Our Nation would be better served if we refrained from divisiveness to score political and emotional points before an election. Moreover. yesterday the Presidents activities demonstrated how the Republican leaderships misplaced priorities and politics have diverted the Senate from matters that concern and affect the American people. By way of contrast. the Democratic leader went to the Senate floor to urge that we proceed to conference on the recently passed immigration bill. Senate Republicans objected to a usual practice of taking of a Housepassed bill and inserting the language passed by the Senate so that we can proceed to a HouseSenate conference. Instead of spending time pandering to a segment of Republicans political base. the President could have worked with us to make progress on our bipartisan immigration initiative. Republicans and Democrats have said that we will need the Presidents help to make comprehensive immigration reform a reality. Yesterday the President was AWOL on the issue. He was not expending his efforts urging comprehensive immigration reform on the recalcitrant Republican House leadership or helping us in the Senate overcome threats of procedural objections to proceeding to conference. Another consequence of the Republican leaderships misplaced priorities is that the Judiciary Committee has yet to complete hearings on reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. This is bipartisan. bicameral legislation on which I had hoped hearings would be complete. The final hearing on the reauthorization of important minority language provisions was scheduled for tomorrow. It has been postponed. and the excuse is that the Senate debate on this proposed constitutional amendment takes precedence. So our efforts to enact meaningful. comprehensive immigration reform with strong border security and a path to earned citizenship and our efforts to reauthorize the protections of the Voting Rights Act have both been adversely affected as a consequence of the Republican leadership insisting on proceeding to this extended debate. The demagoguery in the Presidents rally this week and the Statement of Administration Policy are sad to see. It is not the institution of marriage that is under attack but the Constitution and our system of federalism.
Keywords matched
border security immigration