Kennedy un-decided on Real ID Act- CALL HIM NOW!!! Vote could be tonight!

Sen. John Kennedy (D) Massachusetts
Mass: 617-565-3170
DC: 202-224-4543


REAL ID Vote likely tonight or tommorow - ACT NOW!!!

Please contact your Senators today, and urge them to oppose the REAL ID Act. Call your Senators by dialing the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and send the e-mail below!

<snip>

The Senate is considering anti-immigrant legislation called the
REAL ID Act that does nothing to make our communities more
secure. Instead, this legislation prevents undocumented
immigrants from getting driver's licenses and imposes new
unfunded federal mandates on states to enforce federal
immigration laws.

We need real immigration reform, not band-aid fixes that do
nothing to improve homeland security or address the problems
with our broken immigration system.

Please contact your Senators today, and urge them to oppose the
REAL ID Act. Call your Senators by dialing the Capitol
Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and send the e-mail below!

more...
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1733815.php

I just called Isakson's office and expressed my views on RealID and tying it to this bill. Unfortunately, he's one of my senators. I couldn't get through to Saxby Cahbliss' office (all circuits busy). Y'all call and let them know how we feel about this RealID act.

Related threads:

REAL ID Vote likely tonight or tommorow - ACT NOW!!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1774765#1774868

Sen. Reid says Dems must accept "'Real ID Act"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=122000&mesg_id=122000

Sneak Attack (real ID act)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1766673

Groups opposed to Real ID Act
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1760527


Also:

ACLU, Allies Oppose Sensenbrenner’s Anti-Immigrant Bill; Mean-Spirited Measure Would Hurt Persecuted, Undermine Privacy
February 9, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON - In one of its first major actions this session, the House of Representatives is debating today anti-immigrant legislation introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). The American Civil Liberties Union renewed its opposition to the measure, H.R. 418 - the REAL ID Act -- joining a diverse coalition of privacy, immigrants’ rights and conservative organizations who have raised concerns.

"The House has made one of its first must-pass bills a measure that would do little to enhance our security while severely undermining our national commitment to freedom and liberty," said Timothy H. Edgar, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "This bill takes ideas rejected by Congress last session and seeks to create significant hurdles to the persecuted seeking safe haven here."

Specifically, the bill would make it easier to send asylum-seekers back to the countries they are fleeing if they cannot provide written "corroboration" of their claims, a move contrary to international law. Federal law already gives officials ample discretion to deny improper asylum claims, and asylum applicants are subject to much more extensive scrutiny than virtually any other pool of non-citizens seeking entry to the United States.

Opposition to the bill is diverse, coming from, among others, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest and largest Irish-American group; the American Conservative Union; the Free Congress Foundation; the Republican Liberty Caucus; Episcopal Migration Ministries; the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Human Rights First; Amnesty International and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Concerns have also been expressed by former Republican Congressman Bob Barr and the executive director of Gun Owners of America, Larry Pratt, who wrote in a Washington Times op-ed last November that the asylum provision would " Christians and others fleeing persecution to provide written ‘corroboration’ from the very officials they are fleeing." The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has also issued a report denouncing the measure.

Judge Michael Chertoff, the Bush Administration’s nominee to head the Homeland Security Department, has previously protested such practices of improperly demanding corroborating documents from repressive governments.

Sensenbrenner has also offered an amendment to make the bill appear to offer something valuable to the persecuted, but actually makes the bill worse, the ACLU said. The amendment would lift the artificially low cap that leads to long delays for those who have been granted asylum to obtain green cards, but it would also add additional restrictions and asylum and court-stripping provisions that would take away the power of the courts to review unlawful actions by the government in many deportation cases.

The court-stripping provisions are a direct attack on the Supreme Court's decision in St. Cyr v. INS, a landmark immigrants rights case brought by the ACLU that established the ability of immigrants who were convicted of crimes many years earlier to have their "day in court" despite restrictions on judicial review passed in 1996.

Another provision of the REAL ID Act would make it possible to deport long-term, lawful, permanent residents for providing non-violent, humanitarian support to organizations labeled "terrorist" by the government. This provision would apply even when such support was completely legal at the time it was provided.

The bill would also retroactively make legal donations to "terrorist" groups grounds for deportation of green-card holders who have lived here for decades. The Patriot Act already allows the government to deny entry to non-citizens outside the country on this basis.

The REAL ID Act would also worsen the already troubling driver’s license provisions in the intelligence reform legislation passed last year by forcing states to deny driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. The use of state motor vehicle agencies as agents of the federal immigration service would further the growing trend, alarming both conservatives and progressives, of transforming drivers’ licenses into de facto national ID cards. It would also lead to an increase in unlicensed drivers, undermining public safety and increasing insurance rates for everyone. Motor vehicles employees lack training in federal immigration law, and are likely instead to rely on ethnic profiling based on notions of who "looks foreign."

The ACLU noted that in a recent interview with the conservative journal Human Events, Sensenbrenner voiced his opposition to a national ID card.

"Sensenbrenner says he is opposed to a national ID card, and yet he’s laying the foundation for one," added Marvin J. Johnson, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "A national ID card would only serve to restrict our freedoms and invade our privacy and do little to ensure our security. Our privacy must not be swept away by Congress, especially when there has been little discussion on the ramifications of such a move."

The ACLU’s letter on REAL ID is online at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17402&c=206

A coalition letter to the House urging opposition to the REAL ID Act can be read at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17432&c=206

The Ancient Order of Hibernians letter on REAL ID can be found at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17443&c=206

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows’ letter is available at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17433&c=206

but yesterday he said he voted YES

The receptionist lady asked for my zip code. They must be getting a lot of calls.

Just talked to a young lad who says the Senator is leaning towards voting against.

It would probably help to keep those calls coming.

I got through on the second ring.

Who else is wavering? I'll try to find out who else we need to call.

:kick:

BTW, to clarify, this was my comment in a previous thread:
"I just called Isakson's office and expressed my views on RealID and tying it to this bill. Unfortunately, he's one of my senators. I couldn't get through to Saxby Chambliss' office (all circuits busy). Y'all call and let them know how we feel about this RealID act."

I was able to speak with the offices of Both GA senators and I just called Sen. Kennedy's office.

:kick:

Lynch and Kerry are voting no on this.

It's nice being in a state where my reps almost always vote the way I want them to.

.
IanDB1, it is not "Senator John Kennedy" as you posted. Instead it is U.S. Senator Edward Moore Kennedy aka Ted Kennedy who is the present senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Yes, Senator Ted Kennedy did fill the (Massachusetts) U.S. Senate seat of his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) upon JFK's election as president. However, as we all know JFK was assassinated November 23, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald.

That being said, I can understand if Senator Ted Kennedy is on the fence about his vote on this bill. It has deep pros as well as a few cons. It's good to hear that Ted may be seeking more information about this bill's many potential ramifications. It's understandable that federal law(s) should close many of the gaps in laws regarding the restricting of terrorism and terrorists.

However, there are blatant holes in this bill leaving the many states to promulgate various and many methodology of information depository particularly regarding the internet and digital information as a whole. It stands to reason that any intelligent person should question the means to which a 50-state plus territories internet depositories can be secure? Why make it easy for hackers to acquire private citizen information that's been centralized? Oh, yes, it WILL be centralized.


BTW, did you give us an url reference for Ted Kennedy's stance as you advocate?

__________________________________________

edited to add: For those wanting factual information about the contents of this House of Representatives bill (now being considered by the U.S. Senate) and the U.S. House vote on this bill commonly known as "The REAL ID ACT," see:
"Bill sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner ; Bill H.R.4180 "http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.00418:" and U.S. House of Representatives vote number 2005-031 on Feb 10, 2005"

(note, please, that DU hypertext does not reproduce the punctuation colon in the thomas.loc.gov website hyperlink . . . therefore, the hyperlink isn't correct unless you manually add the colon via copy and paste to your browser's address bar)

This tin hat politely disagrees with the Warren Commission's findings.

By the way, the assassination, whomever was/were the trigger person/people was November 22.

Let us not cast stones unless yee be without sin.

.
aaahhhhhh, a "grassy knoll theorist" . . . and, yes, I stand corrected. JFK's assassination occurred on November 22, 1963 not on the 23rd as I stated. And who is "casting stones?" Not I.



.

Will never stand with Arlan "single bullet theory" Spector, no, note me!

.
Ted's the best: http://www.vote-smart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=S0410103 and http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=S0410103 . . . e.g.

I called the office of the non-dead Kennedy.

.
Yup. Tis over. The votes are in. 100-0 in the Senate . . . http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00117 . . . voted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.

And the Dems were tagged, yet again. Caught in a no-win situation so they voted unanimously for this amendment REAL ID Act of 2005.

It seems the rightwingers went into private conference chicanery and as promised to Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner earlier in 2004, his REAL ID Act was tagged onto a bill that all knew the Dems could not vote against (due to the contents of the entire bill) nor filibuster against since there was no cloture 60 vote. A no win situation.

As well as, legally speaking this amendment won't stand federal court muster which may be the main thrust why the Dems didn't give two damns about passing REAL ID Act of 2005. However, some including Hillary were complaining, justifiably, about the Dems being shafted w/o a debate on this bill. But it was no-go even with a debate. So goes politics.