Do you need any more proof than this that (1) immigration reform has become a train-wreck issue for the GOP and (2) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been the perhaps the weakest Senate Majority Leader in decades?
Senate Republicans formally put aside a broad immigration overhaul sought by President Bush on Wednesday and decided instead to press ahead with narrower bills to require building 700 miles of fence on the southwestern border.
That is SURE to help the GOP salvage the votes of newly-alienated Hispanic voters and also conservatives who felt their party was not tough enough on the immigration issue. But there’s more:
Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said the fate of millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States had become a “fundamental sticking point� in trying to reach agreement with the House on a broad bill.
Mr. Frist said the fence proposal, which the House has passed, was the best alternative if lawmakers wanted to salvage some immigration changes before the Nov. 7 elections.
Just why is the vital issue getting something done before the Nov. 7 elections? (Can you guess?)
“Let’s focus on a problem the American people understand,’’ the senator said, “and that is, we have hundreds of thousands of people coming across our border every year into our country.�
He added that the broad measure could be considered when Congress returned in mid-November or next year.
The Senate voted, 94 to 0, to debate the measure on fencing and other border barriers at the cost of billions of dollars. But the fate of even that measure is unclear, because members of both parties have reservations, and Mr. Frist may need to block any amendments if he wants to deliver it to Mr. Bush before Congress adjourns next week.
Bill Frist has quite a busy week trying to do the White House’s bidding: he has threatened to filibuster the McCain bill dealing with torture if it comes up and now he may have to block amendments to the immigration bill as well.
PS: Frist will likely run for President calling Democrats obstructionists.
UPDATE: The fence proposal has gotten a frigid response from one prominent group and poses a dilemma for another. USA Today:
As congressional Republicans pushed before the fall elections to extend fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border, leaders of a bipartisan task force Wednesday dismissed such an effort as a “piecemeal” approach that won’t curb illegal immigration.
“We view this as much more than building fences,” said task force co-chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
AND:
For Democrats, the legislation presents a political dilemma. They must either support legislation that many consider inadequate or cast a vote that could be portrayed during fall campaigns as anti-border security. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the deputy Dmocratic leader, said his party members haven’t decided how they will vote on the border fence bill. “We’ll wait and see how this unfolds.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.