dismiss all opposition as unworthy, ill motivated or both.

President Bush's first choice for Sandra Day O'Connor's Supreme Court seat was Harriet Miers, a women whose merits, other than years of slavish loyalty to George Bush, were not readily apparent to those outside the Bush Administration.

In response, the White House and its allies demonized foes of the Miers nomination as "sexists" and "elitists." The White House talking points seemed to grow ever more shrill until Miers withdrew her name.

That does not mean that the good guys will prevail this time just because we prevailed once before. A sitting president, even an unpopular one, has many carrots and sticks at his disposal. It will soon be suggested by someone that the amnesty bill must be passed or Bush will be weakened regarding the Iraq War.

R E S P E C T

The viciousness of Bush Administration officials may seem over the top, given only a piece of legislation is at stake. But the Bush family has no reason to love conservatives and many reasons to loathe them.

For the last 27 years and counting, Bush family politicos have been required to pledge their fealty to the principles of a man who they tried with all their might to defeat in 1980, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Yet conservatives have never treated either Bush I or II way they did their beloved Reagan.

Team Bush also may feel conservatives are reneging on the bargain of 2000. Conservative Republicans desperately wanted to win the White House. Bush was good on taxes and a religious man, plus he could raise money by the truckload. Few cared then about his views regarding amnesty or official English. Now conservatives are defying him on those very issues.

Bowing to the inevitable

Grassroots outrage kept the Senate from doing Bush's bidding on Miers. Grassroots outrage can beat the amnesty bill. Polls from early May, long before this debate hit the headlines, show that those who oppose the amnesty bill are twice as "intense" about their feelings as are amnesty supporters.

If the calls, faxes and e-mails keep coming into Senate offices, Senators will feel forced to decide between the views of a lame-duck president and their constituents.

While the Senate is not the House (Senators run every six years, not every two and, by my calculations, the average Senator has already served 14.2 years), Senators are not utterly deaf to public opinion.

Keep up your good work. Together, we can win.

Sincerely,

Jim Boulet, Jr.

Executive Director

English First, 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151

You can support the work of English First via secure server here.

If this e-mail alert was forwarded to you and you wish to receive future alerts directly (there is no charge), please sign up here.