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 ast
night, the House voted 275-137 to let illegal immigrants become
legalized upon payment of a $1,000 fine and identification of a
sponsor. The vote was a victory of sorts for President Bush, who
can tell Mexican president Vicente Fox that he's making progress
toward legalizing illegals at their meeting next week. But it was
only barely a victory.
Bush needed
two-thirds of the votes because of the procedure under which the
bill was brought up — a procedure normally used for uncontroversial
measures. He got that majority, but only by one vote. And he had
to rely on Democrats to do it. House Republicans voted against him,
and their leadership, by a 123-92 margin. Democratic National Committee
chairman Terry McAuliffe, referring to the leader of the anti-amnesty
Republicans in the House, snarled that the GOP was a "Tom Tancredo
Republican party," not a Bush party. There's considerable justice
to his claim.
There were
only 43 votes against the legalization proposal last year. This
time around, it was attached to a popular measure to tighten security
measures concerning people here on visas. But opposition jumped
by 94 votes nonetheless. House Judiciary chairman Jim Sensenbrenner
expressed his displeasure to some of the switchers. At least one
of them told him that September 11 had changed his mind about the
seriousness of border security.
The proposal
now goes to the Senate, where Democrat Robert Byrd promises to hold
it up.
The vote has
to be taken as a warning to President Bush that any further movement
on illegal immigrants is going to be difficult to achieve. That's
the message House leaders will be giving him. Even one of Bush's
major allies in the House, Roy Blunt, voted against him.
House Republicans
who are considering seeking higher office this year were particularly
likely to vote against Bush. Senate candidate John Thune of South
Dakota voted against the proposal. So did Ed Bryant, who's running
for Senate in Tennessee (and Democrats Bob Clement and Bart Gordon,
who are said to be considering the race). Other Republican Senate
candidates who voted against Bush were Saxby Chambliss of Georgia,
John Cooksey of Louisiana, and Greg Ganske of Iowa.
Voting with
the president was Rep. John Sununu of New Hampshire, who is also
running for Senate.
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