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Opening Arguments

Ignored, not broken

The immigration bill is dead, at least for now, and who would have thought it would be Bayh rather than Lugar who took the more conservative course?

Republican Sen. Richard Lugar voted for an unsuccessful effort to move the overhaul of immigration laws toward final passage while Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh voted with the majority against it.

Bayh said he was concerned that the bill wasn't tough enough on making sure illegal immigration was controlled before setting up a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.

Lugar's spokesman said the senator's votes "have attempted to be constructive in this process as he agrees with the president that the status quo is not acceptable and we must find a realistic solution to illegal immigrants living in this country." 

If a solution is just going to make a problem worse, the better course is to do nothing. Suppose there is any chance officials will now start enforcing current immigration law instead of ignoring it and calling it "broken"?

Comments

tim zank
Fri, 06/29/2007 - 10:36am

Lugar has no aspirations to run for President, hence his vote for the bill. Conversely, Bayh would love nothing more than to run for Prez someday, or accept a VP spot, hence his brief "I'm with the people" on his vote. Just blatant pandering from Bayh, nothing more.

Barry Wiggins
Fri, 06/29/2007 - 2:44pm

Blatant pandering or not, Bayh's vote was in the interests of the people of the United States. He should be lauded from here to Evansville for it. (Hell, he should be lauded from here to the Rio Grande!) Lugar's vote was just another betrayal of his constituents in favor of the interests of Big Business and Big Agriculture, who line his pockets with $$$$. And this guy's so popular the Dems didn't even run against him last year? I don't get it.

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