is the second dishonorable mention list of the Senate No Amnesty Scorecard. It is the fifth in a series of posts highlighting and lowlighting the relative merits or lack of same with regard to the United States Senate on the subject of illegal immigration and national security. Beyond those two critical issues the Senate as well as the House has shown limited leadership on many issues facing this nation. This series of posts focuses on amnesty based on its inherent significance and the idea the battle over several years within Congress on this issue uncovers more about the Senate than simply their individual stands on one issue. More on that later and before the latest list is presented a brief overview of the amnesty bills, the votes that generated these lists and how it applies.

There were two bills for amnesty in the Senate this month. The first was S.1348, the famous back room deal between the Bush White House and primarily Senators Kyl, Kennedy, McCain and Reid. President Bush and these Senators as well as many others are in favor of amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The bill they offered reflected that desire. The desire to abandon the rule of law and increase the risk to the United States with reckless legislation for political gain. S.1639 replaced the previous amnesty bill as the Senate ‘leadership’ continued to ignore the public outcry.

The bottom line on Senate action collectively was two cloture votes for each bill. The first was for considering the bill and debating and the 2nd was for ending debate and voting on passage. The clotures to consider each passed followed by cloture votes on passage that failed. The winning Senators voted no on all cloture votes expressing the view that the amnesty bills were entirely flawed and no debate, amendment or other consideration would resolve that fact. The other lists in sequence displayed risk takers who voted to consider each but then wisely voted to kill each bill. That was followed by the first dishonorable mention of Senators favoring one amnesty bill over the other indicated by vote grouping a yes vote on both clotures on one bill or the other.

Now we have the Sellouts. Go figure, all Dems and one pseudo-Independent known as Joe Lieberman. They voted yes on all four cloture votes indicating their desire to pass either bill as long as they provided amnesty for all illegal aliens. It shows the prevailing philosophy of the Democratic party as not even one RINO shows up on this list by cloture voting record. As indicated by Sean Hannity in his on air conversation with Voinovich from Ohio, the bills were so new no one had read them completely. Even Voinovich admitted he had only read summaries. Not unlike the vote to authorize the use of US armed forces in Iraq. They did not even read the information before voting. So here’s the list.

(D-HI) Akaka
(D-WA) Cantwell
(D-MD) Cardin
(D-DE) Carper
(D-PA) Casey
(D-IL) Durbin
(D-WI) Feingold
(D-CA) Feinstein
(D-HI) Inouye
(D-MA) Kennedy
(D-MN) Klobuchar
(D-WI) Kohl
(D-NJ) Lautenberg
(D-VT) Leahy
(D-MI) Levin
(ID-CT) Lieberman
(D-AR) Lincoln
(D-NJ) Menendez
(D-MD) Mikulski
(D-WA) Murray
(D-RI) Reed
(D-CO) Salazar
(D-NY) Schumer
(D-RI) Whitehouse
(D-OR) Wyden

The final list of the worst sellouts will be posted later and a summary of two lists with Senators that should be removed as well as ones that should stay. It will be a bipartisan list.

Stanford Matthews
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