It's been an interesting day to say the least. Before the vote was complete, Congressman Shadegg sent his detailed description of hypothetical catastrophies resulting from the Senate immigration bill posted on National Review Online. Shadegg continued to lead the charge against the bill from the House.
During the vote, Senator Kyl stuck to his guns all the way to the bitter end and supported the bill despite clear opposition presented through letters, faxes, emails, and phone calls by GOP activists from a variety of ideological perspectives. As issues go, this one was incredible in the way it united Republicans in Arizona. As solid as Senator Kyl has been—enjoying years of widespread support from his Republican base—he messed up this time and lost touch with the reality that he was supposed to be representing the state of Arizona in D.C., not representing D.C. to the state of Arizona. Whether or not he recognizes this, he seems to understand what now needs to be done. Here's an excerpt from the end of his post-vote letter today:
"Though the current legislation has been defeated, I’ll keep fighting for additional resources in upcoming appropriations bills for more Border Patrol agents, the construction of border fencing and other barriers, and improved technology along the border. I will urge the Bush administration to enforce those parts of the law that are enforceable in order to demonstrate to a skeptical public that our government is indeed committed to enforcing the law. I also intend to introduce legislation that will focus on enforcing immigration laws at the workplace and securing the border. Clearly, the American people want more enforcement before doing anything else."
Kyl completed his obligation to the President and his loyalty is shown to be without question. Now that it's over, he is showing his willingness to listen to his constituents.
Clearly, Shadegg gets it. Now, Kyl is responding to it.
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3 comments:
A little sidenote on the immigration debate, but did you hear about Hispanic News calling for a boycott of Food City & Bashas'?
Apparently the two grocery chains (both owned by Eddie Basha) are giving money to right-wing talk radio.
http://www.hispanic.cc/boycott_talk_radio_sponsors.htm
It's been a rough week for them, because earlier this week both Bashas' and Food City were accused of stocking a lot of expired baby formula.
http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=526635
The most ironic thing: Eddie Basha recently won an honorary degree from the U of A for (of all things) childhood nutrition!
http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/9/wa/MainStoryDetails?ArticleID=12664
Wow.
Fascinating. Even a longtime loyal Democrat gets hammered by a liberal special interest group for simply advertising his business on a station customers listen to.
I gave the same to the folks on Sonoran Alliance but it sounds like now that they have hung Jon Kyl out to dry, called him a traitor and the like, that they are back to loving him and making nice?
I think he has a helluva lot more power than Randy Pullen does. I bet Pullen is bending and kissing some tail this instant as the funds start to dry up for his party (yes...business and the chamber folks) and how they might start considering a donation or two to the folks like Raul Grijalva who don't wish to deport their labor.
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