Posted on 06/30/2007 5:04:40 PM PDT by Daralundy
The what-ifs in the sudden death of immigration reform are intriguing. What if Senate majority leader Harry Reid hadn't pulled the immigration bill from the floor when it was close to passage in early June? What if Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona had come up earlier with their enforcement-toughening amendment that would have prompted, for the first time, a sweeping crackdown on those 3 to 4 million foreigners who have overstayed their visas? What if Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had twisted arms to get more Republican votes for the bill?
Fascinating what-ifs all, but mostly irrelevant. Immigration reform was defeated by a conservative revolt that spread to the wider public. Senate opponents, gloating over their success in killing the bill, were essentially correct in insisting the American people had rejected immigration reform. By the time the key vote came last week, the bill's core supporters--President Bush, Kyl, Graham, Democratic senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and the business community--had already lost the argument over immigration.
The issue touched off a national debate that gripped middle-class America, much as President Clinton's health care initiative did in 1993 and 1994. In both cases, the more people heard--not all of it true--the less they liked the legislation. Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that a majority of Republicans and independents opposed the immigration bill. Democrats were split evenly.
Worse for Democrats, the poll suggested the reelection of some Democratic members of Congress might be jeopardized if they backed immigration reform. "Demagogic attacks are not ineffective," Greenberg found. "In terms of the battleground districts, immigration attacks are more likely to play a key role in Democratic rural and exurban districts where opposition towards immigration is stronger and Democrats hold a smaller advantage."
So Democrats in Washington, with the exception of Kennedy and senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Ken Salazar of Colorado, were not enthusiastic about the bill. Reid was lukewarm at best. And all five Democrats running for reelection in red states in 2008--Max Baucus of Montana, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia--voted to kill the bill.
The excuses some senators used to explain their "no" votes and mask their political motives were laughably lame. Harkin said he feared some workers could have been denied jobs "because of errors in a government database." Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico told the New York Times that the supposed secrecy in which the bill was drafted created confusion and "caused it to flop." Actually the bipartisan drafting sessions were widely reported and attended by more than a dozen senators. Domenici is up for reelection next year.
Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas switched his vote during the roll call from yes to no. "The country's not ready," he told the Washington Times in justifying his reversal. "I thought we were, but just concluded the country's not ready." Brownback voted for a more liberal immigration bill last year. This year he's seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
Susan Collins rarely splits with her Maine colleague Olympia Snowe, but on immigration she did. She said the bill didn't strike the right balance. "People were troubled by the proposed solution for the 12 million people here illegally," she said. Collins is running for reelection next year. Snowe isn't.
While opposition to the bill may aid individual senators, it clearly undercuts Republican efforts to capture the Hispanic vote. Hispanics paid close attention to the Senate deliberations, and while Democrats--Reid especially--bear some of the responsibility for the bill's downfall, Republicans bear more. After all, the leading Republican foes claimed credit for the bill's demise.
Hispanics are the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country, and they are basically swing voters. According to exit polls, they voted 44 percent for Bush in 2004 but only 29 percent for Republican congressional candidates in 2006. As a result of Republicans' role in killing the immigration bill, "I believe we're reinforcing everything" that brought us to 29 percent, said Graham, one of the bill's architects. He's right about that.
For Democrats, the failure of immigration reform is a twofer. Democrats are likely now to begin to solidify their hold on the Hispanic vote. And their House members in rural and conservative districts have been spared a risky vote in favor of immigration reform.
Of the what-ifs, one is worth considering. That was Reid's rash decision on June 7 to pull the bill off the Senate floor rather than give Republican leaders a day or so to put together a limited number of amendments and proceed to final passage. At the time, the bill was hurtling toward passage. Opponents were despondent. Both McConnell and Kyl believe it would have passed within a few days had Reid not been so impatient. But we'll never know.
The pause before Reid brought the bill back to the Senate floor last week proved fatal. My guess was that the opposition had peaked. It hadn't. Instead, resistance to the bill became an earsplitting national phenomenon during the interim rather than mere conservative noisemaking.
McConnell had theorized that a divided Washington--Republican White House, Democratic Congress--provided the best chance for bipartisan agreement on big issues like Social Security and immigration. But preliminary talks on reforming Social Security have gone nowhere and the attempt to overhaul America's broken immigration system has failed.
Too bad. The bill was a compromise that, in my view, had far more in it that conservatives should have cheered than booed. And Kyl and Graham and a few other Republican senators were courageous in negotiating the bill and fighting for its passage. They didn't flinch. But in politics you only get credit for success. And that they didn't achieve.
BS Fred. It was not the will of the people. You remember the people ... “We the People...”. Don’t ya Fred?. I don’t remember reading anywhere “We the elected Politician - do ordain and establish”.
Obvioiusly he didn't understand the reaction of the American people to this amnesty bill either. Looks like Barnes has drank the same koolaid as some in the Senate and the WH and don't understand people outside the beltway who very well knew what they were doing in demanding this bill be defeated. Even the President in a speech admitted it was amnesty.
Why would Republicans care about pandering to illegals who are not supposed to be voting? This isn't about politics and one group getting their votes, this was about American citizens standing up for the Rule of Law against people in this country illegally. Build the fence and enforce Border Security first!
Inside-the-beltway numbnuttery.
Fred Barnes another “conservative” pundit willing to sell his soul and our country for trinkets and pieces of silver.
Agreed! That is why I put conservative in quotation marks.
Congressman Billybob
Here is your answer: Listen up!
Here is our answer to your challenge to “come up with a solution.”
The American people don’t want comprehensive, sweeping legislation on immigration.
We want you, the government, to prove to us that you can first enforce legislation already on the books. And that includes building that fence you legislated.
Second, start penalizing the companies according to the laws already on the books. No jobs for illegals and they’ll go home on their own.
Then start deporting.
After that, start talking about reform, like a better regulated guest worker program.
Start reforming the hand-outs, address anchor babies.
Do it in stages, proving at each stage you can enforce.
There already is a path to citizenship—it’s called legal immigration.
thanks to MW
Bump.
It’s funny how politicians & Washington pundits always complain about people not “making their voice heard” but when they do, they get criticized for it.
If by center you mean the center of public opinion then the center did hold.
So apparently aside from being ignorant unpatriotic racists that listen to what our masters of talk radio tell us to do, we're also noisemakers. Quite a delightful opinion Freddy holds of conservatives. Similiar to that of Teddy Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.
I would suggest from now on Barnes refrain from calling himself a conservative. He is nothing of the kind. He is an elitist jerk that was wrong about Miers, and wrong about amnesty with little between the ears to warrant substantive discussion.
And another thing.
This legislation was never supported in 90/10 and 95/5 percentages among Hispanics from the start. believe it or not, not all people of the same race think alike elitists.
Then you take those that didn’t among Hispanics, combine them with whites (including union workers, Reagan Dems, and middle America conservatives), blacks competing with illegal Hispanics for these jobs, immigrants that came here the legal way, asian Americans and so on..that’s a HUGE voting block that dwardfs whatever numbers Hispanics that support amnesty offer in elections. Why not court this clear overwhelming majority rather then alienate them for a percentage of a vote that coud never win any politician in this country a majority victory except in a couple of isolated districts?
there is no rational that supports this was a smart political move.
The ‘Pubbies don’t have a hope of the “Hispanic” vote. The Democrats can always outbid ‘em when it comes to votin’ out the socialistic goodies. The ‘Pubbies only hope was to go for the AMERICAN vote (includin’ the “Hispanics” that know they’re Americans, not some Marxist defined voting bloc) and the President and his toadies in the Senate blew that one big time.
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