DREAM Act turning into nightmare for Reid

posted at 11:36 am on December 6, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Normally when a political leader announces a big effort to push a bill through Congress, the requisite support has already been found or is close enough to it for a public-relations push. To fail after such an announcement makes the political leader look impotent, an outcome that when repeated enough usually results in a leadership change. Perhaps Harry Reid should start looking over his shoulder, because the push for the DREAM Act looks ready to go down to a massive and embarrassing defeat:

The DREAM Act — a priority of Democrats in both Congress and the White House — faces a difficult future in the lame duck.
Even as Democrats in both chambers prepare to consider the measure this week, Republicans and centrist Democrats are already lining up to shoot it down.

Instead of going with earlier and less expansive versions of the bill, Reid has floated five different versions in the lame duck, all of which involve granting amnesty and legal residency status. That is a no-go area even for sympathetic Republicans like Orrin Hatch and Kay Bailey Hutchison, who will both face challenges in the next election cycle from Tea Party activists anyway. They’re certainly not going to back these versions of the bill in a lame-duck session while Reid ignores the upcoming tax hikes and keeps punting on the FY2011 budget, not even Hatch, who co-sponsored an original version of the bill nine years ago.

But recalcitrant Republicans are hardly his biggest problem:

[i]A number of centrist Democrats are also promising to fight the proposal. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) voted against the measure three years ago and “is inclined to oppose the bill again,â€