Senate Drives Stake Through Immigration

Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif, second from left, speaks during a news conference on immigration, Wednesday, June 27, 2007, on Capitol Hill in Washington. With Baca, from left are, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Luis Guiterrez, D-Ill.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Susan Walsh - AP)

Bush made an unusually personal appeal for passage of the legislation, appearing at a luncheon with Senate Republicans this month to urge them to put aside their skepticism.

He sent Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, as well as his top policy aides, to spend hours in Capitol Hill meetings with senators over a period of months to develop and then help push through the deal.

The two secretaries were on hand to buttonhole senators as they entered the chamber for votes.

The outcome, though, was a stunning reversal from just a few weeks ago, when Bush confidently declared, "I'll see you at the bill-signing."

Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, said the Senate had made a "grave error" in killing the legislation. The action, he said, would cut off legal immigration, permit continued unlawful immigration and human rights violations and decrease security on both sides of the border.

Voting to allow the bill to proceed by ending debate were 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman, Conn. Opposing that effort were 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders, Vt. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who has been absent from the Senate all year due to an illness, did not vote.

In a mark of lawmakers' ambivalence on the issue, the outcome was substantially different from a test-vote earlier in the week, when the Senate voted 64-35 to revive the bill. Then, 24 Republicans joined 39 Democrats and Lieberman to move ahead with the bill. On Thursday, 12 of those Republicans and six of the Democrats switched their votes and opposed moving forward.

All the Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate voted to end debate and advance the bill. Among the Republican candidates, only Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted to keep the measure alive.

___

On the Net:

Information on the bill, S. 1639, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/