UPDATE: Here is a link to the exact Senate vote tally on the Immigration "Reform" Bill motion to invoke cloiture to end dabate, which failed by a vote of 53 against, 46 in favor. It contains one scrolling list of all those 46 Senators who voted for the measure, and a second list of all those 53 Senators who voted against it.
I will eventually add it to my sidebar as a permanent link, as soon as I figure out how to to fit it into the general theme of my sidebar.
What do Jim Webb (D-Va), John Tester (D-Mt), and Claire MacCaskill (D-Mo) have in common? Well, they are three of fifteen Senate Democrats who voted against cloture for the recent US Immigration Reform Bill supported by President Bush, about one third of Senate Republicans, and more than two thirds of Senate Democrats. I thank the three of them. I might also add that I am pleasantly surprised at Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s vote against the measure. Unfortunately, I am equally disappointed at Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, who supported the measure, and I hereby offer my sincere apologies to former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, against whom I supported Casey. Live and learn.
Whatever the case, I intend to stand by my previous word. Come 2008, when my Senator, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, runs for re-election, I will forget the fact that he previously supported the bill and, acceding at last to the will of the people, he distanced himself from the bill on the floor of the Senate and ended up voting against it. I am still ticked that he supported it to start with, but he is, as Senate Minority Leader, supposed to advocate for the President of his party’s policies, or so I hear. Whether his heart was in it at the beginning or not, I do not know. The most important thing is, he did the right thing in the end, as did my other Kentucky Senator, Jim Bunning, another Republican whom I will likewise support when he comes up for election in 2010.
This is not a promise of permanent support in every election until the end of time. It is a one-time freebie only. It should likewise not be construed as meaning that I will support their entire agenda. I will still be watching, as hopefully we all will be. I will still oppose them, when I feel it is appropriate, on any given issue.
Still, their votes on this one issue entitles them to my support for the next election, and so they will have that support, and my vote.
Don’t find it so fucking hard to do the right thing from now on, huh guys? I can overlook a lot. Support for such a bill as this one can never be one of them.
As for those Democrats who likewise opposed the bill, good for you. At the same time, it bears pointing out that as many as half or more of the Democrats that did so, based their final opposition in part on the fact that they were unable to successfully amend the bill. One such amendment in question would have made it easier not only for illegal immigrants to become citizens, but to also have their relatives move to America to likewise flood the job market and perhaps one day become citizens as well. Such reasoning does not qualify you for my support.
Therefore, if you are one of the Democrats who voted against the bill for this reason, or one of the ones who voted for it for any reason, hopefully your days are numbered. The same holds true for any Republican who supported the bill. Consider yourselves all on notice from here on out.
I guess I might as well go ahead and change my registration to Republican, but I am still hopeful when I consider the likes of Jim Webb that the party will eventually be pulled toward sanity. Maybe that is too much to hope for. All the Republicans would really have to do to get my permanent support as a party would be to adopt a common, sane middle ground between the positions of organized labor and business. There are many other things where we do not see eye to eye, and probably never will. Nevertheless, I can live with them, or at least tolerate them.
On the other hand, I honestly do not believe in political parties, truth be known. Unfortunately, it looks like we are stuck with them.
