Thread: Ensign's tactics on immigration get dissected

Today: July 07, 2007 at 7:7:3 PDT

Ensign's tactics on immigration get dissected

He's lining things up to bash Democrats in 2008, critics say
By Lisa Mascaro
Las Vegas Sun


WASHINGTON - Just before the Senate squashed immigration reform last week, Nevada Sen. John Ensign's office quickly arranged a conference call to announce his position on the legislation.

Ensign told a handful of reporters that he would vote against the reform because he was uncertain about the fate of an amendment he offered limiting Social Security payments to immigrants. The amendment would toughen the provision that bar naturalized citizens from receiving credit for the Social Security contributions they made while working in the United States as illegal immigrants.

Democratic leaders who control Senate procedures told Ensign the amendment would likely come up for a vote if the bill made it to the floor. But Ensign didn't trust those assurances, so he voted to stop the entire bill.

Supporters of the reform found his action excessive. After all, the legislation was laden with hundreds upon hundreds of laboriously crafted compromises. No senator could be said to support every element of the bill.

Critics began looking for other reasons for Ensign's vote - and they think they have found one. Ensign is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. His job is to help elect Republicans in 2008.

Forcing a vote on his amendment would give his party ammunition for the 2008 election, just as a vote on a similar Ensign amendment in 2006 ended up as fodder for Republican campaign commercials across the country.

That 2006 amendment failed, but Republicans used votes by Democrats to argue that they favored giving away benefits earned illegally.

Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration advocacy group, said Ensign was working "to put forward an amendment that would set up 30-second ads in '08. It's the kind of shameless politicking that makes Americans sick."

Ensign explained his vote the day the reform bill died. But since then, neither the senator nor his office have returned repeated calls and e-mails from the Sun for comment about the statements by skeptics.

All the larger complaints about the bill - such as the way it would put 12 million people who broke the law to come to the United States on the path to citizenship - were not Ensign's stated reasons for voting no. Yes, the bill already banned Social Security benefits earned illegally by immigrants. But Ensign wanted to make the law even tougher.

Ensign's proposal would have entailed a logistically difficult and emotionally taxing undertaking. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the immigration bill's chief architects, called it "the most cockamamie amendment, and I was just relishing the opportunity to debate it."

Ensign's amendment would have required the federal government to investigate all foreign-born retiree s now collecting Social Security to determine whether they had the legal right to work in this country at the time they paid into the system, opponents said.

The revision would require authorities to sift through decades worth of old work records, some not computerized, while senior citizens worried that their benefits could be halted.

Kennedy said the federal government would be prying into the work histories of every foreign worker in America - from statesman Henry Kissinger to Holocaust survivors to the foreign-born relatives of anti-immigration crusader Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola said Kennedy's comments were not true and were unfair.

Ensign's amendment would "ensure that people who will receive government benefits have earned them legally," Mazzola said.

Two days before the vote, however, Ensign apparently tried to swap out that amendment for an earlier, milder version.

It's unclear which version ultimately was included, but the result left Ensign fuming. He accused Kennedy's staff of rewriting his legislation, making it ineligible , and trying to barter for his vote.

Kennedy's office disputed doing any rewriting. Kennedy called Ensign's account "a pretty thin reed for him to rely on."

Immigration advocates , who were watching Ensign as one of the Republicans who might vote with them on the bill, regarded his departure as pure politics.

They saw a repeat of 2006. Last fall, candidates in at least 29 races , including the tough contest between Nevada Republican Rep. Jon Porter and Democrat Tessa Hafen , relied on the Social Security issue in ads, according to factcheck.org.

Jonathan Blazer, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center in Washington, said Ensign's motives in trying to toughen up the bill were clear.

"Unless you really think he is the cruelest man on Earth, the only explanation for him to insist on amendments was to have a vote," Blazer said.

The 2006 vote created such tremors that Ensign "wants to dare people to vote again" to grant benefits paid for by immigrants while living here illegally.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori ... 36980.html

That is why I am having a problem with those who voted against the bill. What was their reason.

Sounds like he's another Senator Windsock. Surprise, surprise.

Originally Posted by dyehard39

That is why I am having a problem with those who voted against the bill. What was their reason.

Well, speaking for myself ... I'd like to think that we scared the living hell out of them ....