TIME: The Dems' Make-or-Break Move on Immigration

[DeepModem Mom]

The Dems' Make-or-Break Move on Immigration
Minority Leader Harry Reid may force an all-or-nothing vote on a sweeping bill. It's a risky strategy, and the chance for meaningful reform this year may well hang in the balance
By KAREN TUMULTY/WASHINGTON
Posted Wednesday, Apr. 05, 2006

If you have tuned in to the debate over immigration reform this week, you know that it hasn't been pretty, even by the standards of the United States Senate. "My hope is that sanity could return to this chamber," Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, groused on the floor Wednesday morning. "If it existed, it is gone."

But there may be a method to what Senator Specter calls madness, or at least a strategy. In a rare and high-stakes move, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has hijacked the proceedings, and appears headed toward forcing a vote on the sweeping bill that passed the Judiciary Committee last week, without allowing much by way of modification in the form of amendments.

It is a risky strategy. Reid's gambit is a procedural move known as "invoking cloture," something almost never attempted by the minority, because it requires 60 votes to pass. If it works, the bill goes pretty much intact to a final vote, where it could pass with only 51 Senators. But if Reid falls short of the 60 votes required for cloture, the bill — and with it quite possibly all prospects for meaningful immigration reform this year — may well be dead.

The strategy to go for all or nothing was hatched by key Democrats late Tuesday afternoon, between votes on the Senate floor. Sources say a group of leading Democrats — including Reid, Minority Whip Richard Durbin, Senator Edward Kennedy and ranking Judiciary Democrat Patrick Leahy — had feared that amendments planned by Republicans would transform the bill into something Democrats could not accept, by chipping away at so-called amnesty provisions that allow for legalizing some of the people who are currently in the country illegally. Not incidentally, they also want to prevent Democrats from being put in the uncomfortable position of having to vote against politically popular amendments that would toughen border security, as the less forgiving House immigration bill does. Democrats also fear that, facing a looming two-week congressional recess that could stall the bill's momentum, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is trying to run out the clock....

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1180626,00.html?cnn=yes

[Mass]

1. Good strategy - Just keep Reid far from the mike.

We need people who can speak eloquently to justify that, like Durbin, Kennedy, or Leahy.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

2. I hate that they ALL are playing games with us

It's all just a big fucking game to them-
repubs, dems- all just a big laughing matter.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Interesting move

How dare those Democrats try to force a vote on a Republican-sposnsored bill?

The nerve.