What About the House?
All eyes are on the immigration bill that may be working its way through the Senate, but what about the House? It is not clear that any comprehensive immigration reform proposal can clear that body.
Yesterday, Peter Hoekstra introduced a resolution before the House Republican caucus which simply said, “resolved the House GOP Conference disapproves of the Senate immigration bill." If I understand this report in The Hill correctly, a motion to table the resolution was voted down by "about 114-23." Obviously, that leaves a lot of Congressmen unaccounted for.
To defeat comprehensive reform in the House, of course, some Democrats will have to oppose it. But I would guess that quite a few will. All Representatives, unlike Senators, have to run again in 2008.
I like this statement by Mark Souder of Indiana:
That’s why the fundamental bill has no credibility, and basically what we are saying today is it is dead on arrival in the House, we can’t have secret deals, this has to go through committee, it has to go in pieces. A comprehensive bill will not pass the House.
That's exactly what I think should happen.
