What a day for Immigration!! Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) held a vote on a motion to invoke cloture early today. A vote on cloture requires approval of 3/5 of the Senate, or 60 votes. The vote to invoke cloture on the underlying bill passed, 64-35. As a result, the Senate will resume consideration this week of amendments to the CIR bill, S. 1639. If the Bill will pass, I will be analyzing it in a special edition of our newsletter as well as on the Blog for the benefit of our readers and the press.
AILA reports the following: Following a brief break, Senator Reid asked that time limits be set on each of the amendments that will be introduced and voted on prior to a final vote on the bill later this week. These requests were objected to, so Senator Reid instead introduced a “clay pigeon” amendment: a negotiated package of 27 amendments filed as a single amendment that eventually will be broken into pieces for debate and votes.
Senator Reid then asked that the reading of the amendments on the Senate floor be set aside so that debate could begin. Initially, this was not agreed to by members of the minority party – part of a strategy to stall debate and prevent the bill from moving forward, according to Senator Reid. Eventually, however, the reading was dispensed with, and as a result, debate on amendments will begin in earnest Wednesday morning at 10:00 a.m.