Unfortunately, the first opportunity to stop the Senate immigration bill was lost today on a 64-35 vote which allowed the measure to be reintroduced for debate. Apparently a number of Republican senators who said they were going to vote no were persuaded by the administration to change their vote. Who knows what they were offered to allow this bill to come to the floor.
Amendments that were added to it will be debated until Thursday at which time a cloture vote to shut off debate will be taken. This takes 60 votes to pass. If cloture is invoked then the immigration bill will pass the senate (The vote to pass the bill only requires 51 votes to prevail and is pretty much a foregone conclusion). The bill will then move to the House where the process of debating and voting will be repeated.
Meanwhile, the administration is working furiously to get Republicans on board, even though rank and file voters (of both parties) are jamming D.C. switchboards to express their opposition. If you're a Republican the next time you're sent an appeal for a donation to the party, cut this out and send it to them:
Meanwhile, you can find your senator's phone number here. The National Republican Senatorial Committee number is (202) 675-6000.
For an explanation of what's wrong with this bill read the Heritage Foundation's report on the results of their study of the bill last month.
RLC