Byron York
Washington Examiner
4/25/2010
On Friday morning, I got a note from the office of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham asking if I would be interested in coming by Monday to talk with Graham about the new energy and climate bill he was scheduled to unveil with co-sponsors John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman. We quickly sent a few emails back and forth, trying to arrange a time, until about an hour later, when radio silence descended on the Graham office.
Within hours, it became clear that there would be no unveiling, and, at least as far as Graham was concerned, no bill, either. Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats decided to remove the measure, on which Graham and others had worked for months, from the Senate schedule and replace it with some sort of unformed and so-far-unwritten measure on immigration “reform.”
Saturday afternoon, a clearly angry Graham decided to go public with his version of what happened, releasing an extraordinary open letter accusing Reid and other Democratic leaders of engaging in “phony” and “cynical” political maneuvering by dumping energy and climate in favor of immigration. Reid, of course, is in deep trouble in his re-election fight in Nevada, where about 26 percent of the population is Hispanic. President Obama hopes to increase Hispanic voting and fire up the Democratic base to avert potentially disastrous Democratic mid-term losses across the country. Pushing aside the energy and climate bill — which had at-best iffy prospects in the Senate, anyway — for “comprehensive” immigration reform might possibly save a few Democrats. Or at least Reid. Of course, at the moment there’s no bill and no real probability that one could pass, but some Democrats apparently believe even a losing fight could help them politically by motivating the base.
So Graham was out of luck.
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