Things Fall Apart
BARNES, FRED
Things Fall Apart Why the center didn't hold on immigration. by Fred Barnes The what-ifs in the sudden death of immigration reform are intriguing. What if Senate majority leader Harry Reid hadn't...
...My guess was that the opposition had peaked...
...She said the bill didn't strike the right balance...
...Instead, resistance to the bill became an earsplitting national phenomenon during the interim rather than mere conservative noisemaking...
...Domenici is up for reelection next year...
...And Kyl and Graham and a few other Republican senators were courageous in negotiating the bill and fighting for its passage...
...Hispanics are the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country, and they are basically swing voters...
...In terms of the battleground districts, immigration attacks are more likely to play a key role in Democratic rural and exurban districts where opposition towards immigration is stronger and Democrats hold a smaller advantage...
...But preliminary talks on reforming Social Security have gone nowhere and the attempt to overhaul America's broken immigration system has failed...
...But we'll never know...
...And all five Democrats running for reelection in red states in 2008—Max Baucus of Montana, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia—voted to kill the bill...
...But in politics you only get credit for success...
...So Democrats in Washington, with the exception of Kennedy and senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Ken Salazar of Colorado, were not enthusiastic about the bill...
...This year he's seeking the Republican presidential nomination...
...What if Senate majority leader Harry Reid hadn't pulled the immigration bill from the floor when it was close to passage in early June...
...The pause before Reid brought the bill back to the Senate floor last week proved fatal...
...McConnell had theorized that a divided Washington—Republican White House, Democratic Congress— provided the best chance for bipartisan agreement on big issues like Social Security and immigration...
...He's right about that...
...The country's not ready," he told the Washington Times in justifying his reversal...
...Hispanics paid close attention to the Senate deliberations, and while Democrats—Reid especially— bear some of the responsibility for the bill's downfall, Republicans bear more...
...Opponents were despondent...
...Too bad...
...I thought we were, but just concluded the country's not ready...
...After all, the leading Republican foes claimed credit for the bill's demise...
...At the time, the bill was hurtling toward passage...
...That was Reid's rash decision on June 7 to pull the bill off the Senate floor rather than give Republican leaders a day or so to put together a limited number of amendments and proceed to final passage...
...They didn't flinch...
...In both cases, the more people heard—not all of it true—the less they liked the legislation...
...Both McConnell and Kyl believe it would have passed within a few days had Reid not been so impatient...
...Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico told the New York Times that the supposed secrecy in which the bill was drafted created confusion and "caused it to flop...
...Of the what-ifs, one is worth considering...
...According to exit polls, they voted 44 percent for Bush in 2004 but only 29 percent for Republican congressional candidates in 2006...
...Senate opponents, gloating over their success in killing the bill, were essentially correct in insisting the American people had rejected immigration reform...
...Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that a majority of Republicans and independents opposed the immigration bill...
...Collins is running for reelection next year...
...Democrats are likely now to begin to solidify their hold on the Hispanic vote...
...Demagogic attacks are not ineffective," Greenberg found...
...It hadn't...
...Immigration reform was defeated by a conservative revolt that spread to the wider public...
...For Democrats, the failure of immigration reform is a twofer...
...Harkin said he feared some workers could have been denied jobs "because of errors in a government database...
...People were troubled by the proposed solution for the 12 million people here illegally," she said...
...Brownback voted for a more liberal immigration bill last year...
...The bill was a compromise that, in my view, had far more in it that conservatives should have cheered than booed...
...And their House members in rural and conservative districts have been spared a risky vote in favor of immigration reform...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard...
...As a result of Republicans' role in killing the immigration bill, "I believe we're reinforcing everything" that brought us to 29 percent, said Graham, one of the bill's architects...
...And that they didn't achieve...
...The issue touched off a national debate that gripped middle-class America, much as President Clinton's health care initiative did in 1993 and 1994...
...Reid was lukewarm at best...
...Snowe isn't...
...Republican Sam Brownback ofKan-sas switched his vote during the roll call from yes to no...
...Actually the bipartisan drafting sessions were widely reported and attended by more than a dozen senators...
...What if Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona had come up earlier with their enforcement-toughening amendment that would have prompted, for the first time, a sweeping crackdown on those 3 to 4 million foreigners who have overstayed their visas...
...The excuses some senators used to explain their "no" votes and mask their political motives were laughably lame...
...Fascinating what-ifs all, but mostly irrelevant...
...By the time the key vote came last week, the bill's core supporters—President Bush, Kyl, Graham, Democratic senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and the business community—had already lost the argument over immigration...
...Susan Collins rarely splits with her Maine colleague Olympia Snowe, but on immigration she did...
...What if Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had twisted arms to get more Republican votes for the bill...
...Democrats were split evenly...
...While opposition to the bill may aid individual senators, it clearly undercuts Republican efforts to capture the Hispanic vote...
...Worse for Democrats, the poll suggested the reelection of some Democratic members of Congress might be jeopardized if they backed immigration reform...
Vol. 12 • July 2007 • No. 40
