The Box Turtle rides: Cornyn tries to obstruct Immigration Reform again.
by digby
So Jon Cornyn is at it again, coming in at the last minute to pull an immigration bill so far to the right that it ends up being punitive. He basically wants to make the border security requirements so onerous that they are impossible to achieve. Immigration reform in name only.
This press release gives an excellent background briefing on Cornyn and his tactics that I wish reporters would read and understand as they report this out:
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice: “This is classic Cornyn. We know the pattern all too well. He pretends to be sincere about the need for reform. He asks for changes that are a bridge too far. He destabilizes the bipartisan agreement already in place. He helps to thwart reform. He votes no in the end anyway. That’s why we bestowed a lifetime achievement award for being the‘Biggest Hypocrite on Immigration.’”
Despite Senator Cornyn’s rhetoric and supposed rationale, the border and interior enforcement provisions already in the Senate’s immigration bill amount to the largest enforcement increase in American history. As Senator Cornyn’s home-state Houston Chronicle captures in an editorial today, “The fact is, the federal government has largely met border-security benchmarks laid out in the three immigration-reform bills introduced in the Senate since 2006…implacable opponents of reform will continually move the metrics. It's a strategy to sabotage an effort that enjoys bipartisan support in Congress and popular support around the country.”
Added Sharry, “While calling himself an immigration reformer, Senator Cornyn has always found a way to ‘get to no’ on immigration. Back in the McCain-Kennedy days, Senator Cornyn made beautiful speeches about the need for reform. Then he worked with Jon Kyl to propose a bill aimed at undermining support for McCain-Kennedy. When the bill moved to the Senate floor in 2006, he proposed poison pill amendments and then, despite the fact that 23 Republicans voted for it, he voted against it. In 2007, after winning approval for a poison pill amendment that undermined support for the bill and began the demise of the effort, he again voted no. To add insult to injury, only moments after he helped defeat reform, Senator Cornyn took to the Senate floor and gave a speech about the need to pass immigration reform. In 2010, he voted against the DREAM Act, blocking the bill from the 60 votes needed to end a Republican filibuster and dashing the DREAMs of millions of young people. And we are supposed to believe that this time he’ll get to yes? We’re not buying it for a moment.
“The bottom line is that bill currently before the Senate has found the sweet spot: it combines the achievable path to citizenship that Democrats need with the largest increase in immigration enforcement in American history that the Republicans say they need. Messing with this balance threatens the whole project. Cornyn knows this. His colleagues should, too.”
He's got a job to do and it's to obstruct reform. Whether it's by tying the bill up in knots before it even gets to a vote or making reform impossible in case it happens to pass, his goal is clear.
And guess what? The Great GOP Hispanic Hope who's allegedly been the moral conscience of the Senate on this issue is giving his tacit support. (Nobody knows whether he really means it --- virtually everyone except for Breitbart assumes he's bluffing. It's an odd gambit.)
So we are still in limbo. If Reid can get a bill that looks even slightly bipartisan, Boehner may (emphasis on may) be able to get this to the floor and let Democrats carry his water on the this bill. Smart members of the GOP know they need CIR if they plan to have a national party in the future. But if Cornyn has his way, it's not a reform bill, it's a recipe for nothing ever happening. Let's hope Reid can get around the roadblock this time --- and that Boehner can convince his caucus to let this bill come to the floor. Most of all let's hope Democrats aren't stupid enough to take the bait and vote for Cornyn's atrocity and take the blame for the failure of Immigration reform in practice. It's a high wire act at this point.
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