Posted on 06/08/2007 3:43:27 AM PDT by NCDragon
Dole's change helps kill bill... Senator joins vote for amendment that led to immigration reform's demise
Barbara Barrett, Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON - As proponents of the delicate immigration bill scrambled Thursday to salvage President Bush's top domestic priority, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole was doing what she could to spike it. Dole -- a Salisbury Republican and one of Bush's strongest supporters -- worked into the night to kill the comprehensive immigration reform deal teetering in the U.S. Senate.
The bill suffered a potentially fatal blow Thursday when senators voted against limiting debate on the measure.
That was nearly a day after Dole joined fellow Republican Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Mike Enzi of Wyoming in casting decisive votes late Wednesday night on a key provision of the deal.
Dole said Thursday that she tried when the bill was first introduced to make it better, supporting amendments that shaped guest worker programs and reduced the numbers of undocumented immigrants eligible for legalization.
This week, she changed tactics: "Basically the bill comes down," she said.
Dole spent Thursday afternoon and evening talking with other GOP senators in an effort to scuttle the deal before the fatal procedural vote Thursday night.
But she made her first move late Wednesday when she switched her vote on a critical amendment that would force a guest worker program to sunset after five years.
The sunset provision, which basically doomed the comprehensive reform legislation, passed by a one-vote margin, 49-48, at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
Dole supports guest workers, and on May 24 she had opposed a nearly identical amendment. It narrowly failed by a vote.
Then Wednesday, she saw that a "yes" vote on the same amendment could mean the death blow for the entire reform measure.
"It came down to the point where this was really the only way," Dole said.
Dole said she was lobbied intensely by GOP leadership and the backers of the immigration reform measure not to make a move, but she changed her vote anyway.
Dole's work on immigration, buoyed by the calls of thousands of passionate constituents, has become one of her signature issues in recent weeks. Dole calls the bill's path to citizenship "amnesty," and she has tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to chip away at it.
"My view overall on all this is: What people want, and what we've heard from thousands of people, is they don't have any confidence right now with regard to securing the borders," Dole said in an interview.
"The rush shouldn't be to legalize 12 million people; the rush should be to do everything in our power to show the borders have been secured," she said. "Rush to do that. Rush to secure communities."
Polls show she's supported by most North Carolinians. An Elon University poll in April found more than 60 percent of registered voters oppose letting undocumented immigrants stay in the country, even if they have jobs.
And with Dole up for re-election in 2008, immigration could become a key issue for her.
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, voted against the amendment, consistent with his vote last week.
Washington correspondent Barbara Barrett can be reached at (202) 383-0012 or bbarrett@mcclatchydc.com.
Glad to see one of my Senators involved in something this positive. Channeling Ol ‘Jesse on this one.
They keep bandying the word “compromise” around but when a real compromise is suggested the proponents throw a tantrum.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1838985/posts
They hear us.
And her husband fought in WWII to save our country just to have some bought-and-paid-for traitorous mental midget try and give our country away.
‘It’s no wonder GOP contributions are down’...
On my kitchen counter is a pre-paid GOP fundraising envelope ready to go out today...no check...just the hand-written comment ‘secure the border and enforce existing law’.
Thanks, first of all, for your work in this.
Now, I respectfully suggest the following:
We need several individual, smaller, more comprehensible bills:
I believe that many illegals will discover it behooves them to leave - we won't have to 'deport 12million people' - especially when they are then able to apply (at their home country) for the very generous and expanded “guest worker” program which will have some 'points' for being able to speak American (certainly they learned our language while they've been here illegally, right?) and other possibilities I will be happy to support AFTER these get accomplished and enforced.
Or, scared that they will not get reelected. This is probably closer to the truth.
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