The Daily Background

The House is stalling the reconcillation process between their bill and the Senate’s one on immigration. Front Page of the Post today:

In a move that could bury President Bush’s high-profile effort to overhaul immigration law until after the midterm elections, House GOP leaders yesterday announced a series of field hearings during the August recess, pushing off final negotiations on a bill until fall at the earliest.

The announcement was the clearest sign yet that House Republicans have largely given up on passing a broad rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws this year. They believe that their get-tough approach — including building a wall along the border with Mexico and deporting millions of illegal immigrants — is far more popular with voters than the approach backed by Bush and the Senate, which would create a guest-worker program and allow many illegal immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship.

The idea is that if they don’t negociate with the Senate before the midterms, they’ll be seen as strong, and unyeilding, and so on. Good luck with that, assholes.

“I’m not putting any timeline on this thing, but I think we need this thing done right,” Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said after a House leadership strategy session.

What’s that? The esteemed Mr Hastert took time out of his busy real estate schedule to comment on the matter? That means it must be important. What did he say? No timeline? I think the esteemed House Speaker has confused immigration with Iraq. It’s okay. We’ll let you get back to your main job as a realtor, Mr Hastert. Don’t you worry about passing legislation this year.

Filed under: Immigration, Z-TDB Blog