Immigration bill fails crucial U.S. Senate vote

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) - A sharply divided U.S. Senate on Thursday threw into doubt the fate of a White House-backed plan to revamp U.S. immigration laws.

The Senate voted 33-63, falling 27 short of the 60 votes needed in the 100-member chamber to limit debate and advance the major overhaul toward passage. The action followed a series of amendments that upset a delicately balanced compromise hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators and the White House.

The move was a serious blow to the comprehensive effort to overhaul immigration law before President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said his fellow Republicans needed more time to work on the bill that ties tough border security and workplace enforcement measures to a guest-worker program and a plan to legalize an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

"Rushing this bill benefits no one and jeopardizes the fragile compromise both sides have worked hard to achieve," McConnell said.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0721041720070607

In the meantime get back on *, he needs to be impeached before he takes us into a nuclear war.

What happened to the Democratic party that looked out for workers rights and unions? This bill benefits employers that want to continue to exploit workers. I am disappointed that so many democrats are for it.

I was watching this debacle on C-Span. When Ted Kennedy had the nerve to say Americans wouldn't do the jobs that Mexicans will do, I wanted to bitch-slap him. Apparently, he doesn't know (or care) that unscrupulous employers have ditched American workers who WERE doing those jobs (construction, etc.) and replaced them with cheap illegal alien labor.

These practices exploit the Mexican workers and screw over the American workers, so who really benefits from this?

Oh, yeah...the employers.

Screw you, Kennedy--at least PRETEND to care about workers, m'kay? :mad:

Cheap labor is all the GOP cares about.

that it was offered as a distraction.
:tinfoilhat:
If not, we have some seriously stupid senators from both parties.....

That guest worker program should be a deal breaker.

What the hell is Teddy thinking? Can anyone tell me this?

figure out why he's promoting this disaster.
The corrupt morons who represent my state are not so surprising in their support, and it may happily be their undoing, as people here are PISSED about it...but Kennedy???

Teddy has a long history of being a champion of civil rights and human rights, and this certainly does qualify as a human rights issue, so it could just be an instinctive, Pavlovian reaction on his part.

However, it was obvious from the start that this was just another hot-button issue trotted out by the cons to be their political football. There is no reason Teddy has to take the bait and play their game.

beyond awful;I can't understand how even someone desperate to do something, anything, about the problem could support the provisions within this bill.
It may also be that the Catholic Church has his ear..

Yeas--
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Salazar (D-CO)
Schumer (D-NY)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

Nays--
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Byrd (D-WV)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Levin (D-MI)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)

Not Voting--
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
McCain (R-AZ)

for "Independent Democrat", one assumes, :puke: while Bernie Sanders, who also caucuses with the Dems and is MUCH closer to being a true Dem, is listed as (I-VT)?

He formed the Connecticut for Lieberman party for his Independent run. Sanders, though, isn't a member of ANY party, he affiliates with the Progressive Party of Vermont and the Democratic Party, but isn't a member of either. Though, and this is interesting, he won the primaries of BOTH those parties during his Senate run.

Because that's the only alternative to this bill. If this bill dies, there will be no action on the issue this year.

the current laws which has not been done and has given us the huge problem.

(Edit to add the word "no" which I mistakenly left out above.)

What are you going to do with 12 million people?

We need immigration laws that reflect reality.

I think the immigration bill was written by the Chamber of Commerce and Laraza.

Nice to see someone else here on DU who actually understands what La Raza's agenda is. :)

...who have broken our other laws: you arrest and prosecute them.

What's up with this BS mindset people have, that laws should be ignored just because a lot of people break them? What's next, throwing up our hands and giving up on the gang problem, simply because there are so many gangs? :eyes:

All of our jails are full...

Maybe those FEMA camps we occasionally hear about are ready...

But seriously, I think I'd rather have 12 million undocumented workers than the fascistic police state apparatus required to round 'em all up.

Sometimes the law is an ass. Do you also advocate rounding up the 80 or 90 million people who have broken the marijuana laws?

Fine the hell out of employers that hire illegals, pay less than minimum, or violate OSHA. That will remove the advantage in hiring illegals. Add border enforcement to this, and the problem goes away.

.... simply prosecute a few employers for hiring illegals.

Soon, few would hire them and they'd go home. You don't have to deport anyone, the jobs are the only reason they are here.

I'd like to see an immigration bill, but not this one.

I'd like to make a lot more workers legal, but not 12 million.

and like others, I'd prefer to see the current laws enforced (although I have few illusions that will happen under Bush- hell, it didn't happen under Clinton either).

Do they stay in the shadows?

Do we try to deport them?

Do we create a permanent underclass with no rights?

I think we should regularize their status now and integrate them into our society.

My only point is that the "cure" can (and sometimes is) worse than the condition.

Enforce the law we have.

Nothing will change. Any proposed change is met with resistance, so we will have to live with the immigration mess that everyone acknowledges needs to be remedied. Immigration will disappear from the political radar screen now, but the immigrants will keep on coming. We will have to deal with this in the future, if we don't deal with it now.