not finding these two interesting e-mails from Roy Beck at the NumbersUSA site, I’m reproducing both of them below:
Here are the amnesty votes today—And the REAL REASON it lost
DEAR FRIENDS,
Please do all you can in Letters to the Editor, on talk radio, in conversations with your friends to make sure that all know this amnesty bill failed for only one reason: Senators thought it wasn’t tough enough on enforcement or illegal aliens.
Some news media are suggesting this bill died because it was attacked from both open borders and closed borders factions.
Not true. The Senators who are soft on illegal immigration stuck with the bill even though they decried it for being too restrictive.
Of the 53 votes against the bill, we can find only four votes that we think we wouldn’t have gotten without the AFL-CIO’s opposition. The AFL-CIO opposed the guestworker expansion, as did we.
But we don’t find any NO votes that were because the bill was too restrictive.
The winning argument in the Senate was that this bill provided incredible rewards for those who break immigration laws without guaranteeing any significant reductions in future illegal immigration.
Secondarily, the bill was rejected because it increased total legal immigration by more than half and was put together completely outside normal legislative channels without any consideration of how local, state and federal governments would pay for it.
SENATORS WHO SWITCHED TO THE GOOD SIDE TODAY
On Tuesday, we were five votes short of killing S. 1639—we needed 40.
We gave you some top targets but also asked all of you to keep working on your own YES-ON-AMNESTY Senators even if not on a list of likely switchers.
How glad we are that you did.
No anti-amnesty group that I know of thought Alaska or Ohio could persuade even one Senator, let alone two! Who would have guessed we might get Harkin of Iowa, Collins of Maine?
Here are the 18 Senators who voted YES to allow the amnesty bill back on the Senate floor on Tuesday but voted NO to kill it today.
All of us at the NumbersUSA headquarters in Arlington, Va. (on the river looking at the Capitol) gathered in our conference room to watch the vote. I wish you could have been here with the whoops every time one of these 18 said YES!
We not only got the 40 votes we needed to win, we got 53!!!!
Alaska: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Ted Stevens Arkansas: Sen. Mark Pryor Iowa: Sen. Tom Harkin
Kansas: Sen. Sam Brownback Kentucky: Sen. Mitch McConnell Maine: Sen. Susan Collins
Minnesota: Sen. Norm Coleman Missouri: Sen. Kit Bond Nebraska: Sen. Ben Nelson
Nevada: Sen. John Ensign New Mexico: Sen. Jeff Bingaman North Carolina: Sen. Richard Burr
Ohio: Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. George Voinovich Virginia: Sen. John Warner, Sen. Jim Webb
We have a new fax for you to thank these Senators. Right now, please forgive all past transgressions and just let them feel the love. Let them know how much better it feels to stand with the majority of voters in your state on this contentious issue.
If you want to call one of their offices and give them Thirty Seconds of Thanks, get the numbers from your My Members page at: www.NumbersUSA.com/myMembers
ALL SENATORS WHO VOTED NO ON AMNESTY TODAY
Alabama: Sen. Jeff Sessions, Sen. Richard Shelby Alaska: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Ted Stevens Arkansas: Sen Mark Pryor
Colorado: Sen. Wayne Allard Georgia: Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Sen. Johnny Isakson Idaho: Sen. Michael Crapo
Indiana: Sen. Evan Bayh Iowa: Sen. Tom Harkin, Sen. Charles Grassley Kansas: Sen. Sam Brownback, Sen. Pat Roberts
Kentucky: Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Jim Bunning Louisiana: Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. David Vitter Maine: Sen. Susan Collins
Michigan: Sen. Debbie Stabenow Minnesota: Sen. Norm Coleman Mississippi: Sen. Thad Cochran
Missouri: Sen. Kit Bond, Sen. Claire McCaskill Montana: Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. Jon Tester Nebraska: Sen. Ben Nelson
New Hampshire: Sen. John Sununu Nevada: Sen. John Ensign New Mexico: Sen. Jeff Bingman, Sen. Pete Domenici
North Carolina: Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Elizabeth Dole North Dakota: Sen. Byron Dorgan Ohio: Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. George Voinovich
Oklahoma: Sen. Tom Coburn, Sen. Jim Inhofe Oregon: Sen. Gordon Smith South Carolina: Sen. Jim DeMint
South Dakota: Sen. John Thune Tennessee: Sen. Lamar Alexander, Sen. Bob Corker Texas: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Sen. John Cornyn
Utah: Sen. Orrin Hatch Vermont: Sen. Bernie Sanders Virginia: Sen. John Warner, Sen. Jim Webb
West Virginia: Sen. Robert Byrd, Sen. Jay Rockefeller Wyoming: Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. Mike Enzi
We also have thank you faxes to those Senators who voted NO on amnesty both Tuesday and today.
So much congratulations to those of you who persuaded BOTH your Senators to stand with the American people.
For those of you who didn’t persuade even one Senator, you clearly live in a tough state politically. But I hope some of the victories today will encourage you to keep trying.
We proved that Democratic-dominated states no longer have to go for the open borders side. ONE-THIRD of the Senate Democrats voted with us today.
THE GREAT PROTECTORS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND OUTLAW BUSINESSES
Arizona: Sen. John Kyl, Sen. John McCain Arkansas: Sen. Blanche Lincoln California: Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Diane Feinstein
Colorado: Sen. Ken Salazar Connecticut: Sen. Joe Lieberman, Sen. Chris Dodd Delaware: Sen. Joseph Biden, Sen. Tom Carper
Florida: Sen. Mel Martinez, Sen. Bill Nelson Hawaii: Sen. Daniel Akaka, Sen. Daniel Inouye Idaho: Sen. Larry Craig
Illinois: Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Barack Obama Indiana: Sen. Dick Lugar Maine: Sen. Olympia Snowe
Maryland: Sen. Ben Cardin, Sen. Barbara Mikulski Massachusetts: Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry Michigan: Sen. Carl Levin
Minnesota: Sen. Amy Klobuchar Mississippi: Sen. Trent Lott Nebraska: Sen. Chuck Hagel
Nevada: Sen. Harry Reid New Hampshire: Sen. Judd Gregg New Jersey: Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Sen. Robert Menendez
New York: Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer North Dakota: Sen. Kent Conrad Oregon: Sen. Ron Wyden
Pennsylvania: Sen. Robert Casey, Sen. Arlen Specter Rhode Island: Sen. Jack Reed, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse South Carolina: Sen. Lindsay Graham
Utah: Sen. Bob Bennett Vermont: Sen. Patrick Leahy Washington: Sen. Maria Cantwell, Sen. Patty Murray Wisconsin: Sen. Russ Feingold, Sen. Herb Kohl
LOTS OF WORK AHEAD OF US—BUT TAKE A BREAK!!!
Most of your emails back to us this afternoon are savoring the victory.
But quite a few are worried that we think our battle is over.
Dear Roy, It is a clear victory that we stopped this current bill. However, it will not be a victory to have Congress wait until 2009 to remove the 12M+ illegal immigrants. We need a new campaign that urges our Congress to present a new bill to IMMEDIATELY complete the border fence and remove and deport the illegals, NOW.
——G. Terrell
Roy, we have won nothing substantial. There is no certainty that this Congress will fund-to-the-completion a secure border nor prosecute to the point of conviction those who illegally hire the illegal. The longer that Congress continues to drag its feet concerning these serious requirements, the borders will remain porous, anchor babies will continue to flood our emergency hospital centers and eventually our schools and social services.
——JC
I want to assure everybody that none of us at NumbersUSA believes we have won any kind of ultimate victory. We know this was a defensive victory, by definition the stopping of something bad and not the starting of something good.
Nonetheless, I believe there are several positive trends in motion toward enforcement right now and we will be plotting, planning and pontificating starting tomorrow on the next steps.
But Congress is leaving town for 10 days. You all have worked so hard and so faithfully these last months. Please take a few days off from activism. Enjoy your holidays. Celebrate the 4th of July and all that it means in our ability as ordinary citizens to challenge and sometimes even beat the Privileged Powers of our society. Ring the bell of freedom and shoot some fireworks in honor of the obnoxious tenacity of John Adams and his ilk in insisting that we be a self-governing national community of Americans.
THANKS,
ROY
In this connection, I feel inspired to form the Obnoxious and Disliked Club, named for Adams’s famous description of himself. But the problem is, who would join, and how could the members work together?
Here is a second e-mail from Roy, summarizing the forces that were arrayed, supposedly irresistibly, in favor of this bill:
DEAR HARD-WORKING, TENACIOUS ACTIVIST CITIZENS OF THE NUMBERSUSA ACTION NETWORK,
For at least five months, most newspaper editorial boards, the majority of columnists and news stories and pronouncements from the other elite institutions of America have told you that a “comprehensive immigration bill” would inevitably pass the Senate this year.
That only caused most of you to fax, phone and visit Senatorial offices all the more often.
Most national religious leaders who spoke out on this issue said the moral high ground was in rewarding the U.S. businesses and foreign labor who broke our immigration laws.
But in the pews (and quietly in most of the parsonages), the overwhelming majority of the people of faith stayed grounded in the values of justice and freedom, and stood against massive new flows of foreign labor that are at the expense of our society’s most vulnerable citizens. You stood against this massive government-coerced population explosion that is so destructive of the natural habitats or our country that stand in the bulldozers’ path.
In the last week, several venerable warriors from past decades of massive legislative battles such as this one have gloomily proclaimed that when The Establishment almost totally unites for something, the grassroots never prevail.
But the nearly HALF-MILLION activist members of the NumbersUSA Action Network just devoted even more time and energy to leaving no doubt where the quantity, the quality and the passion was among each Senator’s constituency.
YOU NEVER GAVE UP—DESPITE MANY TWISTS AND TURNS THAT WERE DEMORALIZING.
YOU NEVER GAVE UP—DESPITE VICIOUS SLURS THROWN AT YOU BY U.S. SENATORS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE AND MAJOR NEWS MEDIA FIGURES.
THE ESTABLISHMENT lost today.
The average American citizen won. You disproved the cynicism (born of great experience) in this town that this kind of victory was impossible.
53 U.S. Senators actually paid attention to what you had to say, felt enough pressure to wonder if there might be validity on our side of analysis, and concluded that through combination of political wisdom and policy wisdom they should vote the way the majority of their constituents believed proper—rather than be swayed by all the power, money and prestige of The Establishment.
That may not be a miracle, but it is a mighty cool breeze of representative democracy on a hot, humid, sticky mid-day in the marble chambers sitting atop the swamps along the Potomac!
Just to make sure you don’t miss the context of your victory, consider this:
In recent months, the pro-amnesty, pro-globalized-labor forces had assembled this Establishment Goliath of support for their “comprensive immigration reform” concept: Pres. Bush Senate Democratic Leaders Senate Republican Leaders House Majority Democratic Leaders U.S. Chamber of Commerce Dozens of other corporation lobby groups The largest philanthropic foundations Perhaps 90% of the newspaper editorial boards that weighed in The Washington offices of most major religious denominations Nearly all ethnic advocacy groups Most of Washington’s think tanks
As the L.A. Times said on its Sunday front page, NumbersUSA activists were probably the largest and the loudest going up against that formidable force.
But you all were also part of an incredible chain-reaction type of civic involvement that used the internet and talk radio to multiply the message along with dozens of other citizen groups.
And we were greatly assisted by the fact that a handful of significant sources of power joined the citizen revolt of bloggers, talkers and forwarders. Among them: The American Legion The AFL-CIO (somewhat timidly) The National Review on-line magazine CNN’s Lou Dobbs
Your power was not in just being loud and persistent. It was that you knew the issues. You knew the many ways this bill was bad for America.
It is trite to say but the exclamation of the boy in the crowd that “The Emperor Is Wearing No Clothes” describes so well what you did.
Thank you to those who have acted almost daily since Congress returned in January.
Thank you to those who recently have acted several times a day. Incredible.
Thank you to those who had so little time to give, but stepped in once or twice a week.
And thank you to the 78,343 “replacements” who only joined since June 1 but have been so important in overwhelming the Senate with our message.
We will even lavish praise on the 6,733 of you who joined yesterday and made your first calls and sent your first faxes!
At this moment, there are 444,496 of you who are registered, proven activists using the NumbersUSA tools! What an army you have been. But you are not MY army, or OUR army. You are YOUR OWN army—444,496 separate individuals working in collective, cumulative power, saying just what you want to say, writing just what you want to write. That is the power that won the victory today.
I only caution that what we did today was forestall disaster.
Our future, the next generation’s future, depends on our marshalling these same forces together to begin to make improvements in immigration policy, one piece at a time, starting tomorrow.
We will be posting new opportunities of action soon, and especially opportunities to praise and criticize the votes today of your own Senators.