Posted on 04/16/2006 11:47:20 AM PDT by petkus
SAN DIEGO Who killed immigration reform? The autopsy shows it was Senate Democrats. Its tempting to put a pox on both parties. But it wouldnt be fair.
Republicans were tireless in search of comprehensive, and bipartisan, reform. Sen. John McCain of Arizona joined with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to draft the guest-worker legislation, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter made that legislation central to what his committee sent to the full Senate. Sens. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas were vocal in their support. Sens. Mel Martinez of Florida and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska offered a helpful compromise. And Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist showed leadership by reaching out to the other side.
Too bad you cant say the same for Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who was the villain in this drama.
Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin-American Citizens, told me that he tried to impress upon Reids office that it was important to get immigration reform done.
Apparently, it fell on deaf ears, Flores said.
Reid claims it was GOP hard-liners who killed reform by running roughshod over Frist.
(Excerpt) Read more at qctimes.net ...
Has anybody heard talk about what is good for the USA?
Has any of the Sunday Talking Heads discuss these issues?
If so, then it's the best thing the Senate Dems have done in years, if not decades. Granted, for the wrong reasons, but hey, whatever!
I've heard plenty of talk about what is NOT good for the USA. Very few workable solutions though.
The Washington Post said in an editorial: Democrats whether their motive was partisan advantage or legitimate fear of a bad bill emerging from conference with the House are the ones who refused, in the end, to proceed with debate on amendments, which is, after all, how legislation gets made.Frank Sharry, the executive director of the liberal National Immigration Forum, said in a statement: We cannot escape the conclusion that the Democratic Senate leadership was more interested in keeping the immigration issue alive in the run-up to midterms than in enacting immigration reform legislation.
And Sen. Kennedy told The Associated Press: Politics got ahead of policy on this. He then refused, according to the article, to defend Reids performance. The story noted that, Outside the Senate, several Democratic strategists concluded that the best politics was to allow the bill to die.
The moral: Marches and Mexican flags dont equal power. Labor uses millions of dollars in political contributions to take care of Democrats, and so Democrats take care of labor.
The rats better put some ice on that.
My thoughts exactly. Gridlock is good.
Sink the healthcare industry, raise our insurance premiums through the roof, lower our wages, increase our tax burden, crowd our schools, insert Spanish into our schools, insult our history and our people.
But we get fruit picked. Sort of.
The media likes to talk about produce, but they never mention how many million illegal immigrants are in, of all places, Los Angeles, the breadbasket of America. I mean, look at how many green pepper fields you see along Interstate 5 going through LA. How many strawberry fields in Torrence. How many orange groves in the San Fernando Valley... So, so many lettuce fields in Santa Ana and Orange. You just have to look beyond all the concrete, right? Maybe they've hidden them. Maybe they're just raising our peppers in giant flower pots in the urban jungle!
And McDonald's and landscapers had SUCH a hard time finding people to work before these turkeys showed up... Right...
The "doing jobs no one else will do" is so bunk.
Or will become so quickly after they are legalized.
I would speculate that there will be a huge spike in wages and unemployment if these folks become legalized. Sometimes I think it would be better if nothing were done other than tighten border security.
Just in case anyone's wondering...
I hold that phone calls from concerned citizens also had something to do with it.
This country is sorely in need of a drug that can cure spinal erectile dysfunction.
what compromise? anything that doesn't include the House ideas, minus the felony provision, will make bad law.
what's in the senate compromise, just details about how the amnesty is granted - in stages, all at once, etc.
Exactly, what are we supposed to be sad this bill was stopped? I don't care who did it as long as the scam doesn't make its way to the WH desk.
You've got that right.
I'm reading J.D. Hayworth's (R-AZ) book...he's one of a few who doesn't need that drug.
Too bad you cant say the same for Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who was the villain in this drama."
The Senate's "compromise" made among themselves was, in essence, an attempted sell-out of the remainder of America. If Reid's obstruction just happened to buy the Senate some thinking timeand prevented a serious screw-up, it was a good accidental result.
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