Posted on 09/06/2007 6:57:57 PM PDT by T.L.Sink
yeah,
i
can
see
now
that
this
is
going
to
be
a
1992
election.
Right - and as another FReeper said, these voting records are all taken from the Congressional Record. The same is true for NumbersUSA. The first step for a thoughtful conservative is to look at the facts about each candidate’s position on the issues and not try to spin something we don’t like - that’s what liberals do!
"Better" would be, zero illegal, deport or encourage departure of all illeals now present, and MORE of those in a position to improve the real interests of the USA and who show that they abide by the standards and mores of the pre-existing US culture.
NOT "less immigration" and NOT immigration requiring foot baths, food stamps, or translators at every public opportunity.
BTW, my last sentence is not my decision. That’s my prediction, given the time we have for getting educated with voting record facts.
Me too...the candidate that is tough on illegal immigration who is electable will get my vote....
Romney beats Thompson and all the other top tier on this issue. I was leaning Thompson until I found out more about Thompson’s voting record on immigration.
Thompson did not vote to grant amnesty for illegals from Nicaragua and Cuba. The Mack Amendment amended the touch 1996 illegal immigration enforcement bill, which Thompson supported. Specifically, the Mack amendment addressed some illegal immigrants who had fled our wars against communism AND who had their deportation cases in the pipeline before the tough 1996 bill passed — it said that these immigrants would have their deportation cases considered under the pre-1996 laws, rather than under the new laws. This was in line with agreements that the Reagan and Bush administrations had made as part of the American Baptist Churches et al. v. Thornburgh case. It did *not* grant anyone amnesty — it simply defined the criteria by which certain deportation cases that had already been in motion would be evaluated.
Calpernia, your post contains a perfect example of what AmericanInTokyo said about the importance of digging deeply instead of just taking things at face value (not saying you didn’t dig deeply — I’m more criticizing the author of the piece you posted). Specifically, I’m talking about the inclusion of Thompson’s vote against the Simpson amendment related to penalties for falsely claiming citizenship.
The vote is below. Take a look — you’ll see that strangely, Simpson voted to kill his own amendment (as did Thompson and the other senate republicans)! There were two other Simpson amendments that showed the same thing — both Thompson and Simpson himself voted against them.
I dug into the actual senate debate on these. It turns out that Teddy Kennedy attached a minimum wage hike to each of these amendments, leading Simpson, Thompson and other pubbies to kill Simpson’s own amendments. I would be glad to post the detail if you like. I’m sure old Kennedy is getting a laugh to see his underhanded crap getting unwittingly or cynically hung around Republican necks. The author who used that factoid is either uninformed or untrustworthy.
I like Fred and don’t think by any means he’s a bad guy. But his position on immigration and the near-universal opinion that he has no “fire in the gut” about anything, leads me to believe that he’s too anxious to compromise on too many core issues. We don’t need a Henry Clay (”The Great Compromiser”) but somebody who has a few of Lincoln’s qualities and can see the big picture.
That was a great line! I was disappointed that in the debate Tancredo got only THREE questions! Hunter not many more. One purpose of a debate is for the audience to get to know ALL the candidates’ views. If the moderators are going to spend all their time on those who are leading in the polls - why invite the other seven candidates?
Let’s go for something more definitive. Try to render the following into rhetorical hash. I’ll get the copy-and-paste excerpts from record over the next few days.
http://profiles.numbersusa.com/improfile.php3?DistSend=TN&VIPID=743
Tried to kill voluntary pilot programs
for workplace verification in 1996
Sen. Thompson voted IN FAVOR of the Abraham Amendment to S.1664. He was part of a coalition of pro-business conservatives and liberal civil libertarians who tried to use the amendment to kill the establishment of voluntary pilot programs in high-immigration states. The programs were intended to assist employers in verifying whether people they had just hired had the legal right to work in this country. Such verification is considered by many experts to be an essential tool for withdrawing the job magnet from illegal aliens. The verification system established by S.1664 did not involve an ID card. Rather it provided that when new workers wrote down their Social Security number on an application, employers could phone into a national verification system to help assure that the number was a real number and belonged to the person giving it. In earlier smaller pilot programs, businesses had hailed the verification system for making it easier for them to avoid hiring illegal aliens. Sen. Thompson was unsuccessful in stopping the voluntary verification system. The Senate tabled the by a 54-46 vote.
There is a lot of misinformation floating around out there about all candidates and all issues. In order to clarify Thompson's immigration stance specifically, I looked at S. 1664, the most significant immigration enforcement bill that came up during his time in the senate. Because cherrypicking factoids can easily distort the record (the reporting from Iraq is a good example of this), I catalogued every Thompson vote on every amendment that was brought to the senate floor during the debate on this bill.
Here's my summary, followed by the actual votes so people can draw their own conclusions.
In a nutshell, Thompson voted in favor of the toughest, most-extensive anti-illegal-immigration bill that came up during his tenure in the Senate. In the debate on this bill, he voted consistently against repeated attempts to extend welfare benefits to both legal and illegal immigrants, voted against attempts to make deportation more difficult, and voted for measures that toughened border enforcement and made it easier for INS agents to arrest illegals.
He did vote against two amendments dealing with chain migration, because it had been established in the Judiciary committee that questions of legal immigration would be dealt separately from illegal immigration. He also voted against efforts to shut down debate on the Abraham amendment and implement a defacto social security national ID card for employment enforcement. Finally, he voted against establishing a $100 million employer verification office within the INS. I don’t have his own testimony to know why he voted against this, but in the floor debate there were questions about the effectiveness of the employer verification program proposed in that bill (e.g., a program that forced employers to verify all applicants could have negative implications for government intrusion into citizens’ lives; a program that only verified non-citizens would be ineffective because illegals could just claim to be citizens to avoid verification).
I’ve also learned in my research that several of the claims against Thompson related to his immigration record are misleading or outright false. For example, he did *not* vote for amnesty for Cuban and Nicaraguan illegal immigrants, as Numbers USA has reported (more information on the Mack amendment is upthread).
In addition, there have been reports slamming Thompson for voting against several Simpson amendments (e.g., claiming that he opposed Simpson’s attempt to increase penalties for falsely claiming citizenship). These claims are either ignorant or deliberate misrepresentation. What actually happened was that Teddy Kennedy tried to attach a minimim wage hike to three Simpson anti-immigration amendments. This forced Simpson — along with Thompson and the other senate republicans — to vote against his own amendments to block Kennedy’s little games.
Here are the votes:
-Thompson voted against Chafee's proposal "to provide that the emergency benefits available to illegal immigrants also are made available to legal immigrants." (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00106)
-Thompson voted against Graham's amendment 3759 that would permit state and local governments to ignore federal immigration enforcement law if enforcement compliance cost more than would be saved in benefits (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00105)
-Thompson voted against Graham's amendment 3764 that would have allowed legal immigrants who arrived before enactment of the new law to continue collecting Medicaid (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00104).
-Thompson voted against Simon's amendment 3813 that would have made it easier for legal immigrants who arrived before enactment of the new law to collect welfare (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00103).
-Thompson voted against Simon's amendment 3810 that would have made it easier for legal immigrants who became disabled after arriving in the US to collect welfare (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00102).
-Thompson voted against tabling/killing Abraham's amendment that aimed to prevent use of social security cards as a national ID card (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00101)
-Thompson voted against Leahy's amendment 3780 that would have made it harder to deport illegal immigrants who claimed persecution (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00100)
-Thompson voted against Bradley's amendment 3790 that would establish a $100 million office of employer sanctions within the INS (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00099)
-Thompson voted for Feinstein's amendment 3776 that would allow deportation notices to be printed in languages other than English ((http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00098)
-Thompson voted against Simon's amendment 3809 that would have allowed legal immigrants to stay even if they had received some types of public assistance for a year or more (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00097)
-Thompson voted against Kennedy's amendment 3816 that would have limited employers' ability to demand additional documents for employee verification (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00096)
Thompson was absent on 4/29-4/30/96
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson's amendment 3671 (penalties for falsely claiming citizenship) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00088)
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson's amendment 3670 (pilot program for nonimmigrant foreign students) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00087)
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson's amendment 3669 (prevention of free education for some immigrants) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00086)
-Thompson voted to push the overall bill forward in a party-line vote (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00085)
-Thompson voted to table Feinstein amendment 3740 related to chain migration on the grounds that legal immigration should be addressed separately ( http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00084)
-Thompson voted against Simpson amendment 3739 related to chain migration on the grounds that legal immigration should be addressed separately (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00083)
-Thompson voted to table Dorgan's amendment 3667 that social security should be excluded from any balanced budget amendment (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00083)
-Thompson was one of only 20 senators to vote in favor of repealing the ban on INS agents searching open fields if they have probable cause to believe an illegal act has occured (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00080)
ping
I’m not attempting to render anything into rhetorical hash — I’m posting the actual votes. There are two different approaches to workplace verification — one that requires verification of immigrants/aliens only, and one that requires verification of American citizens before they can work. The system that you posted is the latter — agree or disagree, but there are certainly some government intrusion concerns if you put in place a system where the federal government needs to approve an American citizen for employment before he/she can work.
Good thread...Thompson’s weakness on the illegal issue is something that needs to be exposed. Sadly, the republic is in critical condition. There are about five main issues that any one who seeks to live in the White House must get absolutely correct if this patient is to be saved. Four of five won’t cut it this time around.
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