English First’s Jim Boulet writes from Washington on what’s going on with the Axis of Amnesty. I like the part about the victory lap. (Everything below the line is by Jim Boulet. Read more here.)

—————————————————
Amnesty bill update (June 12, 2007)
Quote of the day

MR. SNOW: Well, I’m telling you, we think we’ve got the votes to get cloture and we think that this bill is going to get a vote on the Senate floor. (June 12, 2007)

Senate Luncheon: amnesty on the menu

Today, President Bush has lunch with Republican Senators on their turf for the first time since 2001. (There was also a White House Senate luncheon in 2005.) Perhaps this was scheduled as a victory lap. Instead it became a lobbying session. Via the White House web site:

We’ve got to convince the American people that this bill is the best way to enforce our border. I believe without the bill that it’s going to be harder to enforce the border. The status quo was unacceptable. I want to thank those senators on both sides of the aisle who understand the time is now to move a comprehensive piece of legislation.”

As we suspected: “Reid said he could be persuaded to bring the immigration bill back to the Senate floor as soon as the end of next week.” Why? “Saying that 80% of Democrats support the bill and 86% of Republicans oppose it, Reid said he had no intention of taking up the bill until the GOP leadership has “25 votes or so” for the legislation. “I’m not dancing that tune again,” he said. (Via the Los Angeles Times)

Ed Gillespie returns to the White House.

Gillespie earned his spurs as a true blue Bush loyalist when he famously told a group of conservatives that complaints about the nomination of Bush crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court “has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism.”

In 1982, Gillespie was student at Catholic University of America, a Senate parking lot attendant and a Democrat, when he learned of an internship in then-Congressman Andy Ireland’s office.

In March of 1984, according to Gillespie’s book, Winning Right: “Representative Ireland announces that he will seek re-election as a Republican, switching parties. I switch with him.” For a time in 1984, Gillespie worked part time at the Republican National Committee phone bank, a phone bank closed earlier this month due to complaints by rank and file Republicans about the Bush immigration policy.

By 2002, Gillespie was a Washington lobbyist fending off inquiries about one of his firm’s former clients, Enron. That little problem did not keep him from being named chairman of the Republican National Committee by President Bush for the 2003-2004 election cycle

In 2005, Gillespie teamed up with Dick Armey to establish Americans for Border and Economic Security, to support the Bush immigration plan. He sought to raise $3 million from companies like “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Microsoft Corp,” in sums between $50,000 and $250,000.

The White House decision to hire Gillespie as “counselor to the president” suggest the battle over immigration policy has just begun.

—————————————————

“An Economist” writes:

It appears that the opposition to the bill isn’t “the extremes of the left and right” against the virtuous center. The reality is that the non-elites are revolting against the elites. Take a look at the Senate voting patterns. The Democrats who opposed the bill are (generally) from working class, low immigrant states. Same as it turns out for the Republicans. There is also a significant voting pattern with respect to the successful Dorgan amendment to limit the “guest worker” plan to 5 years.

Check out the Democrats (plus Sanders) who voted no on cloture

Baucus (D-MT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)

With the possible exception of Boxer (D-CA), all of these Democrats seem to have opposed the bill because of the “guest worker” plan and/or the Amnesty. Boxer (D-CA) presumably objected to anything other than abolishing the border.

I don’t think the Republican votes against cloture are notable because many were clearly party-line. Kyl voted against cloture even though he obviously supports the bill. Same for Lott, McConnell, etc. By contrast, the Republican votes for cloture are significant. These are presumably the hard core Amnesty Now, Amnesty Forever Bushbots.

Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Specter (R-PA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Note that there are more (12) hard core Democratic opponents of the bill, than Republican supporters (7).

The next vote to look at is the Dorgan amendment () to terminate the “guest worker’ plan after 5 years. Presumably, the Republicans who voted YEA, are the hardcore opponents.

Bunning (R-KY)
Corker (R-TN)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Enzi (R-WY)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)

My guess is that most, if not all, of these Republicans would actually support some type of a “guest worker” plan. However, they so strongly oppose Amnesty that they were quite willing to vote in favor of a “killer amendment”. The Democrats who voted against the Dorgan amendment are a more complex group. Some are obviously Amnesty Now types (Kennedy, Feinstein, Salazar). However, others are not. The list is

Akaka (D-HI)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

These votes support two arguments. First, Senators representing non-elite, low immigrants states are the most strongly opposed to Amnesty and the bill overall. Second, the Republicans and the Democrats want very different things from the bill. The Democrats want Amnesty, first and foremost and are essentially opposed to any “guest worker” plan.

The Republicans generally oppose Amnesty (with a core who strongly oppose Amnesty and a core who strongly support Amnesty), but dearly want a “guest worker” plan. Why? Perhaps cheap labor with minimal social costs and no imported voters for the Democrats.

Would a “guest worker” plan work out that way? Not very likely, as vast foreign and U.S. experience shows. However, it is a nice theory (and with brutal enforcement might even work). Of course, I am opposed to all “guest worker” plans and all mass amnesties.

The corollary is that killing the “guest worker” plan, kills the bill. Without the “guest worker” plan, there is nothing left in the bill for Republicans to vote for. The shift to merit based immigration is 8 years away and of little interest to Republicans (the Democrats definitely oppose it though). Most Republicans are presumably smart enough to know that it will be gutted long before the 8 years have passed. Actutally, that is not quite so clear…

Of course, the enforcement provisions are either meaningless (border control inferior to current law) or questionable (the Employment Eligibility Verification System ) from a Republican standpoint.

Conversely, removing the “guest worker” plan will make the bill more attractive to Democrats. Only the hard core anti-Amnesty Democrats will still oppose it. However, without the support of Kyl and the rest of the “guest worker” Republicans, the bill won’t go back to the Senate floor (as Kyl has stated many times).

Below are the 29 Senators who voted to strip the Amnesty from the bill (the Vitter Amendment). Presumably, they are the most likely to support killer amendments and/or oppose any final bill. Once again the list is strongly weighted towards non-elite states with low immigrant populations

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bond (R-MO)
Bunning (R-KY)
Byrd (D-WV)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Enzi (R-WY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)

Julie Hirschfeld Davis writes at AP about Bush’s immigration push:

“We not only have a good sound bill, but it’s also one that a lot of conservatives, when they get a chance to look at it, will say OK,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show.

The thing is, this legislation as now proposed has virtually no protections built in to assure Americans won’t simply be displaced by foreign workers. This legislation is not a compromise piece of legislation–from the standpoint of the American public, who clearly want less overall immigration.

Paleoconservatives will find some annoying historical parallels in Newt’s “Refusing to Bow” speech, no doubt, but his larger point, that Americans don’t just give up and surrender when a problem looks tough, is valid. There’s also an article called The Immigration Conflagration Is Not Yet Extinguished by Newt Gingrich, Human Events

Newt Gingrich has just published a table comparing the broken promises of the Simpson-Mazzoli act, which became the IRCA Amnesty of 1986, with the promises the Axis of Amnesty is making in the new bill.[Fool Me Once Shame on You; Fool Me Twice Shame on Me| Comparing the 1986 and 2007 Political Promises on Immigration Enforcement, Gingrich Communications, June 11 2007, Newt Gingrich]

A sample is below (footnotes in the original) but the significance is in the fact that Gingrich, like many Establishment conservatives is abandoning Bush. You should also look at the “Then as now, people who want to control the border are called nativists “ section, with this quote from the 1986 version of Ted Kennedy:

[Simpson-Mazzoli] is an undeserved slap at millions of Hispanic citizens. In our zeal to control our borders, we should resist the temptation to break faith with the noble ideals of America’s immigrant heritage. This measure fails that test, and it should not be enacted into law.” (Senator Kennedy)[House and Senate Debate on the Conference Report. Congressional Record. 99th Congress., 2nd Session, 1986, 32377.]

But for the real broken promises, you have to go further back, to 1965:So Much for Promises - Quotes Re 1965 Immigration Act by Joe Fallon.

Thanks, JS, for pointing out that in my enthusiasm for Saturday’s posting by the Katie’s Dad blog, I inadvertently omitted to actually link to it! Just human error, I am afraid.

Katie’s Dad has returned to the fray with another forthright discussion , this time of the redeployment of the execrable Mike Pence

No sooner had Americans of Heritage exhaled a sigh of relief that yet another legislative attempt to redefine this nation into another Brazil had been averted, in stumbles Congressman Mike Pence with his gaggle of equally-stupid ideas about how to outsource the future determinations of who we are as a nation and a culture.

The more I think about Pence’s ideas, the more I’m left wondering whether or not this Hoosier Congressman is getting some sort of payoff from Helen Kriebel… or perhaps Ms. Kriebel has something on Congressman Pence that compels him to do her bidding.

I myself commented on last year’s Pence attempt to trick the American people:

The fact is Helen Krieble is a fully accredited member of the Cheap Labor Lobby, her plan is a fraud, and Mike Pence is a contemptible disgrace.

That remains my view.

Matt Welch points out that while the Washington Post claimed that “The candidates [...] all endorsed English as the nation’s official language,” what John McCain actually said was:

I would like to remind you that we made treaties with Native Americans, such as the Navajos in my state, where we respect their sovereignty and they use their native language in their deliberations. It’s not a big deal. But Native Americans are important to me in my state.

Everybody knows that English has to be learned if anyone ever wants to move up the economic ladder. That is obvious. And part of our legislation, by the way, is a requirement to learn English.

Welch goes on to say that:

Wolf Blitzer then asked “Is there anyone else who stands with Senator McCain specifically on that question?” Later, McCain pointed out that in Arizona, “Spanish was spoken before English was.”

McCain in fact has been an outspoken opponent to English-as-official-language for decades; I have in my possession letters back and forth between him and Barry Goldwater where he defends his position from the old man’s strong desire to codify federally our one national tongue….

See Señor McCain by Peter Brimelow, [February 15, 2000] which noted McCain using the same “Spanish was spoken in Arizona” line in 1998, and ignoring the consequences of linguistic enclaves for the rest of the country.

Peter Brimelow wrote:

In the long run, however, foreign language enclaves will impose real costs on the majority language community. For example, they will require the government increasingly to operate in the foreign language as well as English. As the history of Canada shows, this institutional bilingualism has powerful public-choice consequences. It causes a systematic redistribution of power and perquisites toward the minority language group, which as a practical matter is the only one that learns to speak both languages.