I’ve made no secret of my opposition to a campaign to change our current citizenship custom that affords citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. But several senators, Kyl included, haven’t actually called for changing the practice but rather for an inquiry into the issue through congressional hearings. Given that Rasmussen has found that the public opposes 58-33 granting citizenship to the children of illegals, it would seem that a decent respect for the opinions of their constituents (ha!) would suggest that hearings would be a good idea, if only for educational purposes. As far as I can tell, there’s only been one witness at one hearing, in all of Congress’s history, who’s dealt specifically with the issue: John Eastman, law professor (and former attorney general candidate) in California, but even that hearing was mainly on dual citizenship, which was addressed by CIS fellow Stanley Renshon and sometime NRO-nik John Fonte.

Unfortunately, Russ Feingold, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Constitution subcommittee, has rejected the idea of holding hearings. But if the Democrats believe their talk about how the issue will backfire politically by riling up Hispanics, why wouldn’t they want hearings?