Some supporters of the current bill paint employers as the villains, saying all that is really required is a crackdown on bad employers. Photo by AP
The Senate's "grand compromise" bill on comprehensive immigration reform has failed! The deeply flawed bill fell 14 votes short of the 60 necessary to end debate and move ahead to a full vote. The lopsided vote means that in the last two days, 18 senators who originally supported the bill- six Democrats and 12 Republicans-ultimately changed their minds and voted against it. In a press conference after the vote, a dejected President Bush said, "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work." All indications are that this vote puts an end to efforts to reform immigration this year, and possibly until after the 2008 election.Even more, Republican senators who opposed the bill said a significant part of the reason it failed was because the American public was broadly united against it and had made its views known by inundating Congress with E-mails and phone calls. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), who once supported the bill but ended up voting against it, said he was "getting hammered here at home, " while Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) asked, "What part of 'no' don't we understand?" DeMint said that the immigration battle had "reengaged the American people," and that the bill " has become a war between the American people and their government This vote today is really not about immigration, it's about whether we're going to listen to the American people."
(Source: Gary Bauer; End of Day; June 28, 2007)
