Amnesty bill cloture vote in progress; Update: Cloture fails, 45-50; Update: Dead?

Cross your fingers.

Update: They’re very close to 41 no votes. Webb, Tester, and Pryor — all Democrats — just voted no.

Update: I’m pretty sure they’ve got 41. But will Reid renege on his threat to shelve it and offer new amendments instead? See the boss’s late update here about FAIR and the super-amendment the amnesty crowd is drafting.

Update: Jon Kyl, the linchpin of the “grand compromise,” just voted no. The vote’s going to fail. The question now is what Reid does.

Update: It failed, 45-50. Reid’s speaking now. He’s shelved it for now but says he’s open to a package of new amendments over the next several weeks to try to pass the bill. It’s dead — for now.

Update: Fox is running the headline, “Immigration bill dies in the Senate.” I’m not so sure…

Update: Reid noted that an unnamed colleague came into his office today and cried over the bill. MM names the prime suspect.

Update (bp): I can’t take much more of Dingy Harry whining on the Senate floor. Especially when he doesn’t know the difference between illegal aliens and lawful citizens. The man is a sad joke.

Update: MM pens the obituary:

As annoying as Reid’s refrain was, he is right: This was the president’s bill. This was the monstrous sham that President Bush tried to ram through the Senate with his pal Teddy Kennedy–subverting the committee process, attempting to cram it in before the Memorial Day holiday, rushing to limit debate, and then complaining about delays. This was the bill President Bush sent conservative-bashing bureaucrats like DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff to peddle on CNN. This was the bill President Bush championed while deriding critics as fearful bigots and running away from building the fence he promised to build.

If the White House thinks conservatives are going to forget whose bill this was and the tactics the White House used in its failed attempt to ram it through Congress, they better think again.

If Lindsay Graham and John McCain think their abominable behavior is going to be forgotten, they better think again.

Update: John Hawkins: “A source in the Senate says this bill is as dead as Stalin and it won’t be becoming back no matter what McConnell is saying on the floor.”

Update: If Hawkins’s source is telling the truth then pin a big gold star on Jim DeMint. Or, as I like to call him, the Anti-Graham:

After the 2nd cloture vote failure at noon on Thursday, Harry Reid could not get unanimous consent to call up amendments to the bill because Jim DeMint refused to give his consent. This was extremely problematic for Reid because he wanted to get in votes on 6 more amendments before the last try at a cloture vote… This essentially killed the entire afternoon that the pro-amnesty side hoped to use to shore up support for the bill.

While DeMint was gumming up the works, the opponents of the bill, including most prominently Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, and Tom Coburn, huddled and came up with a list of conservative amendments they wanted considered.

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.

Update: The sweet smell of death is in the air…

Democratic leaders were quietly pessimistic. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) said Bush could count on 175 to 180 House Democrats to support a similar, comprehensive immigration bill, leaving the White House to deliver at least 40 Republicans in a body that has been far more polarized.

“If Bush could not get the votes in the Senate, what was he going to do in the House?” Emanuel asked.

Update: WaPo reveals the wrangling that secured passage of the killer Dorgan amendment last night and ultimately probably doomed the bill. Trent Lott is shocked, shocked (and “ashamed”) to find strategic voting going on:

Dorgan and a GOP ally, Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), looked to Republicans who had voted against the sunset amendment two weeks ago but who were known to have qualms about the bill itself. The target list included five senators from states with illegal-immigration problems, or where the issue had a particular potency with conservative voters. Along with DeMint, the list named Sens. Jim Bunning (Ky.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.). Dole and Enzi face reelection next year.

After conversations with Dorgan and among themselves, four of the five decided to support Dorgan’s late-night second effort. Moments before the vote, Republican leaders succeeded in talking Grassley back to their side.

Update: WaPo reporter Dan Balz mourns the demise of the amnesty craptacular and wonders what it means for our political culture that we can’t come together as a people to support horrible, disastrous policy compromises.

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