New York Times
WASHINGTON, May 21 — A comprehensive immigration (AMNESTY) bill cleared its first hurdle this afternoon as the Senate voted to start work on the legislation, which would offer legal status to most of the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants.
The vote to invoke cloture, meaning to move to consideration of the bill itself, carried by 69 to 23. Sixty “yes” votes were required. Nearly a score of Republicans voted “yes,” while just a few Democrats voted “no.”
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Among the leading opponents of the bill are three Republican senators: Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Jim Bunning of Kentucky and David Vitter of Louisiana.
Mr. Vitter said the bill offered a “pure, unadulterated amnesty” to illegal immigrants. “If the American people knew what was in this bill,” he said, “there would be a massive outcry against it.”
Mr. Bunning said the bill would “reward lawbreakers” with “a large-scale get-out-of-jail-free pass.”
Mr. Sessions said the measure had been written in secret, with no hearings or review by the Senate Judiciary Committee and no cost estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.
“The American people were not in those meetings,” Mr. Sessions said. “There are 85 senators who have no idea what’s in the bill. All we have seen is a bill written on a computer by somebody who works for the executive branch.”
Posted by tyne at May 22, 2007