Quote Of The Day: Cloture Edition

The "Grand Compromise" crowd didn't want a lot of these amendments to be voted on because either some of the amendments would have been accepted and it would have killed the bill or alternately, they would have had to vote against common sense enforcement measures and made themselves look bad.
-- John Hawkins

Hawkins' Right Wing News has a short but illuminating back-room account of what happened to the immigration bill. The salient point is above -- Senators didn't want to have to vote in public against measures they killed in private.

Of note in the piece: Hawkins' source, a GOP Senate aide, said his Sen was swamped with constituent communications that were running 95 to 98 percent against the bill. Gosh. We really do count for something.

Also of note: Jim DeMint is the man of the day. Send him a thank you. His heels were the ones that were dug in and withstood tremendous pressure to let the process go forward towards its seemingly inevitable, and dire, conclusion.

Yesterday's process yielded a list of conservative amendments that opponents would have pressed for had the cloture vote failed. So if this bill starts moving again, the Senators know that the crew that assembled 55 votes against immigration foolishness have a few changes that will need to be considered first.

It was a very good day for the American system!

hat-tip: memeorandum