The Senate managed to get cloture for the immigration bill that the vast majority of Americans don’t want. What happened to the “will of the people” that Harry Reid repeated ad infinitum when he wanted to retreat from Iraq. Suddenly, when it comes to the immigration bill, the will of the people doesn’t seem to matter anymore. The Republicans who didn’t sell out but, instead, maintained their principled positions against the bill managed to temporarily stall its movement forward. From the AP:
The Senate resurrected the immigration bill that could legalize millions of unlawful immigrants Tuesday, but the delicate compromise faces the same threats that derailed it earlier this month.
The White House and Republican and Democratic architects of the bill hailed the crucial test vote that revived the legislation, and they predicted approval of the measure by week’s end.
Their victory was fleeting, though, giving way just hours later to stalling tactics by GOP foes. Conservatives succeeded in delaying until Wednesday consideration of a package of amendments designed to pave the way for a final vote on the bill.
They did so by using Senate rules to insist that the entire 373-page package be read aloud, relenting only when Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to postpone action on the amendments.
That was just the first in a series of formidable obstacles lying in the bill’s path. The Senate is slated to consider 26 amendments, mostly from senators seeking to change key elements of the bill, that have the potential to either sap its support or draw new backers.
After that, the legislation must overcome another make-or-break vote as early as Thursday. And there is no guarantee that it will ultimately attract enough support to pass.
Republicans and Democrats alike are deeply conflicted over the bill, which also would create a temporary worker program, strengthen border security and institute a new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces.
Masking those divides, the Senate voted 64-35 to revive the bill, which stalled earlier this month when it failed to muster the 60 votes it needed to scale procedural hurdles.
The House will probably kill the bill anyway, so the Senate’s cloture vote may turn out to be an exercise in futility. Nonetheless, Bryan at Hot Air tells us where things need to go from here:
So where do we go from here, over the next few days? We have to fight our own party leadership and kill the amnesty bill. This time we have to make sure it’s dead. We have to fight our own president. We’ll have to field candidates to challenge senators like Lindsey Graham from the right, if for no other reason than to remind them that we still have a vote for them to ignore. And we have to do it before the Democrats solidify their hold on Congress next year, and probably take the White House, and move to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine to squelch debate and criticism of them. That’s the coming battle after the 2008 elections: Whether the free speech environment we’ve enjoyed for the past 20 years will remain free or not.
So the pro-amnesty Republicans are fostering a horrible ill will between themselves, the conservative base, and the American people, and for what? A bill that will probably die in the House anyway. What a complete waste of time and energy.
