Senator Sessions: This Rush to Pass an Unread Amnesty Bill Is Exactly What Happened With ObamaCare

Indeed. We'll just have to pass it to find out what's in it.

“A yes vote on cloture tonight means that Sen. Reid will have gained full control of the process,” Sessions said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “Senators have to play Mother May I.”

Sessions argued that Reid would be able to block any amendment votes he doesn’t want to take once cloture is invoked. Sessions complained that since the “border surge” amendment was filed Friday afternoon, senators haven’t had enough time to review the changes made in the more than 1,000 page bill.

“This is exactly what happened with ObamaCare,” Sessions said. “The majority rushed through a complex bill so there would be no time to understand what’s in it.”

Ted Cruz says the same:

On Monday at 5:30pm, the United States Senate will vote on the most sweeping immigration reform proposal it has considered in almost 3 decades – and it will do so having only seen the nearly 1200 pages of text for approximately 72 hours. Americans – including myself, my fellow senators and our staffs – are still trying to figure out exactly what is in the new Schumer-Corker-Hoeven “deal.”

Sound familiar? Pass it to find out what’s in it? Reminiscent of Obamacare, the lengthy amendment to replace the Gang of 8’s original bill was crafted behind closed doors and introduced late on Friday, after many members had left town. In the 2007 immigration debate, close to 50 amendments were considered. But this year, we have only debated 9 – with some of us being completely shut out.

Given only a weekend to review the language, we will now vote on whether to end a debate that never really began. To be clear – this is not a difficult vote. On process alone, we should all vote “no.“ This was by design – the President, Harry Reid and the Gang of 8 preferred all along to ram through a “deal,” and not have a real debate – just like Obamacare. Worse, just like Obamacare, the “deal” involved lots of horse-trading and buying off of votes at the last minute – a display of everything that is wrong with Washington, and one of the things I specifically campaigned against.

But, on substance – the vote is even easier. There are too many troubling provisions of the bill to list, such as de facto affirmative action hiring for current illegal immigrants due to Obamacare and huge amounts of discretion for the DHS Secretary to waive deportation and inadmissibility. And for all the talk, the new Schumer-Corker-Hoeven “deal” is nothing new at all. It’s the same amnesty-before-false-promise-of-security of the Gang of 8 and the bills of debates past.

That is why we started this petition, so that Americans can speak out and let Senators know that they oppose the legalization-first bill offered by the Gang of 8 and Schumer-Corker-Hoeven.

He then discusses the ways in which the "compromise" is extremely weak on border enforcement, and, in fact, even weakens the original Gang of 8 bill in some respects!

Rarely do we see so transparently how votes in the Senate are bought and sold, but the laundry list of buyoffs in this deal details plainly the path to amnesty. The last-minute introduction and overwhelming page count are by design, and this exercise has become more about politics than principle. This is Washington at its worst, and America deserves better. The proponents of this bill are squandering an opportunity to fix our legal immigration system responsibly and finally secure our borders. Instead, they are jamming through amnesty that undermines the rule of law and harms those who will desperately seek it.

Tell your Senator to vote “no.”

Meanwhile, there is the increadingly confused Jan Brewer, who supports the bill, because, um, "border security MUST come first," and this idiot seems to think that's what the bill is all about.

Brewer’s deliberately misleading the public at the behest of national Republicans who need prominent so-called “border hawks” like her to reassure low-information (a.k.a. dumb) GOPers that the bill is awesome. That seems likelier, although I believe Brewer’s term-limited as governor and therefore doesn’t really need anything from the national leadership. She could go her own way if she wanted to. [Or, perhaps]: She supports the bill on the merits because, like Marco Rubio, she’s not as much of a border hawk as she pretended to be when running for office three years ago. By the same token, how many conservatives who voted for her thought she’d be a fan of ObamaCare? We have, it seems, been misled. Again.

Evolution is real. I see it in GOP politicians all the time. Particularly the punctuated equilibrium sort of evolution -- GOP positions remain in stable and unchanged form for years and years, and then an event significantly changes their environment (that is, they win their primary and general election bids) and then, Whoa nelly!, the forces of mutation and evolution go bananas.

posted by Ace at 03:48 PM

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