VICTORY: Motion to Proceed with Defense Bill Defeated

A timely post from www.numbersusa.com about the Dream ACT. This follows this previous post about the Dream Act and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.


VICTORY: Motion to Proceed with Defense Bill Defeated
Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 2:54 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA

S.729/H.R.1751 A cloture motion to begin debate of the Defense Authorization bill (S.3454) was defeated in the Senate today, 43-to-56. Majority Leader Harry Reid planned to attach the Dream Act Amnesty to the bill as an amendment. The vote went along party lines with three Democrats voting against cloture, including Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) who is the lead sponsor of the SAVE Act.

In addition to Sen. Pryor, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is in a battle to retain her Senate seat this fall, also voted against the motion. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also voted against the motion, but his no vote was a procedural move that allowed him to offer a motion to send the bill back to committee.

Just before the vote, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered a motion that the Republicans would unanimously support the motion to proceed with the bill if Sen. Reid agreed to first allow at least 20 non-immigration, defense related amendments.

In response to McConnell's motion, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is the lead sponsor for the Dream Act Amnesty, gave a floor speech in which he said today's vote was a vote against the Dream Act. Sen. Reid promised to bring the Dream Act back to the floor for a vote in the future.

See the Senate website for the roll call.

Here's the text from Minority Leader McConnell's motion...

Mr. President, I've indicated to my friend, the Majority Leader, I was going to propound a consent agreement and I'll do that at this time. I ask consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of the Defense Authorization bill provided further that amendments be offered in an alternating fashion between this aisle and that, that the first 20 amendments offered be defense-related amendments within the jurisdiction of the armed services committee, with no amendment related to immigration in order during the first 20 amendments. And before the chair rules, this is an important bill that the senate should consider the way we have done it every year. There are many controversial issues related to the underlying bill that need to be debated and voted on by the Senate. Our view is that we should start work on this bill and tackle the relevant defense issues before we divert into unrelated matters.