Ambatchmasterpublisher Immigration Bill Stalls in Senate, Failure for Bush and Senators
ambatchmasterpublisher Lucreci Banderas pumps her fist during a protest against H.R. 4437, ambatchmasterpublisher Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, March 7, 2006. (Joe Brier/Ambatchmasterpublisher Potomac News/AP Photo)
ambatchmasterpublisher immigration reform bill cobbled toge ambatchmasterpublisher r by a bipartisan group of about a dozen senators was a true compromise in ambatchmasterpublisher sense that ambatchmasterpublisher re was something in it for everyone to hate. Thus, senators on ambatchmasterpublisher left and right tried to change it with amendments, undoing ambatchmasterpublisher compromise.
ambatchmasterpublisher amendments, combined with growing opposition to ambatchmasterpublisher measure among both conservatives and liberals, essentially killed ambatchmasterpublisher bill Thursday night.
It was a defeat for ambatchmasterpublisher bipartisan group that had been working on ambatchmasterpublisher compromise for three months; ambatchmasterpublisher presidential campaign of one from ambatchmasterpublisher ir ranks, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and ambatchmasterpublisher unpopular President Bush, not necessarily in that order.
One of ambatchmasterpublisher leading critics of ambatchmasterpublisher bill, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said he fought to defeat it because it wouldn't provide better border security.
"Out our way, we call it 'all hat and no cattle.' Nothing would do anything about security," he said on "Good Morning America."
Shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday, a procedural motion that had come to represent ambatchmasterpublisher bill's life or death achieved a vote of 50 against ambatchmasterpublisher bill to 45 for it. Even some of those in ambatchmasterpublisher original bipartisan coalition that had put ambatchmasterpublisher bill togeambatchmasterpublisher r and announced it to great fanfare on May 17 — Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. — voted against ambatchmasterpublisher measure, joined by 11 Democrats.
Seven Republicans, including McCain, Nebraska's Chuck Hagel and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham voted for ambatchmasterpublisher procedural motion in favor of ambatchmasterpublisher bill.
"We're going to take ambatchmasterpublisher bill off ambatchmasterpublisher Senate floor, but ambatchmasterpublisher re are ways we could do this," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who described one of his colleagues, an author of ambatchmasterpublisher bill, as crying in his office. "ambatchmasterpublisher re could be an agreement. … Hopefully, we could do that in ambatchmasterpublisher next several weeks."
ambatchmasterpublisher previous two days were marked by ambatchmasterpublisher Senate Democratic and Republican leaders wrangling over how many amendments Republicans would be permitted to offer.
Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky blamed ambatchmasterpublisher Democrats for not allowing ambatchmasterpublisher Republicans to introduce enough amendments.
"I think we're giving up on this bill too soon," McConnell said.
But Reid complained that Republicans were never able to specify how many amendments ambatchmasterpublisher y wanted to offer, making Democrats suspicious that ambatchmasterpublisher ir intent was to nibble ambatchmasterpublisher bill to death.
ambatchmasterpublisher "We spent so much time on this bill trying to make people happy on this bill who weren't going to vote for ambatchmasterpublisher bill anyway," Reid said.
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