GROWING LESS LAME BY THE MINUTE!….Okay, it’s not exactly the best rallying cry, but I’m still giving it away, free of charge, for Democrats to use as their campaign slogan. Kevin got some grief last week for arguing that the immigration bust-up could be attributed to wily Democratic manuevers. But today’s Washington Post confirms his story:
House GOP leaders had rushed lawmakers back to Washington for a rare December session to vote on the immigration measure, hoping to give their members an accomplishment to brag about over the long winter recess. But it was the deft maneuvering of Democrats that preserved the bill’s most infamous provision, declaring illegal immigrants felons, and that provision has helped turn the bill into a political albatross for some Republicans, Democrats say.
The bill, written by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), was passed in a matter of hours, nine days before Christmas. Just seven amendments were allowed to come to a vote, none of them fundamentally altering the legislation.
Sensenbrenner’s committee bill included the felony provision, but when he took it to the House floor Dec. 16, he offered an amendment to downgrade the offense of being an undocumented worker from a felony to a misdemeanor.
The Democratic leadership pushed its members to vote against the amendment, and 191 Democrats did. Only eight Democrats voted with Sensenbrenner.
Imagine that.
