« Global Warming And Religion* | Main | So You Want To Beat Mitt Romney... »
June 09, 2007
Whose Fault?
Kevin's right. If the pundits currently lamenting the breakdown of the immigration deal could read the vote tallies, they'd realize it wasn't really a bipartisan failure at all. It was a partisan failure triggered by Republicans. As Kevin notes, "Democrats voted 37-11 in favor of moving forward to a final vote. Republicans voted 38-7 against it." One side was pushing for success, the other for the status quo. This isn't complicated.
It's telling, too, that in all the years of unified government, when Bush's political capital was at its height, there was no movement towards a comprehensive immigration solution. The Republican base simply will not countenance humane, realistic, reforms.
June 9, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
This is a good example of the faux evenhandness of the media, which has been very counterproductive. Paul Krugman pointed out years ago that the radicalization of the Republican party neatly correlated with the rise in income/wealth inequality, and that there was no corresponding movement on the Dem side; the Dems actually became slightly more centrist, rather than leftist, during the same period. His point was that polarization was completely due to Republican radicalization, and was motivated by their wealthy sponsors. The media, however, is endlessly afraid of being accused of "bias" by the right, so they insist on reporting that the Dems and the GOP are equally responsible for polarization, even though that flies in the face of the evidence. As a result, the public doesn't get an accurate picture of what is really going on, which dilutes any momentum for constructive change.
Posted by: beckya57 | Jun 9, 2007 1:53:22 PM
Not having heard the comments by Gibson and Stephanopoulos, I can't say anything about them, but treating Drum's gloss of them as typical of the reporting about this is just wrong.
Bush was in fact working toward a bill when September 11th derailed it completely. I think he would have had a similar bill before Congress in his first term otherwise.
The Democrats who voted against cloture:
Baucus (D-MT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)
Didn't vote:
Johnson (D-SD)
Not a bunch of liberal extremists, but mainly those even less likely to support an amnesty in the future, when they'll lack all Republican cover. If we can't get amnesty now, we're even less likely to get it when Democrats try it by themselves.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 9, 2007 2:49:03 PM
very few if any voted for the status quo Ezra. They voted against this bill as it stands.
It is pretty simple. The American people simply do not trust the federal government to enforce our immigration laws and secure our border. With good reason. The federal government broke this same promise before just 20 years ago.
Does it make people racist or extremist to want our border secured and immigration laws enforced?
I am one of them.
Before you go calling me a racist, xenophobe, or nativist which I am sure someone will you should know that I support legalizing and granting citizenship to every law abiding illegal alien currently in the country. I also support massive immigration particularly from Mexico, Central and South America after the border is sealed and our immigration process can handle that immigration in an orderly fashion.
I don't care if they are rich or poor, their race color or creed as long as they wish to come to the United States to work, or become citizens. I simply want them to do it legally.
Furthermore I do not fault the current group of 12 million plus for doing so illegally. Our government and industry gave them a wink and a nod and asked them to come here, while their governments and industry pushed them out.
This Bill solved nothing and that is the reason it is now dead.
Posted by: Rick Calvert | Jun 9, 2007 3:59:04 PM
I don't understand your post, Rick. The bill addresses each point you raised. What's your complaint about it?
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 9, 2007 4:12:54 PM
"The bill addresses each point you raised."
Oh please. Federal govt under either Republican or Democratic leadership has ABSOLUTELY ZERO INTENTION of enforcing border control, punishing businesses who violate immigration law, or systematically pursuing illegals and deporting them.
This is an amnesty program pure and simple. Thats why McCain always looks like he's about to crack up in laughter when he mentions the "enforcement" part of the bill. He knows that there will be zero enforcement.
Posted by: joe blow | Jun 9, 2007 4:50:08 PM
Paranoia is a poor substitute for facts, joe. The reasons for poor enforcement have been discussed here, along with the changes that will make it more effective and improve the motives for it. But reasons are no match for paranoia.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 9, 2007 4:56:49 PM
Barbara Boxer was among those Dems who voted against cloture. Here's what she said regarding her vote:
But I believe that this bill, as it currently stands, is unworkable and unfair. This bill needs to be clarified, simplified, and rectified before I can support it.
“If enacted, I believe the bill will lead to the exploitation of workers, including the 12 million undocumented immigrants we all hope to put on the path to legalization. I also believe it will exert downward pressure on wages at a time when we are already losing our middle class.
“I have always been troubled by the inclusion of a guestworker program in the bill. The guest worker program is designed, in my opinion, to create a permanent pool of insecure and low-paid workers whom I believe will never leave the country, even though they are supposed to, according to the rules of the program. This will only continue the cycle of illegal immigration.
“There are concepts in the bill I strongly support – a path to legalization for the 12 million undocumented immigrants, a secure border, AgJobs, and the DREAM Act.
Since controlling the border to only allow legal immigration is the stated aim of almost all of the supporters of this bill and the opponents as well, and many people believe that the flow from the south of immigrants without documentation has undercut US wages, does it make sense to increase the number of people coming across the border in the future (with essentially no hope of ever being US citizens) by having a temporary worker program? It is a sign that supporters of the temp. worker program really don't care about anything except low wage workers being available.
This is completely contradictory, besides being bad policy in establishing a two-tier class of people in the country into the future.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Jun 9, 2007 5:20:15 PM
I'd point out a couple of things: one is that almost everyone is blaming Bush for this disaster; papers and commentators may try to spread it sround, but the failure here rests squarely with the White House, they know it, we know it, and more to the point, conservatives know it and they're rightly furious. Betrayal is like that.
Second, I'd dispute the storyline going around about what happened here - Republicans asked for dditional debate and Reid decided to close it off. What's interesting about the vote is that i's not clear who voted for what, or why - Jon Kyl, after all, one of the key architects, voted against cloture (and gave an impassioned speech that what needed to happen here was to give more time to hash this out). A number of Republicans who voted for cloture seem to have done it knowing that the bill would have failed a straight up or down vote, and were comfortable with it being defeated that way. We won't know - can't know, really - if more consideration of amendments, or prolonged negotiations could have gotten this bill through; honestly, I think it could have gone either way. But I think the calculation here was that prolonged debate would hurt Democrats more than prolong GOP disarray, and if the GOP managed to work out even some of their internal divisions, we'd be faced with examining the Democratic fault-lines in this bill, which, as Sanpete points out, wasn't winning over a fairly broad swath of recently elected Senators with "conservative" tags. I remain convinced that we will revisit this topic in 2009. Hopefully, by then, we'll have some fresh rhetoric; as long as this debate is framed as amnesty vs. fences, there's really no way to win this. We need a new approach, and if Democrats were wise, we'd press the leading Dem presidential candidates to get their acts together on this topic, because leadership - brave leadership, not bromides - in this regard will be crucial.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 9, 2007 5:23:59 PM
does it make sense to increase the number of people coming across the border in the future (with essentially no hope of ever being US citizens) by having a temporary worker program?
Compared to what? It makes a great deal of sense compared to what we have now, which is people coming across the border with fewer protections for themselves and for other low-wage workers than they will have as guest workers. People opposing this bill keep looking to Platonic heaven for the ideal to compare to and keep overlooking reality.
we'll have some fresh rhetoric; as long as this debate is framed as amnesty vs. fences, there's really no way to win this. We need a new approach
Name one. There's far less chance of any road to citizenship passing when Democrats have no cover at all.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 9, 2007 5:46:56 PM
The bill promises enforcement after people are legalized. We have already been down that road. It failed and it will fail again.
The definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Build me a fence, secure the border, then lets legalize everyone. Hire as many agents as needed and infrastructure and lets invite 12 million more legal aliens.
According to Rasumussen it looks like a good 75% of the public are extremists.
"A Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Monday and Tuesday night found that just 23% of voters now support the bill"
Posted by: Rick Calvert | Jun 9, 2007 5:51:21 PM
That's what I mean by "fresh leadership" on this, Sanpete - someone is going to have to stick their neck out here, say some unpopular things (which include telling some especially liberal lefties that not everyone here illegally may be able to stay, heartrending stories notwithstanding), and offer a new approach. I have my own ideas - which as I said, start with reforming USCIS - but I'd welcome hearing anything that moved us into territory beyond amnesty and fences. If the next round of debate is run from fear - of the voters, of the right, of the business lobby - no, we won't get much of anywhere anytime soon. But if Democratic values are ascendant - and I think they are - then the way to show that momentum is worth something is to expend some capital on the hard topics. I know you wanted this bill, Sanpete, as the best of a bad situation that needed immediate attention. I though the bill would fail and it has. The question we really need to address is what now, not, as Drum's pointing out, spending a lot of time debating who's to blame. We know who's to blame. And they are about to pay politically (though really, the downward spiral of the President started some time ago). We cannot, really, ignore the issues around immigration policy and process indefinitely; I think there's plenty people can do (and the right will, in regards to security and fences) to keep the heat on regarding immigration. If we're concerned about fixing this - and I know I am - then we can't really just give up because this one (bad, in my opinion) bill failed.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 9, 2007 5:57:22 PM
The bill promises enforcement after people are legalized.
It promises enforcement during the process by which people are legalized, which will happen over many years. It makes sense to reduce the demand for illegal workers along with trying beef up the border. Making it possible for those here already to come out of the shadows will give employers who want to follow the law a much better chance to get the employees they seek legally, reducing demand for illegals, reducing the incentive to cross the border. The new cards and required check system will also make it harder to hire illegals, and the increased penalties ($25,000 per worker for second offense, $75,000 for third) will all help reduce the incentives to cross illegally.
Just building a fence won't work. Thinking it will fits your definition of insanity, because we already know that as the fences go up, more and more are getting in at legal crossing points, under the fences, and so on. There needs to be a reduction in demand, not only efforts to stop the supply.
Weboy, there's no just and practical way to avoid the amnesty talk. You haven't been able to say how it would happen because it can't be done. You can join the other idealists who are going to wait for Jesus to come back and solve this, but it won't work in practice.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 9, 2007 6:49:51 PM
Sanpete, I'm not disagreeing with you about "amnesty" issues, honest; any future proposal will have to stand up to claims that "it's amnesty" in some form or fashion. I don't think every proposal will fail on that alone; but that means seriously dealing with the concerns of people - not just knee-jerk, anti-immigrant conservatives - that current laws are not enforced and that we lack a manageable process for border crossings and visa control. Absent dealing with those issues, I think a lot of proposals, including the one in this bill, do look a lot like an amnesty, and that's a problem. I've said to you repeatedly that processing the people already here is something I think is crucial and needs to happen soon - bt it's just not the only immigration problem we have. The amnesty/fence debate plays now because so little else is being brought into the discussion; neither solution is really the answer here, which to me, is why this bill failed - it was an argument over blending the worst elements of the issues, and thus had no one really in favor of it. And you're shooting down any possibility of trying to move this discussion forward arguing over provisions of a bill that's essentially dead. We will have to start a new process, with likely a different, fresher discussion, if anything is to happen on immigration. The alternative, as you say, is doing nothing, and I think that's unsustainable. Carping about what didn't happen after the past few weeks of painful debate just keeps us stuck - the question, again, is where we go from here.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 9, 2007 8:01:16 PM
It's telling, too, that in all the years of unified government, when Bush's political capital was at its height, there was no movement towards a comprehensive immigration solution.
As someone else says, Bush has been trying to get this for a long time, but 911 got in the way. (BTW: 911 was perpetrated by all or most IllegalAliens who also got at least three DriversLicenses because of IllegalImmigration).
A few months ago, Bush even pledged to the Mexican people and the Mexican government that he'd fight for "reform". So, any implication that he's a slouch in this sellout is completely unfair.
Whatever the motivations of those voting for or against, the public is opposed to both the status quo and the "reform". And, the status quo isn't going to change until people - like Ezra - are forced to choose between supporting illegal immigration in one way or another and their credibility. Start at the link.
Posted by: Read about Ezra's Blogad... | Jun 9, 2007 8:31:19 PM
Weboy, no matter how many other things you put in a bill, any bill that gives a path to citizenship will be assailed as an amnesty bill just as fiercely. It matters not at all how much else is added to it. And the current bill does deal with the other things you mention, so I don't know what else could be added. If this bill can't pass, no bill with a path to citizenship can pass. Liberals have stood too far from this bill, not paying attention to the realities involved, carping too much about its deficiencies and not pushing hard enough for the rest, and many will suffer--citizens and non--if it can't be revived. Boxer ought to be ashamed of herself, and maybe if her vote becomes necessary, a few like her will be able to be moved. No one has given up on this yet. It may not pass, but the process isn't over. The ball is clearly in the President's court for now, and there will be continued negotiations behind the scenes.
If you have some better ideas, with something more specific than "do something better," I'm happy to hear them. But you'll have to explain how your better idea will attract the votes lacking here, especially if it's 2009 or later and there's no Republican cover at all. This will only get harder.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 9, 2007 9:18:40 PM
Sanpete, I've been more specific than "do something better" on this post and others. I have a fuller treatment of my take on the issue over at my blog (www.nycweboy.com) - in fact, our conversation this evening prompted another post. As for your other comments, this seems to be a very circular discussion - I say we need to move on, you keep arguing about the bill that has failed. I think the bill failed because it was a bad bill. We will need a different one. Once that bill is worked up, we can evaluate whether its provisions can realistically be labelled "amnesty" or not. I am simply not convinced that the argument over what to do for people already here will always end up with every proposal being dismissed as amnesty - or at least that a claim that every proposal is "amnesty" will derail its chances for success. A better constructed proposal, that more substantively addresses larger issues about immigration process, including the long waits for people already in the system and the poor performance of USCIS generally, will I think look less like "amnesty" and more like comprehensive reform; at the same time, better enforcement mechanisms - which conservatives have been right to press for - that are actually used and that result in deportations, will go a long way to convincing moderate skeptics that the government will enforce the law and thus reduce concerns that whatever mechanism is used to consider undocumented residents will be a blanket pass to papers. I'm really not just vaguely in favor of something different; I think we're going about this the wrong way, which is why well intentioned concerns about large numbers of people in difficult circumstances are not getting through. If we want to help them - I certainly do - then we will need to keep moving. At the very least, it seems to me, we have to try.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 9, 2007 11:35:38 PM
Weboy, I see nothing specific in your posts here or there that would help make a better bill or explain how any path to citizenship would be less an amnesty than in this bill, especially since you've complained about the very features designed to make it arguably not an amnesty.
As I already explained when you raised the "long wait" issue before, that's due almost entirely to quotas, not problems with the immigration service. And in fact the current bill addresses the quota issue directly, and would greatly speed up the process for those currently waiting, who would all be taken care of before any illegals. And it deals with other issues you act like it doesn't. Your comments on this bill have always been disconnected from both what's actually in the bill and what the specifics of the issues actually are. I've never been able to figure out why you've taken such a hard stance against it, other than momentum.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 10, 2007 1:48:44 AM
The short answer sanpete, is that the problems at USCIS are not just about quotas; even a small investigation of issues legal immigrants face with immigration service and processing of their applications would reveal wider issues (the USCIS itself acknowledges that it can be slow to process, and has been working on the issue). The issues of USCIS failing to track visa jumpers and visitors are also well documented. I was opposed to this bill because, as I've said, it was a terrible way to address a set of problems that are not entirely the problems we have with immigration policy overall; it was tailored to the demagoguery that's attended this issue lately, especially the scare tactics and overemphasis on the issues with our southern border. I think the bill frames the current question badly, and puts in place problematic solutions (z-visas, guest workers, extensive fencing, punitive fines, and on and on) that will make more mischief where a significant problem already exists. What has always mystified me is your sunny assertion that USCIS would just run fine without those darn quotas, when almost every analysis of our current immigration process says there's more going wrong at USCIS than that. The problem here is that our current immigration policy is incoherent. The dead bill would have made it more so. That's my problem with it. I'm not sure how else it needs to be put.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 10, 2007 6:46:02 AM
As I explained before, quotas are the reason that delays are years and years rather than months. You're really worried about the least important aspects of this. The immigration lawyer I spoke with at length about this, who has worked on exactly these issues for 17 years, dismissed your concerns as purely secondary, not worth worrying about in solving the real problems. She explained the reasons for delays, and the ones you cite were way down on the list, requiring only increased budget and beefed-up security check apparatus in other agencies.
You opposed a bill that tackles the huge issues for not addressing small problems that don't require new law. You haven't explained in any specific way what you think would make a better bill, one more likely to pass, except in terms that are based on misconceptions about both the problems and the current bill. You condemn punitive fines and related measures designed to avoid charges of amnesty but say that by some magic a better bill can be less amnesty. How? You don't even hint. You complain about the measures required to get Republican cover, without suggesting a single point that would make Democrats want to slit their political throats for your mystery better bill that lacks those. None of it makes sense politically or substantively.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 10, 2007 3:24:53 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
