Posted on 05/19/2007 4:48:30 PM PDT by ER_in_OC,CA
WASHINGTON — The Capitol phones were ringing off the hook Friday.
In fact, the day proved to be one of the busiest in months for call volume, Senate aides said.
The reason? Immigration.
Next week, the Senate plans to take up the divisive bill that would provide the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. with a pathway to legal status, and callers felt the need to vent, mostly.
"I'd say the calls have been heavy, very heavy in fact," said Dan McLaughlin, communications director for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "The overwhelming number of callers were opposed to the immigration deal. I would say they're opposed largely on the basis of the view that it offers amnesty, even though the bill does not."
The situation was as bad, if not worse, in Sen. Mel Martinez's office. The Florida Republican you'll recall helped broker the controversial immigration deal this week.
"Yeah, we're getting a lot of calls," Martinez spokesman Ken Lundberg said, with a chuckle. "Not just from Florida, but across the nation on both sides of the issue."
McLaughlin said Nelson advised his aides to make note of the callers' concerns.
For now, the senator is "wanting to reserve judgment on the developing deal," McLaughlin said, adding that a 384-page draft of the bill had been delivered to the office Friday morning.
Even if the sweeping immigration legislation does pass the Senate in the coming days, the real problems begin in the House, where members — especially Republicans — haven't been too keen on a comprehensive approach.
Last year, with the mid-term elections right around the corner, House lawmakers chose to stick to a border protection bill.
It doesn't look like much has changed.
On Friday, Rep. Dave Weldon, the Republican who represents Vero Beach, called the Senate proposal "a bad bill."
"Amnesty first, border security later, American citizens last, that's the bottom line of this proposal," Weldon said.
“Amnesty first, border security later, American citizens last, that’s the bottom line of this proposal” Couldn’t have said it better myself. I am sick of the Washington crowd ignoring what the rest of the country wants. Close the damn borders first. Then deal with the rest. Simple and possible if we excerpt the will to deal with the problem. Just like Ike did in Operation Wetback. We CAN do it again (and should, too).
Tim Walberg from Michigan’s 7th district is opposed. The woman I talked to said he will vote no to anything that means amnesty and is especially concerned that there’s a push to ram it through before anyone even knows what’s in it.
An eye-opening moment on Fox News Channel yesterday morning—some Latino bozo was telling a reporter that for him to be happy, George Bush should be doing his gardening for him. That’s what they want. They don’t care about citizenship, they want what we have, and they want us to continue to provide it for them. Scum.
Do I detect someone trying to make us mad? We need to vent. I don’t think so. We need to correct the stupidity of our elected officials.
I have called and emailed. Martinez clerk took my zip code and said he would forward the information to the Senator. I said how can you? You don’t know why I called. He then found me against the matter.
Says two things:
1, Martinez is counting his voters (ZIP) and 2, the calls are almost ALL against the Senate Amnesty Bill. McCain claims it ain’t Amnesty - 1. he doth protest too much and 2. a rose by any other name would stink just the same. Willie Snakesh..
And so far these idiots have not explained why they are giving aways our country.
Liar.
Whorealdo Rivera is also doing some pro-illegal BS tonight called: “a day in the life of an illegal” or something close to that title.
Are the illegal aliens in those photographs “the good people” Bush yaps on about?
Amnesty by any other name still stinks.
Yeah, the bill allows illegals to instantly become legal.
It allows them to stay that way indefinitely.
It even doesn't even bother to pursue any back taxes they might owe, a luxury not afforded to citizen taxpayers.
But it ain't amnesty.
Agreed. This is the Rubicon of our time.
I have turned the boob tube off until hubby comes in to watch NASCAR—can’t endure Geraldo. He is so slimey, I feel we need to decontaminate the teevee after he’s been on, LOL!
We could always hope for the SCOTUS to overturn it, right?
/cough
If they aren’t punished for it they’ll just turn around and try again.
We won’t get 100% or even 20% in the NE but the red states can really send the message in 2008.
There is only one silver lining to this cloud. A Z-visa can always be revoked later. And once the illegals register for such, we can use the Z-visa to identify them and put them on a bus back to the border.
Thanks — updated Walberg on master spreadsheet!
The bottom of each blog entry contains a link to a tabbed spreadsheet to look up the status of each Senator and Congresscritter. http://votecount.blogspot.com/
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