Fourteen sitting Democratic senators voted to filibuster the last comprehensive immigration reform bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) brought to the floor in June of 2007. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, also voted against it.
Reid declared at an immigration rally in Las Vegas in April that he had 56 votes for comprehensive reform and needed just “a handful of Republicans.”
But it is not clear why any of the senators who voted to block the last bill would change their minds.
Opponents of comprehensive reform say it will be tougher for Democrats to vote for a similar bill because of the sluggish economy and high unemployment rate, which hit 9.5 percent in June. At the time of the last vote, the rate was 4.6 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Republicans accuse Democrats of blaming them for blocking the issue as a way of appealing to Hispanic voters before the fall elections. But they argue Democratic senators are as much of a problem for the president.
“That was the elephant in the room during the president’s speech yesterday, he’s squarely blaming Republicans for blocking comprehensive immigration reform but he doesn’t have his Democrats lined up,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at NumbersUSA, a non-partisan group that opposes putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.
Republicans also question whether Obama really wants to pass a comprehensive reform bill this year.
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