Note: Looks like Rubio is reneging on the assurances he made on the Limbaugh and Mark Levin shows about this being an open process. Read this closely and see that Rubio's spokesperson said he expects only "several committee hearings" -- which would be absurd for a 1500-page bill.

***

Breitbart
By Mathew Boyle
8 April 2013

REPORT: 'GANG OF EIGHT' TO OPPOSE AMENDMENTS TO THEIR IMMIGRATION BILL


All the members of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” pushing immigration reform in the U.S. Senate will
band together to block any efforts by other senators to offer amendments to their legislation once it is
introduced, the Washington Post reported
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...352-9fb8-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html) on Sunday.

“A bipartisan Senate group on immigration legislation is attempting to craft an agreement
so secure that the eight members will oppose amendments to its core provisions, an
arrangement that could delay the introduction of a bill, people familiar with the
negotiations said,” the Post’s David Nakamura wrote.

In response to Nakamura’s article on Monday, Gang of Eight member Sen. Marco Rubio’s
spokesman Alex Conant told Breitbart News that his description of the process being
worked on is not correct. “The legislation that the eight senators are working on is only the
start of the process; we expect several committee hearings
, a full debate, and an open
process for other senators to offer amendments,” Conant said.

“It’s premature to speculate about what sort of amendments might be offered, but if another senator offers an amendment that improves the legislation consistent with the principles Senator Rubio has
outlined, then I would expect members of the group of eight to support it.”

But Rubio’s words are unlikely to do much to assuage the concerns of conservative
Republicans in Congress, especially as fellow Gang of Eight member New York Democratic
Sen. Chuck Schumer, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Pat Leahy, and other
Democrats appear poised (http://www.breitbart.com/BigGovernme...migration-deal) to rush whatever bill the bipartisan group comes up with through as fast as they can once the legislative text is presented.

Nakamura notes the bill is expected to be around 1,500 pages long, and that the Gang of
Eight “is trying to strike a deal in which all the members agree to oppose any amendments
to the core provisions, even if they might agree with the amendments
, people familiar with
the talks said.”

“The group is concerned that if one provision is amended, the entire bill will fall apart
because the deal is predicated on a comprehensive plan composed of carefully negotiated
pieces,” Nakamura wrote.

This apparent effort by Gang of Eight members to force a deal through with no
amendments and without a transparent process complete with public hearings examining
the different facets of a forthcoming bill has worried conservatives on the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
The committee’s ranking GOP member, Sen. Chuck Grassley, and his
colleagues Sens. Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee recently wrote to all the

Republicans in the Gang of Eight (http://www.breitbart.com/BigGovernme...rency-Has-Come) asking them to fight for a transparent process and hearings to examine each part of the coming bill, which still has not been written.

Sens. Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain have not backed the efforts for
transparency in this process. Rubio says he does back the efforts for a transparent process

(http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...er-one-hearing), and wrote back (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...starting-point) to those conservatives on the Senate Judiciary Committee to say that he
views the Gang of Eight’s forthcoming legislative text as nothing more than a “starting
point” from which other senators will be allowed to offer their input via amendments and
hearings and other processes. But Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
has only said he will “consider” having just one hearing.

(http://www.breitbart.com/BigGovernme...ing-inside-U-S) on the massive
legislative package, and would not commit to a transparent process.



http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-no-amendments