Looks like Harry Reid will postpone the vote until next week, in order to try and get a few Republicans to vote for it when (if) the tax-rates deal is completed.
A reader alerted me to these recent comments from Newt Gingrich to Jorge Ramos of Univision, in support of not just the DREAM Act but a larger amnesty as well:
Newt Gingrich: And our very deliberate goal, as with the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, is we’re talking about how can we create a space that is sort of center-right, pro-jobs, pro-entrepreneur but where the entire Hispanic community feels comfortable arguing, talking, and thinking. We’re going to be putting the DREAM Act on that space and we hope to have, before the beginning of the year, with Jeb Bush’s efforts and others, a very lively debate about whether or not we can develop a step by step solution to help everybody in America come out from outside the law and find a way to ultimately have every person in this country living within the law. That’s got to be our goal.
And later on, this:
Jorge Ramos: So if you say, as one of the most prominent Republicans, that you are for immigration reform, you know many Republicans are going to follow you. They are going to follow your lead. Are you for immigration reform?
Newt Gingrich: I am for immigration reform and the person who I think has had the most courageous position in this is Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush is co-author of a report on immigration reform, which is much bolder than the Republicans will be ready to be in Washington, but he moves us in the right direction.
That report by Jeb Bush is here, for the Council on Foreign Relations (what, the Trilateral Commission was busy?). My colleague Stanley Renshon, a political scientist at CUNY, has an analysis coming out next week of this and two other blue-ribbon task force reports on immigration, but the upshot of the CFR report is the same as all the other calls for “comprehensive immigration reform” — amnesty and increased immigration in exchange for promises of future enforcement. No surprise from Jeb, but I didn’t think Gingrich was quite that bad on the issue.