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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Chambliss faces tough choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a single vote could be career terminal.
On this day, he’s a shoo-in for re-election next year. If he votes for passage of an immigration bill that’s likely to resurface, he’s instantly vulnerable.
Chambliss knows the stakes. “I’ve never seen anything strike the emotions of people like this,” he said. “But you can’t make decisions by putting a finger to the wind. Richard Russell went through some difficult issues. Sam Nunn did, too. And [Paul] Coverdell.”
Russell, whose oversized monument towers over the grounds of the state Capitol, certainly faced decisions that put him at odds with some voters. Civil rights or his 1936 defense of the New Deal in defeating a first-term challenge from Gov. Eugene Talmadge are two examples. Nunn’s 1978 vote on the Panama Canal treaty, coming just before his first re-election campaign, was risky, though not to the extent it appeared when the Senate voted in the spring. Coverdell had the 1999 impeachment vote but never got seriously crosswise with his base.
“The status quo is not acceptable and I don’t see this as an option,” Chambliss said, citing what he believes to be a narrow opening to get secure borders and a workable temporary workers program. “If we don’t get it done now, I don’t see that we get it done” for the remainder of the Bush presidency. After that, it could be worse, he said, with Democrats possibly controlling the White House and Congress.
It’s iffy whether the Senate is capable of producing a bill. “If we can pass a bill to secure the borders without doing something stupid, it has a chance,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said in a separate interview Thursday. “It’s complicated, and I completely respect the concerns people have and I completely understand the complexity” of the issue. “This is not a two-plus-two proposition. It’s algebra.”
The problem, he and Chambliss well understand, is this, as voiced by Isakson: “There’s a credibility gap with both the Congress and the White House. For 21 years the government didn’t do anything to secure the borders. They promised it, but the [1986 amnesty] bill didn’t require it.”
Ultimately it does come down to trust. Phrases dropped into the mix, like John McCain’s from Tuesday night’s CNN debate that “we’re not going to erect barriers and fences” don’t help.
An analysis by former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese in The Wall Street Journal noted that while the bill requires the secretary of Homeland Security to demonstrate “operational control of 100 percent of the international land border between the United States and Mexico” before other provisions that are being called amnesty kick in, “the bill contains no definition … and carries no definable, measurable performance standard,” he wrote. Provisions for fencing, beefing up the border patrol and for detention bed spaces “fail to go beyond what Congress has already accomplished in existing statutes,” he said.
Like most Americans, I am conflicted. Border security is the first priority. Developing an employer verification system that requires immigrants, but not U.S. citizens, to produce biometric identification cards is a must, too. Establishing a route to citizenship that doesn’t favor illegals over those who respected our rule of law is essential, and arguably a part of this bill. But the probationary Z-visa effectively establishes a right for most of the 12 million to be here, thereby pushing them to the head of the line.
Troubling, too, is the temporary worker class. Everybody here legally who respects our laws and shares the country’s ideals should have the citizenship option — and not as a 20-year process, either. People who pick my peas can sit at my table as equals. And if they share my allegiance to this country, I welcome them as next-door neighbors.
This is an emotional issue. The GOP’s conservative base wants border security without amnesty. If they’re not convinced this bill is that, they’ll be a surly lot still when the 2008 election rolls around.
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