It wasn't very heavily reported, but yesterday the Senate had a cloture vote on an illegal immigrant amnesty bill that didn't even go through the committee process. That's the same tactic used for the giant amnesty bill that was brought up earlier this year. For that earlier bill, huge public pressure, including call volume so great that the Senate switchboard broke down, helped kill it. It seems that that finally imprinted in the elites' minds that us regular people who see more of illegal immigrants than housekeepers and busboys (including the negatives that Senators in fancy neighborhoods never do) want it to end.
Anyway, 60 votes were needed in the cloture vote to move it to a final vote, where a simple majority would pass it and it would be up to the House to consider the issue (though there are no indications they would have). It only received 52 votes and failed in cloture.
(As an interesting aside, Sen. John McCain, who has been a huge amnesty supporter over the years, wasn't there for the vote. This despite being there earlier that day for the other huge Senate vote on the confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick. He knows that if he wants to win the Republican presidential nomination for which he's running he can't be an amnesty supporter, so he didn't even stay for it. Fine with me.)
The result is that amnesty supporters are rueful. Their leader is our own Sen. Richard Durbin. He's up for re-election next year, and if there's any way to knock him off it's on this issue. I'm surprised he's not getting a challenge from the right on this issue in the Democratic primary, but maybe that's what our state's party has degenerated to:
“This issue has been so painful for so many people — they’re running scared,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the sponsor of the DREAM Act. When immigration is debated in Congress, Durbin said, “the switchboards light up and the hate starts spewing.”
It's always easy for liberals and the left to accuse those who disagree with them as racists (or sexists, or homophobes, or whatever). They tried really hard earlier this year on the big bill, and it failed. It's not easy to paint 75% of the country as racists, and the whole tactic is getting so tired that no one cowers from it any more (ask Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who have been reduced to jokes outside of liberal circles).
One last thing: don't believe the spin in the politico article about what the DREAM Act was supposed to do. This is the real scoop, and it's even more mild criticism than I'd give it. More info is here. Here's more roundup of the aftermath.
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