Byron York posted an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday about the Democrats in Congress deciding to go forward with an Immigration Reform Bill rather than a Cap and Trade Bill.  I suspect this move will result in neither bill passing Congress.  The failure to pass these two bills may be the only hope the Democrats have of maintaining control of Congress after the November elections.

Lindsey Graham had crafted an energy bill with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman.  The bill was supposed to be unvieled today.  But things changed.  After the unveiling of the Arizona legislation, the Democrats felt they could use the ‘crisis’ (remember “never let a crisis go to waste”) for political advantage and pass immigration reform.  That would be an amazing reach–the last effort at immigration reform (2006 and 2007) took many hours of bi-partisan work and eventually failed.  To put together a workable immigration bill before the November elections (the theory is that new Hispanic citizens will vote Democrat) and pass it (assuming someone will have time to read it) would be an amazing feat.  Also, keep in mind that with so many Congressional incumbents being seriously challenged in the November election, Congress is going to want to get out of Washington and seriously campaign before too long.

The American people have said for a number of years that the first priority of an immigration bill should be to secure the boarders.  Until we do that, anything else is meaningless.  Serial amnesty is not a workable policy for the longterm security of our country.  I support what Arizona is doing and definitely understand their reasons for taking action to reduce the number of crimes being committed in that state by illegal aliens.