Caucus Press Release: House to Senate: STOP GRANDSTANDING
Apr 23, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE â 4:00 PM
For More Information:
Jason Zacher
(803) 734-3139
House to Senate: STOP GRANDSTANDING
Senate's propensity for talking and special interests
is putting illegal immigration legislation at serious risk
COLUMBIA -- The House was prevented from voting on illegal immigration legislation Wednesday after the three Senators who agreed to a compromise Tuesday night could not be found to sign the document Wednesday morning.
While Senator Ritchie grandstands on the Senate floor, he is forgetting a crucial fact -- without his signature on the conference report, the House can't consider the legislation. At least two of the Senate conferees must be found, and then sign the agreement, before the report can be approved by the House.
"Apparently, we can't even find these guys," said Majority Leader Jim Merrill. "Senator Ritchie and the rest of the Senate are kow-towing to their special-interest friends in the Chamber of Commerce and the Farm Bureau. And like clock-work, the Senate is spending valuable public tax dollars bloviating on the floor, shifting blame, and hiding from public scrutiny."
"Why don't they do what Senators McConnell and Campsen have been encouraging them to do," Merrill asked.
The Illegal Immigration conference committee finished work Tuesday evening, finally agreeing to close a Senate loophole that would allow illegal immigrants to work by using an easily-falsified federal I-9 form -- the same system that is completely ineffectual today. The Senate agreed to remove the I-9 requirement and allow the House to approve the strongest legislation possible. The House conferees were insisting on the strongest language.
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