Immigration cross-currents

Wasn’t Sen. John Cornyn of Texas one of the good guys in the immigration debate? On C-SPAN Tuesday, he was telling reporters that the certain unnamed Republicans had been obstructionists on immigration reform this past year, that this hurt the Republicans in the election, and now it is time for Republicans to work together with the Democrats to pass an immigration bill and get it signed by the president. Yet also on Tuesday a friend who is in the know on immigration politics told me that the Democrats have no desire to push through the kind of radical bill they voted for in this past Congress, because now, as the majority party, they would be seen as responsible for it. So, are the formerly anti-amnesty Republicans now pushing for amnesty (perhaps with the thought of getting credit for supporting it, while realizing that it won’t be passed), while the formerly pro-amnesty Democrats want to avoid it?

Arlene writes:

I’m afraid Cornyn has been pushing amnesty for almost the whole time he’s been a senator; he introduced his own amnesty bill in 2003 not long after he was elected. As Attorney General of Texas he was quite the Hispanderer with a Spanish-language website, and a truckling attitude to Hispanics. He’s said to be a Rove protege and a close friend of the president. So if he was on the side of the good guys in the recent wrangle over amnesty, it was probably a good cop, bad cop ploy.

I’m not sure what kind of games they are playing in Congress with this amnesty thing, but I’m wary of the motives of most of our representatives, sad to say.

LA replies:

Well, Cornyn voted against amnesty on at least some committee votes in 2006 (here’s a contradictory report on that), and he voted against S.2611 in the Senate. At the same time, he’s at least a wet, attacking the House for refusing to compromise with the very bill which Cornyn himself opposed.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2006 12:29 AM | Send