Vote for cloture is a vote for Amnesty

Immigration: The fact there is some suspicious arm-twisting going on by the White House and Senators like Kit Bond of Missouri and Richard Burr who will vote for the first cloture just so his amendment will be considered. Bond is either an idiot or one of those who think he can fool people by voting for cloture and against the bill which is guaranteed to pass if it gets thru the cloture votes.

Cloture Buy-Offs [Rich Lowry] One method supporters of the bill are apparently using to good effect is to promise senators votes on their amendments to get them to vote for cloture. This is working even when it is amendments that have no chance of passing. For instance, Sen. Bond's office tells me that he is going to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed. He will then offer an amendment that has made the approved list to strip out the path of citizenship in the bill (meaning no green cards). This will inevitably fail. In which case, Bond will vote against cloture the second time and against final passage. This dynamic means opponents of the bill might pick up a vote or two on the second cloture vote, but Bond will still have done his bit to advance the underlying bill through his first cloture vote. He should just vote "no" tomorrow.

GOP is truly the stupid party.

More at Hot Air.

Update# This is why those amendments are a farce.

But Munoz and members of other immigrant rights groups said they will still support the bill's passage, while pressing for changes in the House or in eventual House-Senate negotiations. "If this was the final bill, if this was going straight from the Senate floor to the Rose Garden signing ceremony, there would be full-throated opposition, but it's not. We still have another chamber to go through," said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, which supports the bill. And aides involved in the change said making legalization dependent on a return home could dampen charges that the bill is "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, adding that without it, the bill may never get to the House.

It is a rigged game and the Amnesty supporters know it.


Just to point out the worse part of the Amnesty bill.

Under the current legislation, virtually all of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants would be granted provisional legal status immediately, provided that within 18 months they pay a fine, cover processing fees and submit to a criminal background check to get a new five-year "Z Visa." If they wanted legal permanent residence, heads of illegal-immigrant households would have to return to their home countries to apply for a green card. Kyl, Graham and Martinez had already put together an amendment to secure $4.4 billion for border enforcement, create a tracking system to keep tabs on guest workers and permanently bar workers who overstay their visas from returning. Those measures would augment provisions already in the bill to tighten border security and clamp down on employers of illegal immigrants. Yesterday, the three senators added a provision that would force illegal immigrants to return to their home countries to apply for Z Visas, not just their green cards. With the architects of the bill behind it, supporters predicted that the amendment would pass easily.

This amendment may "pass" but will be quickly discard.