[Pontiac]

But only 12 Republicans joined Cruz in both votes for both his point of order and against the cromnibus. They are: Sens. Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Mike Lee of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rob Portman of Ohio, Jim Risch of Idaho, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama and David Vitter of Louisiana..

Ohio Ping

I never would have guessed that Portman would stand with Cruz on a point of order supporting the Constitution.

[corbe]

Portman’s thinking election 2016, obviously.

[xzins]

There was a time when Portman was an extremely conservative representative in the House from Ohio’s very conservative 2d district.

[ObamahatesPACoal]

Portman should aim to be a Pete Wilson or Scott Brown type of RINO.

Portman is better on immigration than many of the self professed social conservatives like Ayotte, Rubio and Rand. He is a RINO but he is more informed than Rand, Rubio and probably most of the Senate on the issue.

He was the actual moderate while Schumer rammed through the 1986 amnesty.

http://cis.org/tale-of-two-senators

But he believed that the bill, far from solving the problem of worker verification, would compound it, extending the past failures far into the future. Rather than showing Congress’s ability to solve problems, he believed, it would demonstrate its capacity to perpetuate them. He was convinced that the promised reform would prove to be a damaging policy failure.

IRCA’S Shadow

Portman was haunted by IRCA’s failure. He saw it as corrosive not only of immigration control but also of public trust in government. “The 1986 bill casts a long shadow on this place,” Portman said in his June 26 exchange with Schumer, “and we’ve got to be sure we don’t repeat those mistakes.”

SNIP

Without effective verification, there can be no effective enforcement of the borders. Without effective enforcement, there can be no immigration reform worthy of the name. The choice for the House is clear: legislate or pretend.17

Portman believed that the Senate bill was a form of pretending. He thought that worker verification had been compromised to placate powerful political interests, just as it had been in 1986.

“Look, it is, frankly, not a very popular part of the legislation, and over the years it hasn’t been,” Portman said on June 26. “In 1986 it wasn’t. That is why it was never implemented, because there is sort of an unholy alliance among employers, among those representing labor union members, among those representing certain constituent groups who feel there might be some discrimination or other issues.”