Senate Blocks DREAM Act
Politico reports:
The weeks of rallies, hunger strikes and sit-ins and the thousands of phone calls placed to Senate offices didn’t pay off for immigration activists.
The decade-old DREAM Act once again failed to break a filibuster in the Senate on Saturday morning, effectively killing the bill this year and shutting the door on what perhaps was the last chance for pro-immigration reform legislation until at least the 2012 election.
Senate Democrats came up five votes short of the 60 needed to advance the House-passed bill, which would provide a path to citizenship for up to illegal immigrants brought to the country as children if they attend college or join the military for two years. The vote was a mostly party-line 55-41 vote, though a handful of Democrats — perhaps fearful of their 2012 election outlook — also voted against the DREAM Act.
This latest vote really didn't ever have a chance in the current political climate, which has moved decidedly against liberalizing immigration laws in recent years.
The DREAM Act’s defeat was a resounding victory for conservatives who have denounced the bill as a mass amnesty plan, and a blow for top Senate Democrats and the Obama administration who enlisted a half dozen cabinet secretaries to lobby undecided lawmakers and embark on a media blitz highlighting that the bill would send more people to college, boost military recruitment and help the economy.
Click here to read more.
