True North

Wednesday morning is when the DREAM Act is being brought to the floor, potentially with the final votes being before noon. However, if you haven’t made your calls, or even if you have, it’s not too late. Pick up your phone, senators need to hear from you ASAP.

Senator Coleman - 202-224-5641
Senator Klobuchar - 202-224-3244

If you’ve never made a call or aren’t sure what to say, I’ll spell it out for you.

Hi, my name is xxxxxxx yyyyyyy, and I live in Minnesota. I’m calling about bill S. 2205, the DREAM Act, and I would like to ask the Senator Coleman/Klobuchar to please vote against cloture on this bill of amnesty. Thank you.

It’s really that simple. Depending on the Senator’s office and/or the staffer, they may ask your city or zip code or may just say thank you.

Now if you want to say more you can, but BE POLITE! Passions run wild and emotions get high. You may think the Senator would be a perfect outlet for those statements, but remember, you’re talking to a staffer who has already talked to hundreds of people like you.

Now….about the upcoming vote.

What sources I have, combined with what other parts of the blogosphere are reporting, are all conflicting with each other. But it sounds like leaders of both the pro-amnesty and anti-amnesty groups aren’t sure they have the necessary votes. Which to me sounds like it could go either way.

On the plus side, Republican leadership has publicly come out against this bill and are actively working behind the scenes to get the votes they need to defeat it. It’s nice to finally have them on our side for once. Hopefully that’s enough to draw any fence-sitting Republicans into the “no” category.

To defeat the cloture votes we only need 40 votes, and depending on who you talk to we have anywhere from 20 to almost 30 confirmed. Although, I figure we have about 2/3rds the votes necessary, which is a start but we need more.

On the downside, there are an unbelieveable number of Senators who won’t commit either way. And both of Minnesota’s Senators fall in that category. If in either of their re-election campaigns they ever refer to their “principles”, please try to keep your snickering to a minimum.

However, make your calls….they do make a difference. Hawkins has been talking to a few of the Senate aides he knows, and they appear to indicate that many Senators are still smarting from the flogging they got from the public after the last amnesty attempt. Make sure they realize nothing has changed.

Predictions?? Well I expect a repeat of the comprehensive amnesty vote, even though though it could go either way. You’ll see alot of obvious votes get cast, but most of the spineless Senators will sit back and wait to see what way the chips are falling before casting their vote.

As far as which way those chips will fall…..well I do have my prediction. But I’m hesitant to disclose it for fear of either discouraging or causing complacency with even one person who otherwise might call their Senator. So I’ll leave my predictions on this side of the keyboard, where only my live studio audience can hear (don’t you wish you had tickets?!).

[For continuous coverage of more about immigration than you really care to read, read my other posts at EckerNet.Com. And you can leave comments/feedback here.]