Dominate? The Reps have a razor thin edge in both the House and Senate. If you want real domination look at the margins the Dems had in the House in the 60s, 70s, and 80s and the Senate in the 60s and 70s. I think it is laugable to suggest the the brief blip of the 10 year control of the House from 1994 by narrow margins equates to domination. It is amazing how much has been done given the tenuous margin of control.
Composition of Congress, by Political Party, 1855–2005
If they wanted an amnesty-free immigration bill, they could draft one and pass one. And since it would conform to GWB's proposal of March 2004, he'd sign it.
Not under the present rules in the Senate where 41 Senators can prevent legislation from being passed. The House bill is a no amnesty bill.
Thanks kabar! This is a really interesting list of party leadership in congress.
Sorry, you can't excuse the Republican Senate on the basis of semantics or rhetoric (e.g., my "dominate" versus your "razor thin"). The point is that the Republicans have the majority. Whether it's big dominance or "razor thin" dominance is a distinction without a difference. Dominance = majority = 55 percent.
The other point is that Republican Senators from Frist on down can't seem to envision an immigration bill without an amnesty attached to it. I mean amnesty as in "path to citizenship". Get a work visa in nearly any other country and see if it provides some automatic "path to citizenship." It won't. Typically they are one to three years, often renewable, but completely distinct from the immigration or citizenship process. This is not rocket science, even for third-wortld countries.
To assert that there's some overwhelming problem in crafting the solution that GWB prescribed in March 2004 - a 3-year, once-renewable work visa - is just the height of disingenuousness. Any conservative Republican who supports that position is living in intellectual denial.
You can't disguise that fact with mere semantics, and Republicans ignore it at their own electoral peril (did you see that 5 of 7 members of the Herndon, VA town council were ousted last week due to last year's controversial and widely-opposed support for a "day laborer center"?)