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Immigration bill survives after Cornyn amendment, others fail |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 06/07/07 06:49 PM [ET] |
The Senate’s immigration bill edged back from the brink yesterday, as negotiators in the endangered “grand bargain” fought off deal-breaking amendments and worked on a plan to survive today’s planned vote to limit debate.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday struck a harmonious note on the floor after tempers flared, asking senators to work into the night this week until the Saturday funeral for Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.). Reid and Republican leaders continue to discuss a magic number of amendments that would need guaranteed consideration before the bill can be finished.
“I’m more optimistic than I was yesterday,” Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), a lead immigration negotiator, said. “I think we’re going to get [Republicans] … I hope before we go to Wyoming.”
Republicans likewise softened their rhetoric, though few relented in their vow to oppose cloture if Reid presses to cut off debate this week.
“We’re not ready for cloture right now,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), GOP Policy Committee chairwoman, said. “If they allow all amendments pending that are relevant and reasonable, then people might vote for cloture.”
The bill’s bipartisan team of negotiators continues to mull a trade-off that could snare enough votes to pass the measure. Such a trade would pair a GOP-sought amendment, likely Hutchison’s mandate that immigrants “touch back” to their home countries before earning probationary legality, with an amendment appealing to Democrats.
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), another senior negotiator, said one of Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) family-based immigration amendments would be the likely counterpart to Hutchison’s.
“Certainly [that approach] gets Senator Hutchison,” Martinez told reporters. “We’re going one vote at a time.”
Yet Martinez acknowledged that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), leader of the immigration talks with Menendez, has yet to sign off on Hutchison’s “touchback” plan. And it is unclear whether Menendez, who has offered several changes avidly sought by Democrats, would be satisfied with just one winning passage.
The Senate planned late yesterday to take up a Menendez plan to extend the cutoff date for speedier consideration of family-based visas and increase the number of such visas. Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) alternative, which would change the cutoff date alone, may help the bill win more Democratic backers.
Menendez noted a potential roadblock to progress on the floor late yesterday, referencing a desire by some senators to raise a budget point of order against one of his amendments. Such a move would require 60 votes to pass.
“If, in fact, we are going to go down that slippery slope,” Menendez said, he would raise a budget point of order against the entire immigration compromise.
The emotional atmosphere surrounding the bill led to moments of honesty and humor among several senators, as the goal of bipartisan consensus remained within reach.
Reid likened the “mess” of the current immigration crisis to the “mess” cleaned up by the Cat in the Hat in Dr. Seuss’s famous children’s book. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) tempered his continuing support for the bill as written, quipping: “This is a bill longer than the Bible. Some things in there need to be fixed.”
Yet Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who joined the negotiations only to earn boos at his state party convention, clarified the meaning of his participation in the deal in a manner that leaves room for other lawmakers to desert the bill.
“I’m committed to the concept,” Chambliss said. “To say I’m going to vote for the bill, now, I never said that.”
The bill gained momentum after three close votes against amendments that negotiators considered deal-breakers. One, from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), would have barred immigrants who had committed certain criminal offenses from becoming legal; another, from Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would allow temporary guest workers to stay in the U.S. during visa renewal and won a majority of Democrats. The third, from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), proposed a health-insurance requirement for illegal immigrants and snagged votes from two GOP negotiators.
Another Republican negotiator, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), increasingly is hitching his presidential star to the immigration bill. McCain said yesterday that he would confer with fellow Republicans before deciding how to vote on cloture.
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