Monday, December 13, 2010

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Monday 13DEC2010 Noon EST
House-Passed Amnesty Could Hit
Senate For Vote As Early As Wednesday

IF WE LOSE THIS ONE, 10 YEARS OF BEATING
EVERY AMNESTY WILL BE NULLIFIED


My gut feeling is still that we ought to be able to defeat the House-passed Dream Act amnesty when it comes up for a vote in the Senate later this week.

But . . .

Do you really want to rely on my gut?

PHONE THESE UNDECLARED SENATORS
WHO COULD KILL AMNESTY ONCE AND FOR ALL


If you can move at least two of these Senators into NO votes, I don't think there would be any chance of the amnesty passing.

The staffers of a couple of these have been telling our members that their Senator plans to vote NO. But the fact that those Senators have not publicly stated their opposition or shared that in any way with reporters is not a cause for great confidence. So, all of these need all the phone calls they can get. (See "Talking Points" below.)

Use the Capitol Switchboard:

202-224-3121

ALASKA
Sen. Murkowski (R)

LOUISIANA
Sen. Landrieu (D)

MISSOURI
Sen. McCaskill (D)

MONTANA
Sen. Baucus (D)

NORTH DAKOTA
Sen. Conrad (D)

WEST VIRGINIA
Sen. Manchin (D)

Note that most of these states are small-population states. We need a lot more phone calls going to those offices. If you live in those states, or in the same region, or have any other connection to those states, please make the calls. The other side is absolutely flooding their offices with phone calls making the most emotional appeals possible.

PHONE THESE SENATORS WHO NEED
ENCOURAGEMENT TO STICK WITH 'NO'


These Senators would have voted NO last Thursday if Senate Majority Leader Reid had not successfully moved to table the amnesty until he could find some more YES votes.

But there is so much horse trading going on right now with the tax deal, with the funding for the entire federal government still up in the air, with the START Treaty and any number of other issues that have to be resolved before Senators head home.

THESE SENATORS NEED TO HEAR WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT.

Thank them for their publicized promise to vote NO on the amnesty and then remind the staffers why NO is the right vote.

Our Hill Team asks that, if you have a Republican Senator (other than Lugar of Indiana or Bennett of Utah), phone him/her and encourage them to stick with their promise of NO.

But these Senators need the most encouragement because of the special politics of their own states and other vulnerabilities they may have to pressure from the open-borders folks.

ARKANSAS
Sen. Pryor (D)

FLORIDA
Sen. LeMieux (R)

MAINE
Sen. Collins (R)
Sen. Snowe (R)

MASSACHUSETTS
Sen. Brown (R)

NEBRASKA
Sen. Nelson (D)

NORTH CAROLINA
Sen. Hagan (D)

PLEASE DON'T FORGET THAT YOU ARE THANKING THESE SENATORS. They have announced they will vote NO. You are just calling them to let them know that their NO vote will be a popular one.

TURN THESE TWO SENATORS

For some reason, these two Senators who should be NO votes or, at the least, Undeclared were among the few who signed the cloture motion to start debate on the DREAM amnesty.

I feel that both could eventually vote NO on a final cloture vote that would END debate. But for some reason they seem to support STARTING the debate. Let's keep the pressure on them to kill this amnesty with the first cloture vote and not let the debate start in the first place.

MICHIGAN
Sen. Stabenow (D)

NORTH DAKOTA
Sen. Dorgan (D)

TALKING POINTS

I feel like most of the Senators are ignoring the main reasons the DREAM amnesty should not go any farther in this Lame Duck session:
  • It is a massive amnesty to deal with the symptoms of past out-of-control illegal immigration without a single provision to reduce future illegal immigration.

  • It creates millions more legal workers to compete with the 22 million Americans who want a full-time job but can't find one. And it does nothing to turn off the jobs magnet for future illegal workers.
Don't forget that the Senators you are calling are basically sympathetic to the young illegal-alien adults who were brought here by their parents.

I don't think speaking against the potential amnesty recipients will be helpful in those offices.

Instead, emphasize the points above and how continued illegal immigration harms American victims.

The DREAM Act amnesty is
(a) full of loopholes
(b) wildly susceptible to fraud
(c) does nothing to end the job magnet that allowed the parents to put these "kids" into their position in the first place.

WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN THIS WEEK

Let me first state what is at stake if we let up and the other side peels off just enough Senators to pass the House-passed amnesty.

How will we feel if we don't put our full effort into lobbying Senators this week and then the amnesty narrowly passes just before everybody goes home for the year? Any amnesty that passes the Senate this week will be signed into law. And even though there is no chance an amnesty could pass next year, there also is no chance that an amnesty passed this week could be overturned by next year's Congress (because of the President's certain veto of an overturning).

The mainstream media for the most part are treating the amnesty as something unlikely to be brought back up for a vote in the Senate, primarily because the legislative calendar is so crowded.

But nearly every group on the pro-amnesty side and on the anti-amnesty side believes that Sen. Reid will live up to his promise to hold the vote.

We don't see Reid bringing up DREAM before the tax deal is settled because the only way to add Republicans as YES votes is to get tax deal done first.

The Senate cloture vote to start debate on the tax deal is scheduled for 3 p.m. today (Monday). Perhaps the tax deal could be settled by Wednesday.

Reid has not yet filed cloture on DREAM. There can be no vote on DREAM until two calendar days after cloture has been filed. If he filed today, the vote could be as early as Wednesday.

I KNOW YOU ARE TIRED OF PHONING, PHONING, PHONING.

SO, THANKS SO MUCH FOR PICKING UP THAT PHONE ONCE AGAIN,

Roy Beck's signature


Roy Beck, President NumbersUSA

No comments: