9 December 2010
The DREAM amnesty for illegal aliens and S. 510 ‘Food Safety’, which gives the FDA greater regulatory control over the nation’s food supply, are due for a vote in the Senate today. The fate of the tax bill is still uncertain, so hopefully the 42 Republican senators will keep their word and refuse to approve anything else until that critical economic issue is resolved.
In a discussion on Fox News last night, one panel member accused another of denying citizenship to non-citizens who serve in our military because that person does not support the DREAM Act. That argument is a distortion. Also, children who are brought to the United States illegally by their parents are not denied a public education or health care. There can pathways to citizenship devised for each of these groups, but this bloated amnesty package which will burden taxpayers even more isn’t that vehicle in our opinion. When the Federal government does its job and secures our borders, then the serious discussion of genuine immigration reform can begin. Until then, it’s nothing more than a blanket amnesty and an open-borders America.
First, in an email dated 12/9 from NaturalNews:
The Food Safety bill (S.510) is back from the dead. It was tucked away inside an appropriations bill passed by the House today, so now it’s back to the US Senate for yet another vote.
Action is needed today to bury this nasty bit of food tyranny once and for all. Here’s the latest report.
And in an email last night from NumbersUSA:
WE LOST IN THE HOUSE
Now We Have To Defeat DREAM Act Amnesty In The Senate Thursday Morning.
Start calling your own U.S. Senators at 8 Thursday morning until we announce the vote.
202-224-3121
We will be providing you faxes of thanks and disgust to send to your U.S. Representatives later to make sure they know that you were watching.
For now, though, focus your attention on the Senate.
You can find the Senate target list on our www.NumbersUSA.com
The House vote at 9:01 p.m. EST tonight was 216-198 in passing the amnesty in the House.
But the amnesty won’t actually happen if if the Senate fails to get 60 votes for cloture Thursday. We only have to win once to win the whole thing.
The Senate cloture vote is required to allow the debate to start on the amnesty. If it gets less than 60, the bill is dead.
If cloture DOES pass, there will be a debate on the bill and then another cloture vote in which we can again have a chance to kill the bill by keeping the vote below 60 (of the 100 Senators).
WE’LL WEBCAST SENATE VOTE AND OUR COMMENTARY LIVE
We invite you back into our conference room Thursday morning to watch the Senate vote with our NumbersUSA staff.
Note that the address is not dot com, but dot tv:
The Senate schedule states that the amnesty will be taken up after the Senate convenes at 9:30. That could easily change, but we’ll be live then in case things start happening that early…
…20 House Members Failed To Vote
The usual 218 vote majority was not needed tonight because 20 Representatives failed to show up to vote:
DEMOCRATS: Berry (Ark.), Cohen (Tenn.), Delahunt (Mass.), Kilpatrick (Mich.), Marshall (Ga.), Mollohan (W.Va.), Schiff (Calif.) and Wu (Oregon)
REPUBLICANS: Bilbray (Calif.), Blunt (Mo.) Buyer (Ind.), Fallin (Okla.), Gingrey (Ga.), Granger (Texas), Griffith (Ala.), Marchant (Texas), McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Radanovich (Calif.) and Stutzman (Ind.)
It is doubtful that these absences affected the final outcome.
8 REPUBLICANS Broke With Their Party Leadership And Voted FOR The Amnesty
Our chances to defeat the amnesty were sunk with the defection of these 8 Republicans in favor of amnesty:
DELAWARE – Castle
FLORIDA – L. Diaz-Balart
FLORIDA – M. Diaz-Balart
FLORIDA – Ros-Lehtinen
HAWAII – Djou
LOUISIANA – Cao
MICHIGAN – Ehlers
SOUTH CAROLINA – Inglis
38 DEMOCRATS Broke With Their Party Leadership And Voted AGAINST Amnesty
We almost did as well with Democrats as I had hoped. I had always said we needed at least 42 Democrats to vote for unemployed Americans and against the amnesty, although I felt 45 probably was needed. Because of so many Republican defections, we actually needed more.
These were both re-elected Democrats and Democrats who were defeated, all of whom went against incredibly emotional appeals from their Party’s top leaders in floor speeches tonight.
It is quite rare for a Speaker of the House to go to the floor and make a speech. But Speaker Pelosi made it clear that passing this amnesty is one of the dearest things to her heart in an impassioned speech that seemed to laud as a hero every citizen of another country who is courageous enough to break our immigration laws.
Nonetheless, these Democrats OPPOSED the amnesty:
ALABAMA – Barrow
ALABAMA – Bright
ARKANSAS – Ross
ILLINOIS – Costello
ILLINOIS – Lipinski
INDIANA – Donnelly
INDIANA – Ellsworth
INDIANA – Visclosky
KENTUCKY – Chandler
MARYLAND – Kratovil
MICHIGAN – Stupak
MINNESOTA – Peterson
MISSISSIPPI – Childers
MISSISSIPPI – Taylor
NEW YORK – Arcuri
NEW YORK – Higgins
NEW YORK – Owens
NORTH CAROLINA – Kissell
NORTH CAROLINA – McIntyre
NORTH CAROLINA – Shuler
OHIO – Boccieri
OHIO – Kaptur
OHIO – Space
OHIO – Wilson
OKLAHOMA – Boren
PENNSYLVANIA – Altmire
PENNSYLVANIA – Carney
PENNYSLVANIA – Critz
PENNSYLVANIA – Dahlkemper
PENNSYLVANIA – Holden
PENNSYLVANIA – Kanjorski
PENNSYLVANIA – P. Murphy
UTAH – Matheson
VIRGINIA – Boucher
VIRGINIA – Nye
WASHINGTON – Baird
WEST VIRGINIA – Rahall
No matter what you may think about the rest of the politics of these Members, I hope those of you in their states will give them major pats on the back for taking this stand.
Notice how they are from all over the country.
Special thanks to all of you Pennsylvanians who outdid yourself with 7 Democrats voting NO…
…I’m especially proud of all the Democrats who lost their seats in the November elections and still voted against their Party leaders and against the amnesty tonight.
Most Senate voicemail boxes are full. So, you won’t be able to leave messages. You need to start calling after 7 a.m. EST Thursday for a last chance to affect the outcome.
