Some very interesting information came out today, posted by Michelle Malkin on her blog. Apparently, a number of the Senators opposing the bill sent a message to President Bush stating three main reasons for their opposition:
1. the bill is full of loopholes, and problems that deserved amendments and debate were denied by Reid and the Democrats in charge
2. the deal-makers showed blatant disregard for the legal process by drafting the bill behind closed doors, skipping the committee process, and jamming the bill through the Senate without proper debate
3. the American people rightly refuse to buy what the deal-makers are selling - rewarding law-breaking illegal aliens with legal status in exchange for another empty promise
The memo goes on to list a number of amendments that were rejected, ignored, or undermined, including:
- requiring full background checks for Z-visa recipients
- prohibiting felons or drunk drivers from obtaining Z-visas
- amendments to insure illegals don't swamp our legal system with abusive legislation
- illegal Z-visa applicants can't get in front of legal applicants in the process
- illegals denied a Z-visa can't hide from the enforcement of immigration laws
The memo also details a series of procedural red flags committed by the White House and Senate deal-makers in moving this legislation forward, including:
- the bill was crafted in secret by self-appointed Senators
- all negotiations by Republicans had to go through Ted Kennedy, who has a decades-long history of failing on immigration
- the final text of the bill wasn't made available to the full Senate until the day after the "debate" had already begun
- the final bill had been drafted by the White House (the normal process is that it should be drafted by the Senate)
- depending on the form used, the bill was either 300 or over 700 pages long - either way, it was a huge bill
- this bill is very complex, and still not largely understood by many
- Reid and the deal-makers demanded that amendments be filed immediately on this huge bill that wasn't fully understood
- Reid, Kennedy, and the deal-makers cherry-picked the amendments they wanted to come up to "minimize those that might disrupt the deal"
- Reid and Kennedy blocked all attempts to get amendments debated except for those they selected
- the Republican opposition filed over 200 amendments, but Democrats prevented all but 13 from coming to a vote
- Reid and Kennedy blocked Republican attempts to get more amendments a total of 12 times throughout the process
- only 6 days of debate were allowed on this huge and complex bill
- the normal legislative process is to have the text publicly available for weeks or months, then go through committee hearings, then see substantial debate on the Senate floor - this bill did none of those
- Democrats and some deal-makers are making accusations of "bad faith" inaccurately
This bill is shady, both in substance and in process. It needs to die permanently! It sounds like a core of Senators are fighting it even now, but the American public needs to keep up the pressure.
There's my two cents.
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