How the 'Clay Pigeon' Will Happen

PajamasMedia.com has a detailed article about exactly how Reid is going to ram this amnesty bill through the Senate. We've touched on this a bit in previous blogs, but this goes into detail on exactly how this unprecedented move will work. The main source is Elizabeth B. Letchworth, a former secretary of the Senate, and an expert on Senate rules.

Here's the summary:

"This Tuesday in the U.S. Senate @ approx. 11:45 AM [later amended to this week -RM] the Senate will conduct a roll call vote on whether the Senate should begin to debate the newly drafted 388 page immigration bill. This bill was introduced on June 18th, 2007 by Sen. Kennedy. If 60 votes are obtained on Tuesday, the bill will be pending in the Senate. [This is what happened earlier today...] Sen. Reid will then immediately take the floor and proceed in a completely unprecedented manner which will deny all Senators except for himself the right to offer amdts. to the bill. (Below is a description of how exactly this will be done.) A cloture motion will then be offered by Sen. Reid. That cloture vote will occur on Thursday. If 60 votes are garnered on Thursday, June 28th for cloture on S. 1639, then after the 30 hours have been used or yielded back, votes will occur automatically, in back-to-back sequence, on the Reid amdts. These roll call vote will conclude with a vote on final passage of S. 1639, the Kennedy Immigration bill."

So, Harry Reid is going to single-handedly fill out the slate of amendments that will be attached to this bill and force a vote without any further debate, just like we were warned would happen.

Letchworth points out some futher irregularities

"Facts surrounding the bill:
S. 1639 was introduced in the Senate on June 18, 2007
S. 1639 did not get referred to the appropriate Senate committee which is regular order
S. 1639 did not receive any hearings in committee and receive the benefit of experts in the field of immigration testifying as to their knowledge of our present immigration system and the new immigration system contained in S. 1639
S. 1639 did not receive a markup in committee where Senators, who sit on that committee, could listen to the testimony by immigration experts, and could have had the opportunity to make changes to the text of S. 1639 by offering amdts."

There's a lot more detail about the procedures Reid will use there, but this is the meat of what's happening.

We'll just have to watch and see if Reid pulls this off. The only thing that can stop it is relentless public pressure on the waffling Senators (Brownback, Bond, Burr, Coleman, Ensign, Gregg, McConnell, Webb) to vote NO on Thursday's cloture vote.

There's my two cents.