Craig was a rancher reportedly. Seems to be in the pocket of Big Agriculture.
From Wiki:
""Senator Larry Craig attempted to amend the Iraq War supplemental bill with AgJOBS bill (S. 359). The AgJOBS amendment would have granted legal status to roughly 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants in farm work. However, Sen. Craig was only able to garner 53 of the 60 votes needed for the amendment. 60 votes were needed instead of the usual 51 because the amendment was not relevant to the matter at hand. He is a supporter of President Bush's Guest-Worker Program. A version of the AgJOBS bill legislation is included in the Senate-passed immigration reform bill."
Got some buds that still live in rural ID. They are scared of the gangs and all that go with the gang "culture".
Up here in Alaska, the gangs now seem mostly pacific islanders - nasty bunch, that.
The Senate was allowed to amend the supplemental spending bill because the House had previously amended the bill with Real ID and the San Diego fence.
The Senate didn't want to hold the bill hostage but they wanted to have a "test vote" to see if the Senate had the will to pass a immigration reform bill. In fact, Kennedy and McCain had completed their bill but would not introduce it until there was a test vote. The 60 vote requirement was established because there was definately not 60 votes for the bill.
As a stand alone bill, AgJobs was not viable since it dealt with ag workers only but it was sutible as a surrogate for McCain-Kennedy since both bills had the "path to citizenship" language. It was introduced and recieved 53 votes(40 dem and 13 pub)
The second test vote was an amendment by Sen Chambliss which was AgJobs with all the "path to citizenship" language removed. This was the surrogate to the Bush Plan. It recieved 22 votes, all republican.