How Immigration Reform Failed

WASHINGTON (By Jon Garrido, Hispanic News) April 8, 2006 — To have prevented changes to the Judiciary Committee's markup bill, the Kennedy McCain proposal, Senate Democrats invoked cloture. On April 6, 60 Senate votes for cloture were not obtained allowing for amendments to proceed to change the Judiciary Committee's markup bill by adding amendments favored by Senate Republicans. Senate negotiations behind the floor resulted in a Senate compromise that was announced by Senate leaders.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid seemed to vacillate late afternoon on April 5, signaling opposition to an emerging compromise knowing he did not have the votes for cloture, then joining Majority Leader Bill Frist at a news conference on April 6, after the cloture vote failed, Reid and Frist said an agreement was within grasp. Then, within hours, Reid insisted Frist tell conservatives their ability to seek changes would be severely limited.

On April 7, the compromise fell apart leaving immigration reform dead in the water until after the Easter recess. The Judiciary Committee after the Easter recess will again take up immigration reform but action by the full Senate for the duration of 2006 will not happen.

Outside the Senate, several Democratic strategists concluded the best politics was to allow the bill to die, leaving Republicans with a failed initiative in the Senate at a time when the GOP in the House had passed a measure making illegal immigrants subject to felony charges.

Frist, a potential presidential contender for 2008, initially advanced a bill largely limited to border security. He then embraced Bush's concept of a broader measure including provisions relating to illegal immigrants. But in doing so, he left behind GOP conservatives. Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas, both members of the leadership, openly opposed the bill insisted on numerous amendments. Among other things, they would deny legal status to immigrants who had committed crimes or skipped deportation hearings.

Kyl, Cornyn as well as Jeff Sessions of Alabama and others criticized the bill as an amnesty measure for lawbreakers.

Even with the compromise advancing the Immigration Bill, Reid still had to navigate a more dangerous mine field. Fear of a stealth bill advancing to the Conference Committee is where Senate Democrats feared an ambush would have taken place with provisions of HR 4437 criminalizing immigrants as felons prevailing. In private as well as public, Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who heads the party's campaign effort, said they did not want to expose rank-and-file Democrats to votes that would force them to choose between border security and immigrant rights, only to wind up with legislation that would be eviscerated in future negotiations with the House.

Anticipating a fierce battle with the House when it came time to reconcile the two chambers' immigration bills, Reid insisted that the Senate conferees be the 18 Judiciary Committee members. The panel last month approved a measure similar to the Frist-backed compromise.

Reid cited earlier occasions in which Republicans excluded Democrats from important conference committee meetings. But Frist said it is "laughable" to think that a minority leader could dictate the majority party's committee appointees.

The House and Senate leaders favor House HR 4437's criminalizing immigrants as felons. The Senate majority leader gearing up to run for president in 2008 would have appointed Republican Senators, probably Jon Kyl and John Cornyn, to the Conference Committee who favor elements of "HR 4437." Thus, the probability the Conference Committee would have adopted the HR 4437 version would have been very high.

After adoption of the reconciled bill, with much of HR 4437 still in place, the Conference Committee would have then submitted the reconciled bill to President Bush for his signature making HR 4437 the law of the land for immigration reform.

In Mexico when asked if he would veto immigration reform if it did not include a guest worker program, President Bush refused to answer the question.

This in itself is an answer.

Time for another reality check: Immigration reform will not take place before the November 2006 elections and Democrats will use failed immigration reform in the 2006 campaign to take the House in 2006. After the election, immigration reform will not be an issue until 2008. John McCain positioning himself for support from the Hispanic community for a run for the presidency in 2008 joined with Senator Kennedy to put forth the 2006 McCain/Kennedy bill. To win in the 2008 Republican primaries, John McCain will move to the right to embrace "security" in immigration reform meaning HR 4437.