Mike Huckabee: Immigration Bill Can Be Fixed
He doesn't like it, but isn't ready to kill it
By Bluey Posted in Featured Stories | Immigration — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee held a conference call with bloggers at 10 a.m. and took questions about education, energy and immigration. I asked about immigration and whether Huckabee thought the Senate bill should be fixed or just killed.
Huckabee said he's very much in favor of trying to work on it to make it better. "Instead of rejecting it wholesale, let's be specific what we don't like," he said. He cited his concern that the bill would reward illegal aliens with legal status first, rather than making them work toward it.
On the touchy subject of John McCain, Huckabee danced around a question of how immigration was changing the dynamics of the race. McCain has dropped from second to fourth place in recent polls. Of his fellow Republican, Huckabee said, "He takes a position and he sticks with it. Even if his position is 180 degrees from mine, I respect him for that. At least he takes a stand and he sticks with it. He's not a person who tailors his views to each audience."
Following up on a point made by Duncan Hunter at last night's debate, Huckabee said Sen. Teddy Kennedy's (D.-Mass.) prominent role in the immigration deal is very troubling for many conservatives. While it may give comfort to liberals, it provokes a hostile reaction from the right.
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Mike Huckabee: Immigration Bill Can Be Fixed 16 Comments (0 topical, 16 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
as much as this one:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/arizona_poll_24_...
51% unfavorable in Arizona. WOW. I can't imagine that speaking to anything but immigration.
I think that we should try to work on this bill. This means a lot of change definitely, but to just scrap it and start again might waste the cache of goodwill built up among the Dems who, like it or not, are the very slight majority right now. And like McCain said, if we get nothing passed, it's de facto amnesty, because it doesn't look like we're going to enforce what's on the books in the forseeable future.
I also participated in the Conference Call and have a write up on my blog of my question as well as a summary of all of the questions asked (only 6 including Bluey's).
I was quite interested in hearing the Former Governor come out in support of the FairTax.
Jeff Vreeland
PoliticsInAlabama.Com
... by killing it!
I am very troubled by Huckabee's prior stances on illegal immigration while Governor, such as supporting free college tuition for illegals in his state.
Huckabee is clearly in the McCain-Kennedy camp with regards to amnesty.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. "
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Passing a bill isn't always better than not passing it. This bill is significantly worse than the status quo, as bad as that is.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
In the real world the political climate necessary to procure additional funding for the border (guards, equipment, fencing) as well as some action on illegal immigration, will not be this good for many years to come.
In a sense, yes, it's this bill or the status quo for now. Sometimes the real world has a fork in the road.
I don't think that he was voting for the status quo... there are other options, such as enforcement of current laws, or a less comprehensive bill, etc.
The real world is not a this-or-that, or black-or-white world...
Whether this abominable legislation can be stopped by means of an old-fashioned filibuster? Can an individual Senator like Jeff Sessions still stand up and talk endlessly to prevent any further Senate action?
Frank Katz
...that’s always an option, one I'd like to witness
Founder and contributor to The Minority Report and Senior writer for The Hinzsight Report
Can an individual Senator like Jeff Sessions still stand up and talk endlessly to prevent any further Senate action?
One senator can't do it. He needs 40% of the other Senators voting No on the cloture motion ending debate. The good news is that just might happen, but I don't know how likely.
Byrd got the rules changed about 40 years ago. The way it works now is that no one ever has to talk - unless 60 people vote to end debate, it stays open and they move on to something else. You can call this "silent" or "stealth" or whatever label suits your fancy filibustering.
Once illegals are granted legal status, the problem is unfixible. Even if a future Congress and President changed the law, the lawsuits that would follow would effectively lock in the impact of "the bill."
Doing nothing is not the same thing as amnesty. We at least preserve the possibility of addressing the border in the future and we at least preserve the possibility in the future of getting illegals out through attrition.
This idea that realism requires us to be idiots is . . . stupid.
Amen.
Once they are legal -it's over. As long as they are illegal, there is the possibility of action in the future.
What is required is a series of steps, bill by bill to implement reform.
Step 1. Absolutely secure the borders....
I was surprised to read that John McCain had dropped to 4th place in the polls. Something about that didn't seem right. So I followed the links, and found that the two polls that showed him in that position were conducted a week ago, and by Rasmussen and Insider Advantage.
Here are two, more recent polls, from ABC News/Washington Post and USA Today/Gallup, respectively:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_060307.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-04-poll-results_N.htm?lo...
Each of these polls show John McCain where he has been at for the last few months: in second place behind Rudy Giuliani. While polls will continue to be volitile, given that these two polls are more recent and conducted by more repudible firms, I'm inclined to say that the Rasmussen and IA polls that place McCain fourth were outliers, and not the start of a trend.