Many conservatives are not exactly happy with the immigration reform bill. John Fund for the Wall Street Journal:
It’s understandable that the White House and its Senate negotiating partners want to rush through the compromise immigration bill they agreed to Thursday. Supporters acknowledge that the delicately balanced legislation could collapse if a single destructive amendment is attached to it. Its sponsors admit they want to minimize the political debate. “We all know this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible,” says Sen. John McCain, a key architect of the bill.
But this is no way to debate the most sweeping change to our nation’s immigration laws in two decades–especially since the last comprehensive attempt, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, failed so spectacularly. The new bill is set to pass with much less analysis in the Senate than the 1986 law, known as Simpson-Mazzoli, had. Senators did not even receive the bill draft until midnight Saturday. After a test vote scheduled for today, Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning a final vote on the bill this Thursday, only one week after the compromise was struck. Shouldn’t senators have time to actually read the bill they’re being asked to vote on?
Even a key supporter of the bill, Sen. Jon Kyl or Arizona, admitted to radio host Hugh Hewitt that “we don’t have to rush the bill through the Senate in a week. . . . Hopefully, the majority leader would allow it to carry over beyond the Memorial Day recess so we could complete it.”
Why do they want to rush it through Congress you ask? Because giving it more time will provide Americans, not just politicians, to review the bill and to criticize it… as is already happening:
Late Friday night, an electronic version of the “immigration reform” bill was finally published, and quickly found its way into the hands of KLo at the Corner. From there, it has spread all over the net, of course.
But the published version is a big, clunky PDF file (which, if you like, you can download here.) Good if you plan on printing out all 326 pages of it, not so good if you are a blogger who wants to comment on a particular section and show your readers exactly what you’re talking about.
So, N.Z. Bear asks readers to join in: to read the proposal and to comment on it.
Hugh Hewitt summarized the bill so that even the literally challenged, such as yours truly, can understand it.
David Frum is one of the literally challenged people who, after reading Hugh’s summary, finally ‘got it’:
Hugh Hewitt deciphered the bill’s arcane and often deeply misleading structure to discover that it grants immediate legal status to almost all illegals. All the tough talk about enforcement is a cover…
Meanwhile, all the controversy has created one little problem for those who support the bill: they are the minority.
Fewer than 20 senators are publicly committed to supporting the immigration deal that hits the Senate floor today while nearly 40 are already opposed or have serious concerns, underscoring how difficult it will be for President Bush and his allies to craft a coalition that can pass the bill.
Prediction: the bill isn’t going to make it and we will hear much, much more about immigration reform in the coming weeks and possibly even months.
Edited post: something went wrong which made it look like I wrote something John Fund actually wrote.
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