"F*** you": The inside story

without reading the bill, this tells me all I want to know about the Immigration Bill, and I oppose it.

The eruption of Senator John McCain at fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn (TX) is an incident that reverberates on several levels. It renews lingering doubts about whether Senator McCain possesses the proper temperament to be president. It also raises serious questions about the substance of the "grand bargain" immigration bill that Senators Kennedy, Specter, McCain and others are attempting to rush through the Senate. (The written bill language was finally distributed to Senate offices early Saturday morning, 326 pages, still marked as a draft.)

When word of the McCain incident began to leak late Friday, we found Senate offices circling the wagons, trying to avoid talking about it. We believe that accounts published to date fail to provide the context necessary to understand the incident properly. We have pieced together the following account that we believe more accurately relates the incident and provides the necessary context.
[snip]
The roots of the controversy date back to spring 2005, when Senators McCain and Kennedy filed their original immigration reform plan. It was immediately dubbed an amnesty proposal. Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl (R-AZ) filed a competing plan about two months later. Cornyn-Kyl contained a complete approach to enforcement, including border security, workplace verification, interior enforcement, and measures that required those here illegally to return to their country of origin and get in line before becoming eligible for U.S. citizenship. McCain-Kennedy contained almost no enforcement, but concentrated instead on measures for illegals to stay and "earn" legalization through fines, work, learning English and avoiding criminal activity.

The House largely borrowed most of Cornyn-Kyl’s enforcement provisions and passed them in late 2005 and early 2006. The Senate instead favored McCain-Kennedy, finally adding some enforcement, renaming it Hagel-Martinez and approving it last summer. But GOP House leadership decided to make the Senate bill an election issue, and refused to go to conference. Even if they were right about the issue, Democrats won the election and took over Congress.

Border enforcement and workplace verification are obvious components of any effective plan, but relatively-obscure interior enforcement is just as important. Will Congress authorize and fund an infrastructure to catch, jail, prosecute and promptly deport those who continue to violate the plan? The 1986 amnesty also promised enforcement. It was never delivered. Unless the 2007 version provides more ICE enforcement agents, information-sharing authority to find and arrest illegals, beds to house them, prosecutors and judges to adjudicate their cases, and workable procedures for deportation, we’ll soon be back in the same position we’re now in.

Republicans had managed to amend Hagel-Martinez on the floor last year so that criminals and absconders could not receive amnesty. This is significant because the current system has produced 600,000 absconders – those under a deportation order who have disappeared while remaining free, itself a separate crime.

Republicans also pushed for a provision allowing DHS to halt "catch and release," a step strongly supported by the Administration. In September, Homeland Security chief Chertoff wrote House Judiciary then-Chairman James Sensenbrenner saying that provision ending catch-and-release was absolutely necessary to enforcing our national immigration laws.

But this year, now in charge, Senator Kennedy declared this provision to be a "deal-breaker" and refused to include it. Cornyn was pressing again for a streamlined judicial review process, and other enforcement provisions, when McCain suddenly lost his patience. The bill released yesterday does not include the provision designed to end catch-and-release.

Opinion is mixed on congressional reaction to this bill. Lindsey Graham confidently predicted on Fox News Sunday today it would pass "overwhelmingly," and mentioned 80 Senate votes as a possibility. But Harry Reid is trying to hurry it through with a preliminary vote Monday, followed shortly by a cloture motion, wrapping it all up by Friday. These are not measures that signal confidence.

HERE's the bill.

The Washington Examiner concludes: Cheap labor + cheap votes = political cave-in

That bipartisan immigration “reform” bill, crafted during secret negotiations led by President Bush, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. John McCain, combines a Republican desire for cheap labor with a Democratic vision of cheap votes. The result is a stubborn refusal to halt illegal immigration, one of the most serious problems facing the United States. By granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, this legislative chimera would make securing our borders even harder than it is now.

And from the Washington Times: Few senators support the illegals bill

He's a poll question from Mickey Kaus:

Will backers of "comprehensive" immigration reform continue to tout approving poll numbers from polls that specifically cited the now-defunct "back taxes" requirement before asking voters for their opinion about semi-amnesty? The CNN poll of May 4, 2007, for example, got a large favorable response when it asked if people favored

"Creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship if they had a job and paid back taxes." [E.A.]

I wonder what the response would be to a query about favoring

"Creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship even if they don't pay back taxes."

And in a final note: Curses:

It's often noted that our presidents don't come from the Senate anymore. The last president elected from the Senate was John Kennedy, and he was an historical rarity even then.

The most common explanation for this phenomenon is that Senators are called upon to make tough votes that tend to undermine their popularity. Though this probably is an important factor, let me suggest another -- the Senate is a fairly rotten place. For example, it's the kind of place where 14 Senators can hijack the judicial confirmation process. Worse, it's kind of place where a handful of Senators can reach a deal on fundamental issues about the identity of America and then try to force a vote on the resulting 600 page bill with little time for the body as a whole to study or debate it.

This year, John McCain is the lone first-tier Republican presidential candidate jeopardized by the "curse of the Senate." But don't think of McCain as a potential victim of the curse; think of him as the embodiment of the sort of high-handedness and arrogance that lies behind the curse.