Let's Debate the Bill

Betsy Newmark pragmatially points out that rushing the immigration bill through the Senate, while is may preclude extra-cirrucular politics, it is not the way things should be done:

Whatever your position on immigration and the bill, I think we can all agree that such an important bill that will affect so many people and have so many consequences, intended and otherwise, should be seriously debated. It shouldn't be rushed through just because some senators got together with the White House and came up with several hundred pages of a bill.

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Well, that's not the way our system is set up. Ironically, the Senate is supposed to be the slow house, the saucer that cools the hot liquid that the House produces. And we all know that this bill will be different after it goes through the House. So why the pretense that this has to be debated and passed in the next week. Take the time and expose the bill to lots of sunlight so that people know what they're voting on and have had time to hear from their constituents.

To be sure, a change in the law and policy this dramtic should be subject to full disclosure and debate. Occaisionally, rapid passage of a bill is important, indeed necessary, but when that happens, you need to make sure that the entire public and Congress on are the same page, otherwise you get bad policy that may be difficult to take back later. Case in point, the PATRIOT Act.

Illegal immigration and what to do about has been a problem for this nation for a long time, a few months more will not do any damage to the policy. The bypassing of the committee process smacks of an attempt to pull on over on the American people--and to take away a legitimate issue for the 2008 election. I don't want the sitting Senators running for the Presidency to get a pass on this issue just because there were successful in ramming a bill through the Senate in record time.