Dear Friends,
As I am writing this letter, my printer was churning out the Senate's 373- page amendment to the amnesty bill, a bill that once was just 323 pages long.
The Senate is expected to begin debating this "super-duper" 26 amendment bundle at 10:00 AM Wednesday morning. Senate Majority Leader Reid (R-NV) plans to call for another cloture vote and hopes to have a final vote on the immigration bill by Friday.
Given that nasty surprises have already been found in the original immigration bill (S.1348) and in its successor introduced last week (S.1639), I can only imagine what I will find in the amendment.
Let me give you some examples of these surprises:
Both immigration bills required the government to process a Z (amnesty) visa in one business day. Because of Clinton Executive Order 13166, those applications could be filed in any language spoken anywhere on Earth. Good luck getting a proper background check done under those conditions.
The amended version of the immigration bill, (S.1639) filed by Ted Kennedy, actually invokes UN law as the basis for American immigration policy. I documented this for National Review today here. (Or I have set up a direct link via http://www.englishfirst.org.
64 to 35
Cloture passed this morning, 64 to 35.
Republicans voting for cloture after voting against virtually the same bill earlier this month or not voting (Brownback): Bennett (Utah), Bond (Missouri), Brownback (Kansas), Burr (North Carolina), Coleman (Minnesota), Collins (Maine), Domenici (New Mexico), Ensign (Nevada), Gregg (New Hampshire), Lott (Mississippi), McConnell (Kentucky), Murkowski (Alaska), Snowe (Maine), Stevens (Alaska), and Warner (Virginia).
Well done.
Given that the White House, a minority of Senate Republicans and nearly all Senate Democrats were all foursquare for the amnesty bill, the wonder is not that we lost the morning. The wonder is that we managed to get so close.
President Bush has devoted four of his last eight Saturday Radio addresses to immigration, including the most recent one on June 23rd.
White House staff are stalking Senators on behalf of the Administration's number one legislative priority. Presidents tend to get what they want. That President Bush has yet to win on his immigration bill is a tribute to your tenacity and determination.
President Bush held yet another last minute pep rally on behalf of his bill this morning
Where the pro-cloture Republicans came from:
Hand-picked Bush Senators
Some Senators backed the Bush Administration on immigration today because the White House first backed them.
Norm Coleman (Minnesota) and Mel Martinez (Florida) were recruited for their Senate races by the White House. Bush has since made Martinez General Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Martinez has no interest in biting the hand that has fed him. Nor does Coleman.
Richard Burr (a descendent of Aaron Burr) won a close Senate race in 2004, thanks to the President's coattails and he has stuck close ever since, voting with the President 's position 91.5% of the time in 2005-2006.
Senators with real or imagined pressure points the Bush Administration could exploit.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, serves the Bush Administration's Secretary of Labor. McConnell is also up for reelection in 2008.
Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) continues to look to the White House for hurricane help for his state. (Lott lost his house to Katrina.)
The two Alaska Senators have plenty of other things on their plates. Reported Roll Call on May 14th:
The Alaska Congressional delegation over the past several months has quietly intensified work to secure federal help in developing a sparsely populated area outside of Anchorage, an effort that could yield significant financial benefits for family members and current and former aides of the three Republicans, according to the Congressional Record and state and local land records.Amendments will matter less than some people think.
Some people think Senate Democrats will refuse to back an immigration bill they deem too conservative. Those people forget that once an immigration bill reached a House-Senate conference, the Democrats can write any bill they want.
The professional ethnic activists cheerleading for amnesty know this. The Washington Post reported today that Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy at the National Council for La Raza, the largest Latino rights group and members of other immigrant rights groups said they will still support the bill's passage, while pressing for changes in the House or in eventual House-Senate negotiations.
Via Congressional Quarterly: Republican rebellion in the House
Hours before the Senate vote, House Republicans, against the wishes of President Bush, took a step toward denouncing the Senate legislation after discussing the matter in a closed-door conference meeting.No time to quitRep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., introduced a motion expressing the opposition of House Republicans to the Senate bill. The move was pushed by the most conservative members of the GOP Conference, including Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and John Shadegg, R-Ariz.
The Republicans defeated, 28-83, a motion to table Hoekstra's proposal. But they went no further, as many members left the meeting to attend committee business meetings. House Republicans were expected to reconvene either later Tuesday or on Wednesday to vote on Hoekstra's motion.
There will be more procedural votes on the immigration bill. And even if amendments won't really count (see my item on the conference committee above) a roll call vote is always a useful thing.
Michelle Malkin reports that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, chaired by amnesty voter John Ensign (R-Nevada) was besieged with angry telephone calls.
McConnell could realize that doing Reid's bidding is not exactly helping him go down in history as a good Republican leader. By accepting the clay-pigeon amendment, he has given Reid the power to control the Senate's amendment process for all future legislation.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the harder we make this fight in the Senate, the more we will stiffen the resistance of Senators like Sessions and DeMint who have been doing lots of heavy lifting against this legislation. They could have avoided this fight. They didn't.
Sessions is also up for reelection in 2008, but he has been willing to insist that the Senate consider the economic cost of the amnesty bill.
We lost a battle today. But the fight continues. I'll keep you posted.
Jim Boulet, Jr.
Executive Director
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