Senate sidelines immigration bill

WASHINGTON – A tenuous compromise to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws collapsed Thursday night when senators from both parties refused to cut off debate and move to a final vote, handing the unlikely alliance of Democratic leaders and President Bush a setback on a major domestic priority.

The defeat came after months of tedious negotiations and weeks of debate when a 45-50 procedural vote fell well short of the 60 needed to break the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., then pulled the bill from the floor, while holding out hope that the Senate could resurrect the measure within weeks.

“I have every desire to complete this legislation. We all have to work, the president included, to get this legislation done,” Reid said after 9 p.m., while cataloging a long list of futile efforts at compromise. “This bill is something that the country needs.”

But he was also quick to place responsibility for the defeat on Bush, who had made passage of the measure a top legislative goal. “The headlines are going to be, the president fails again,” Reid said. “It’s his bill.”

With Bush out of the country this week, he left the lobbying on the bill to key aides, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. They watched from Vice President Dick Cheney’s ceremonial office just off the Senate chamber Thursday night as the president’s top priority stalled.

Thirty-seven Democrats, seven Republicans and independent Joseph Lieberman voted to break the filibuster. Thirty-eight Republicans, 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders voted against it. Maryland’s two Democratic senators voted yes. Virginia’s Republican senator, John Warner, and its Democratic senator, Jim Webb, voted no.

The measure coupled tighter border security and a crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants with new avenues for illegal immigrants to stay and work legally. But the bipartisan compromise, dubbed the “grand bargain” by its negotiators, suffered a fatal blow just after midnight Thursday when the Senate voted to end a new guest worker program after five years.

That measure was backed by most Democrats, who, along with their trade union allies, worried that the guest worker program would depress wages and displace American jobs.

But four Republicans who had opposed the same amendment two weeks ago were pivotal, changing their positions to secure the amendment’s passage by a single vote, a move they knew would jeopardize a bill they had turned firmly against.

“I’ve been trying to kill it since the beginning,” said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.

“My preference is to stop it and start again,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., another vote switcher.

Democratic and Republican negotiators scrambled for the rest of the day to salvage the legislation, drafting lists of amendments to consider that would satisfy conservative opponents of the deal and trying to find a way to undo the guest-worker vote. But each time Reid presented an offer, DeMint and his allies rebuffed it. Their intransigence angered leaders from both parties.

“I’ve about had it,” said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. “I will not be a part of a protracted filibuster. We are not going to let this bill die by endless amendments.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made a last-ditch offer to try to persuade GOP conservatives to whittle down their expansive list of amendments if Reid put off the procedure vote, but Reid declined. McConnell, Lott, and even Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the bill’s chief GOP architect, voted to sustain the filibuster – a measure of Republican frustration with what they saw as heavy-handed Democratic efforts to deprive Republicans of a chance for votes on the floor.

But in the end, the passions that swept the country after the deal was unveiled last month, especially among conservatives, proved to hard to resist.

Democrats and their allies were never enamored with the deal either, and the legislation had actually grown more conservative before its defeat. The Senate adopted Republican amendments that would force illegal immigrants to publicly disclose information on their legalization applications that originally were to be kept confidential. Newly legalized undocumented workers would not be eligible for the earned income tax credit. They could not receive Social Security benefits they had earned while working illegally. Under one amendment, English could become the national language, nullifying most rights to government documents in other tongues.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to support this bill,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

The defeat was especially stinging for Bush, for whom the bill may be the last, best chance for a significant domestic achievement for his second term. Democrats all but taunted the president for failing to deliver Republican votes.

“If the president has any clout at all within his own Senate Republican delegation, shouldn’t he be able to deliver them?” asked Reid.

But Republican senators and GOP aides were not so sure he could have helped, given his declining popularity and the storm he stirred in his criticism of conservative critics of the deal.