If the Republicans blocked this bill, why are we rewarding Bush by supporting his Immigration bill? Something is not right here.

I support my Senator Claire McCaskill when she says that this Immigration bill doesn't make any sense. Why is our leadership backing a poorly written piece of legislation that can't be enforced? She says "follow the money."

I don't know who the leadership think they are pandering to but it sure isn't the rank and file Democrats who get out and do the heavy lifting for them during elections. Could it be that they think more of the wishes of those who donate big campaign contributions...corporate interests?

There are two ways to destroy a mandate. This is one of them. The other is nominating someone because they can raise the most money.

Money is ruining the Democratic Party just as we were beginning to get it back on its feet at the grass roots again. I'd like Dr. Dean to issue a statement addressing my concerns. I want him to explain what he thinks is going on here on this Immigration bill.

Thank you.

The thing that disses me about this is the fact that these damn republicans were so accusational to democratic filibusters, which never happened, for six years, but now it's okay for them to filibuster anything that they do not want to take a position on. They do not care about the will of the people, and the inability to help democrats override Mr. Bush's veto of the Iraq supplemental in May is just additional prove of their disdain of the American population.

Key Critical Question

Why do Republicans hate the American people and the troops?

Davidual:

If you want to know the answer to your question, put it to the seven Senators who joined seven Republican party members to form the Gang of 14:

* Robert Byrd, (D) West Virginia
* Ben Nelson, (D) Nebraska
* Mary Landrieu, (D) Louisiana
* Daniel Inouye, (D) Hawaii
* Mark Pryor, (D) Arkansas
* Ken Salazar, (D) Colorado
* Joe Lieberman, (R) Connecticut

Union bill killed by Senate GOP
by kos
Tue Jun 26, 2007 at 10:48:22 AM PDT

The Employee Free Act, passed by the House, was killed by Republican filibuster.

Democrats were unable to get the 60 votes needed to force consideration of the Employee Free Choice Act, ending organized labor's chance to win its top legislative priority from Congress.

The final vote was 51-48.

The outcome was not a surprise, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying for months that he would stop the legislation in the Senate. The White House also made it clear that if the bill passed Congress it would be vetoed.

The House passed the bill in March. Democrats and labor unions pressed for a vote in the Senate in hopes of rallying their voters in the 2008 elections, where they hope to win the White House and increase their majorities in the House and Senate.

The vote was near party-line, with only Arlen Specter crossing party lines to vote for cloture.

How often do you see Landrieu and the Nelsons voting with their party on something like this? It's quite a beautiful sight, actually.

As for Republican "moderates", once again we see that Oregon's Smith, Minnesota's Coleman, New Hampshire's Sununu, and Maine's Collins all sided against the rights of workers to organize.

This legislation is dead. Reid could've switched his vote to the "no" side in order to preserve his ability to revisit the issue. But as the article above notes, no one expected this thing to get anywhere near the votes to pass. It was a great way for unions to demonstrate to their memebers (who vote and volunteer for Democrats higher than just about any other group), without ambiguity, which party stands for workers, and which party doesn't.

And with the near-party line vote, with zero Democratic defectors, that distinction was clear as day.

Republican obstructionism in Congress -- on Iraq, on stem cells, on union organizing -- is building a solid electoral case against the GOP in 2008. The electorate will have a chance to vote for this stymied agenda or for its continued obstruction.

If nothing else, congressional Democrats are drawing clear distinctions between them and the guys on the other side of the aisle. And as we've seen, the clearer the distinctions, the better Democrats perform.

****

We will not forget this in 2008. The GOP is finished.

I say kill the immigration bill. No more compromises with Bush. He gets nothing from here in.

It`s definitely time for the Democratic Party to start asserting itself as a republican obstructionist.The people in this country voted for Democrats to change the course.That doesn`t only mean putting forth a new agenda,it also means stopping the repubs agenda.That`s why congress is getting such poor ratings in the polls.Nothing is being done of any significants to change this direction.That and also we are not a patient lot.

I wish that when running articles about bills in the Senate, or House of Representatives that the bill's legislative number was included in the article. I try to search for these bill's on Thomas.loc, and even using the name of the legislation I get about 1000 references to the legislation. It's because of the legislative process of keeping the name of the legislation the same, but changing the legislative numerical description to identify where in the legislative process the bill is. Please offer the legislative number of the bill's in reference. Thank you.