Talk of Resurrecting Immigration Bill Begins as Autopsy Goes On

WaCompost ^ | Saturday, June 9, 2007 | Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman

[indcons]

Supporters of immigration reform launched new talks to save their tattered bill yesterday, with the chief architects of the bipartisan compromise confident that they could resurrect it -- even as recriminations flew over its stunning collapse.

The rescue mission was dispatched moments after the vote was tallied Thursday night. Sixty votes were needed to end debate and pave the way for final passage, but only 45 senators voted yes. Republican and Democratic negotiators believe they can reach agreement by early next week on the official sticking point: which conservative amendments would be considered before final passage. The list must be short enough for time-conscious Democrats, yet substantive enough for Republicans demanding to be heard.

[indcons]

Long read with lots of usual WaCompost nonsense and biases. That being said, the article has several insights on how the Republican Senate ladership and the WH went out of their way to placate La Raza and pass this travesty. They are going to try again and this time they'll attempt to do it piecemeal.

Money quotes from the article:

"Republican and Democratic negotiators believe they can reach agreement by early next week..."

"Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), the caucus chairman, and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (Ill.), the chief Democratic author of a major House immigration bill, dashed over to the Senate. But Reid did not see them until 6:30 p.m. Gutierrez implored him not to pull the bill from the Senate floor. To the millions of illegal immigrants in this country, it was "a matter of life and death," he said...."

"Republicans were no less panicked. For several hours Thursday afternoon, McConnell huddled in his office with Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the bill's lead Republican backer, along with more than half a dozen hard-line opponents...."

"DeMint then went to the Senate floor to refuse every offer Reid would make on further amendments...."

"The move infuriated some senior Republicans, including Minority Whip Trent Lott (Miss.), who was urging the GOP leadership to take a harder line with the conservatives. But McConnell was reluctant to push too hard...."

"Chertoff rejected the suggestions that the administration had not hustled. 'They are going to have to fumigate the room because we were basically living there. Anyone who says we weren't engaged is ignorant of the facts.'"

"Bush will speak to Senate Republicans on Tuesday about immigration in a previously scheduled lunch."

[indcons]

ladership=leadeship

[Vigilanteman]

"The move infuriated some senior Republicans, including Minority Whip Trent Lott (Miss.), who was urging the GOP leadership to take a harder line with the conservatives. But McConnell was reluctant to push too hard...."

Well, next time, Trent Lott should run as a Democrat and see how much support he gets.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

We are well into the brink of the most significant crisis in the history of our country.

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

July 4, 1776

[sheana]

The most disgusting thing about the whole article......
Chertoff, our head of Homeland Security, lobbying the senators to make his job a rubber stamp of criminals.

[gas0linealley]

“Chertoff rejected the suggestions that the administration had not hustled. ‘They are going to have to fumigate the room because we were basically living there.”

Who said Chertoff’s a liar? They couldn’t prove it based on this statement. “Hustled”, “fumigate”, ah, so true.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

George Bush = Jimmy Carter.

[Paladin2]

This is still the first step for the SPP coming this Fall.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060331.html

[indcons]

What a great quote. In these days of 30-second sound bites and many midget-like politicians, we may never see such command of language and clarity in thinking, as expressed in this quote.

Bravo!

[Paladin2]

Also here:

http://www.spp.gov/

Coming soon to a Congress near you.

[gpapa]

The key graft in the article is this:

But the two most obvious remedies -- the guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal residents -- drew opposition from two of the most powerful forces on the political landscape. On the Democratic side, labor unions protested the guest-worker program as a threat to American jobs. Many conservatives loathed the path-to-citizenship provision, deriding it as "amnesty" for lawbreakers.

[indcons]

I posted this fact on a different thread a couple of days ago and some FReepers added other details:

Chertoff had an open Q/A session in the morning on this bill. After this, he did a round of radio talk shows and told listeners that (paraphrase), “while some peple are unhappy with this bill, he is thrilled that everybody has something they like” (whatever that gibberish means).

He then spend the entire afternoon and evening (by his own admission in lobbying the Senate and individual senators). Contrary to what WaPo says, his arrival at the Senate to twist arms in person was the culmination of his efforts that day, as opposed to being a one-off attempt.

[do the dhue]

Congress needs to be pulling billion dollars in Chertoff’s budget and use it to start building the fence.

Duncan Hunter passed a bill into law with 89 Senators voting for it. The law is we can build a fence from California to Texas. Over 800 miles of fence, but Congress will not fund it.

Hunter says that Homeland Security has a billion dollars not being used and that money could be used to help build the fence.

This Congress should not be allowed to pass another bill into law until they learn how to fund and enforce the laws we have on the books now.

[rockrr]

And they’re going to sit down and carefully consider the opinions of every interested party......except the American people.

With a Congress like this, who needs enemies?

[skinkinthegrass]

“Prudence, indeedt...heir future security.” July 4, 1776

..Its' amazing, "those who ignore history, are doomed to repeat it."
Thanks, for the post. :/

[etradervic]

[do the dhue]

Another is why the White House -- which regards immigration reform as key to reviving public support for President Bush

Who is the retard who thought this would happen?

The only way Bush revives some public support is by acting like a Conservative. Bush will never get the left to say he is doing a good job. He could get the Right to say he is doing a good job, if he showed us some love.

[ClaireSolt]

This needs sunlight. They should hold hearings and town meetings.

[stockpirate]

I am really starting to get annoyed with Bush on this and several other issues.

[Marauder]

One of the major fallacies in this bill and anything else that offers citizenship to illegals is that as long as they’re illegal, they’re cheap labor, which is the root cause of all this stuff to begin with.

But once they’re citizens or even green-card “guest” workers, they’re just as subject to the minimum-wage laws we are. They then become part of the landscape of people who won’t do the grunt labor, and a whole new crop of illegals will be dashing across the border to do the work that the rest of us “won’t do.”

It’s all a bunch of self-perpetuating bovine scatology unless and until the border is secure, which MUST be done, and soon, no matter what else happens. That is the keystone issue.