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Reid says bill lacks votes for cloture
I just got off a conference call listening to Roy Beck and Rosemary Jenks of NumbersUSA along with Rep. Tancredo. Miss Jenks began the discussion with this happy announcement: “In the last 10 minutes we got very good news. Apparently Sen. Reid is saying he does not have the votes to invoke cloture.” This means that Reid lacks the 60 votes to stop debate on the bill and bring the bill to a vote. Miss Jenks added: “The best result would be that they pull this vote off the floor [following the failure to invoke cloture] and it dies a slow and horrible death.” As I pointed out yesterday, Reid himself has said that the Senate needs to move on to other legislative business. So if they can’t get cloture this week, there is a chance that the bill will not be brought to the floor again this year. Jenks also said the decisive opposition has been from Republicans who oppose amnesty, not from Democrats who feel the bill is not liberal enough. Those Democrats have gotten on board with the bill despite their misgivings. But Miss Jenks emphasized that continuing calls to Congress were of the essence “until this bill has been put away.”
She also said that Senate staffers told her yesterday that there was still an avalanche of calls opposing the bill. So the news reports this week and last week saying that calls to senators had died down were just more news manipulation. Here are more of my notes from the NumbersUSA conference call: Rosemary Jenks: Continuing calls to senators are of the essence until this bill has been put away. We still need calls, that’s the only thing to convince them that they have to vote against cloture and the bill. It is absolutely critical that people continue to call. We must make sure that calls continue until this bill is over with and gone. Roy Beck: We’ve been hearing lots of bravura from the sponsors of the bill. Beck or Jenks: It’s so amazing that they did this great trade off without guaranteeing the enforcement. The GAO says that illegal immigration will increase if this bill is passed. Jenks: The insults at the opponent is like the cry of desperation of an animal that has been backed into a corner and is striking out. Roy: It’s important that in making our calls we do not make characterizations of the immigrants but just talk about the number of immigrants this bill would let in. Tancredo: I have sworn that if it comes to the House, I will go to the district of every Republican who votes for this bill work for his defeat. This takes priority over my presidential campaign because the bill will kill both this party and this country. If we can hold the Republicans we can stop the bill in the House. They need Republican votes to pass it in the House. Beck: We had 12,000 activist members in January 2004. Now we have almost 400,000. But we need to get up to three million. Jenks: Unless we defeat the bill [I’m not clear what she means by defeat it], it will keep coming back forever.
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