Today's Action Summarized

Well, today was a very busy one for the shamnesty bill. The cloture vote on Tuesday passed by a count of 64-35, prompting 30 hours of debate on a few amendments personally selected by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. After setting the process into motion, Reid ordered the start of debate on those amendments despite the fact that they were still being written. Yes, you read that right - the proposed legislation was not yet finished by the time debate began (John Cornyn, one of the opposition leaders, was actually handed the 400-page document while he was complaining about not having a chance to review it before 'debating' on it). Reid stalled and side-stepped and stone-walled for much of today, preventing pretty much all honest debate and the evaluation of many amendments, but a few did get voted upon. Tomorrow (probably around 9:30am) will be the second and final cloture vote -- again requiring 60 votes to pass -- that will likely determine the bill's fate.

So where do things stand at the moment? An article in the Washington Post sums it up: "Immigration Measure Appears Imperiled Again". Whereas supporters of the bill sounded confident yesterday, the opposition is feeling its oats today. Either way, tomorrow is the day of reckoning.

Key Facts
Now, here are some key facts you need to know. First, a handful of Senators (including Bond) voted YES on the Tuesday cloture vote because they wanted to see what happened with their own amendments. Four of them (Bond, Dodd, Webb, and Menendez) had their amendments fail. There is a very good chance that they will switch over on Thursday's cloture vote to NO. A fifth Senator (Domenici) has indicated that he will also switch to a NO vote.

If all this happens, there will only be 59 votes in favor of cloture, and the shamnesty bill dies again. This time it should be permanent.

Another key point to keep in mind is that one of the amendments designed to potentially derail the extremely fragile coalition of deal-makers (so-called 'poison pills' or 'killer amendments') did not get rejected, so that could cause some defections, too.

Of course, there will be back-room arm-twisting right up until the vote tomorrow, so it's still up in the air - it could ultimately go either way.

Next Steps
If the cloture vote passes on Thursday, then comes the final vote on the actual bill, but it's essentially a given to pass since it only needs 51 votes rather than the 60 for cloture. Any Senator who votes YES on cloture and NO on the bill itself is trying to stand on both sides of the fence - shame on them! If the vote on the bill passes, it will move to the House, where fierce Republican opposition (and likely a good chunk of Democrat opposition, too) is spoiling for a fight. So, there is still a long road before this shamnesty would become law.

If the cloture vote does not pass Thursday, the bill is dead.

The Last Gasp
Regardless of your stance, you have a little less than 12 hours to make one last round of contacts to your Senators to let them know your thoughts. Thursday's cloture vote is the money vote!

I hate to beat a dead horse, but call/e-mail/fax your Senators tonight and first thing in the morning to make sure this thing is locked up. Don't think that your one little opinion doesn't matter, because literally the only thing that has moved the Senate away from shamnesty is millions of "one little opinions" of American citizens just like you. Keep it up for a few more hours, and this thing will hopefully be put to bed for good.

There's my two cents.