There was more than just one attempt and the most serious one was Hagel-Martinez (S 2611) that passed the Senate 62-36 on May 25, 2006. There were 23 Reps who joined with the Dems to pass the bill. Rove tried to pressure Sensenbrenner in the House who refused to go along. The Reps still controlled Congress in 2006. When the Dems took over in January 2007 this just opened the way for McCain-Kennedy, essentially a replay of Hagel-Martinez. But it didn't progress very far thanks to a public outcry and the way McCain and Kennedy tried to steamroller the bill without hearings or any ability to change it.
I have no doubt that the Senate will pass the Gang of 8 Rubio-Schumer bill this time. And I don't think that Boehner will try to stop a vote on the bill. He has his own gang in the House working on a similar bill. The fix appears to be in unless we can mobilize the public once again to stop it.
Ahhh!
You did NOT read my FULL post. You only read the first line. That line was to show that a Democrat (Senator Byrd) stopped the ‘first’ amnesty.
My post continued: there were other attempts under Bush.