Before today's White House meeting on immigration, Politico had this piece:"Immigration 'debate' to begin, later", indicating the diminishing prospect of an immigration reform bill this year. Shortly after the meeting concluded and President Obama gave his presser, Politico then said "A start on immigration: Movement by early next year promised" .
Then there's this bit from the Chicago Tribune:
The meeting is happening, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) said Thursday morning at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, because "the votes aren't there."
Rahm's management rule: When you have the votes, you don't need a meeting.
And Nancy Pelosi chimed in and said the House is ready to vote on immigration if a Senate bill is passed.
Perhaps this AP article will help clear things up a bit, it quotes Senator Chuck Schumer as saying that Obama told the lawmakers that an overhaul bill had to happen by the end of this year or the early part of 2010.
But the same AP piece also contains some dire warning:
Several lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — said after the meeting that this year is the last chance to try again, perhaps for decades.
"We've got one more chance to do this," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "If we fail this time around, no politician is going to take this up in a generation."
My head is about to explode. Probably yours too. But hang on. Because the best analysis comes from the Oh Law Firm. I've followed their "Breaking News" section for quite a while now and consider them to be pretty insightful.
Disappointing news are all over in the media after the summit was over this afternoon. Reportedly, the President even brought up the target date of CIR this year or "early next year." The problem with this schedule is that everyone knows that year 2010 is the election year and history tells that the election years are the worst year to consider CIR. We reminded readers of this reporter's analysis on this issue during the last few days.
What are the "real" sources of problem? Current environment including the economic recession and terrible unemployment rate is inducing the political leaders to act "low key" for fear of being labelled as "alien" amnesty advocates. At the same time, they cannot afford losing the Hispanic constituency and they have been acting "pushed" by the politcal motives rather than "spearheading" the reform. For the reasons, CIR has lately turned into a soccer ball which every political leader wants to kick around to place blame of failure on someone other than himself or herself. News is abound now that the House leaders do not want to act unless the Senate moves and pass a bill first. Republican leaders claim that it is the President who should come forward with a specific bill and they will not act first without the President showing "real" leadership in the CIR. The White House is down playing the chance of CIR in 2009 advancing a theory that there are not enough number of supporters of CIR in the Congress, but advances a position that the legislators in the Congress must first come up with a bill. The Senate majority leader keeps spinning that the CIR is "do-able" in 2009, but is not willing to take it up until "fall" because of the two higher priorities in health care reform and energy reform. Politics abound.
When it comes to the blame for "inaction," every single of them should share a slice of the "sour" pie. Before they kick a soccer ball around to blame eveyone other than himself or herself, they should prove themself to the public and the system that they can "initiate" themselves by proposing and introducing CIR bill. Current problem is that no one wants to "initiate" any specific proposal or legislative bill! When it comes to the word "initiate," each of them points a finger at others. This reporter wants to ask the President whether he brought a proposal to the summit. This reporter wants to ask the legislative members of the summit whether each of them brought any proposal or a draft of a legislative bill. The details of the today's summit discussion has yet to be disclosed, but the indication is "probably not." Next week, we celerate the Fouth of July which will quickly move into the Congress' August summer recess. This year's CIR game shows a phenomena which is distinctively different from previous two or three years. In previous years, the legislators were eager to be prominent in CIR and active in initiating and introducing their CIR proposals and bills. Not this year!? Hmm..........................................................................................................................!
With that I conclude today's update on CIR.
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