Brownback Votes For the Immigration Bill Before He Votes Against It
June 30, 2007 | Permalink
This is actually from Thursday, but we missed it. From MSNBC’s First Read:
GOP presidential hopeful Sam Brownback was very nervous for 11 minutes this morning. That’s the time that elapsed between his initial “Aye” vote for cloture on the Senate’s immigration bill today — essentially an expression of support for the Bush-backed overhaul — and a change to “Nay” before the vote was over.
Brownback likely recognized that a vote in favor of the bill, which is deeply unpopular among many Republicans who consider it “amnesty” for illegal immigrants, would not play well in the GOP presidential race or in a potential re-election bid in his native Kansas (he’s up in 2010). He’s supported the bill up until now, and voted to bring the measure to the Senate floor earlier in the week.
As the entry notes, Brownback then issued a press release from his Senate office that did not reference having changed his vote on cloture, nor specifically why this legislation was not the comprehensive reform that he is still calling for:
“We need comprehensive immigration reform, but the country is not accepting of this bill,” Brownback stated. “We need to listen to the American people on both timing and substance. We need to help ‘the widow and orphan and foreigner amongst us,’ but must do so in a way and at a time the American people support. This is not yet the right way. We should let the topic rest for now while we work diligently to secure our borders. Americans support legal immigration, not illegal immigration. We desire to be compassionate but demand adherence to the rule of law.”
Brownback has called for a comprehensive approach that secures the border, provides interior workplace enforcement, and a workable guest worker program.
“I became convinced along with many of my colleagues on the floor that this version of the immigration bill was not, and would not become the vehicle that would fix our broken system as I had hoped.”
Essentially, Brownback only cites a lack of popular support as a reason for the bill being flawed. I am not sure that this is the type of political leadership that will hold up if put to the test. For his own sake, I hope he has a better answer prepared for the campaign trail other than ‘the American poeple do not support the bill.’
[Photo Credit: Flickr user ... Sam Brownback]
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Now, how stupid was that??
The phones, faxes and emails pour in to the point of crashing systems and he still votes for a wrongheaded shamnesty…
Don’t even bother with a run for Prez, you won’t even make another term where you are.
It sounds like he does have a better answer than “the American people do not support the bill”. According to what you quote, he’s saying that the strong opposition has shown him that there are too many problems with how this bill does it, while he remains convinced that the general idea of this kind of reform is still worth pursuing.
And he realized those problems in the 11 minutes between votes?
Furthermore, he does not say what the ‘problems’ are and how they fit into his view on immigration.
We’ve had people saying for years how leadership is beyond poll numbers. If that’s the case, there needs to be further clarification on what the issues he disagrees with on the bill. Or if it is just about poll numbers, why that is the case.
I expect a more lengthy explanation than ‘problems’ when someone completely changes their position 11 minutes after affirming it.
Brownback voted FOR it, then after 15 minutes he saw by the vote count that there was no chance it was going to pass where he promptly changed his vote against it before it ended.
This fact makes his “answer” merely a smokescreen and we will not stand being lied to anymore.
Therefore, by his own actions, he has left us absolutely no choice. Replace him at his next primary with a republican who will actually represent us or allow Brownback and the others who voted for this to stay, where we send all of them a clear message that they maycompletely ignore us in voting as they damn well please. …No folks, this anarchy stops now!
[...] change in stances on agriculture; with Brownback voting multiple ways on the immigration bill, as I have noted, it seems this might backfire if Brownback is not [...]