A Message from Roy Beck (Numbers USA)
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Wednesday 13JUN07 11:30 a.m. EDT
Sens. McConnell & Lott on verge of passing amnesty — unless you get in their way
# THE U.S. HOUSE TODAY is dealing with many important immigration matters as it amends the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team is following this closely. You can follow all amendments and votes on our special VOTE DAY page. We update at least by the hour. If you see something you want to support or oppose, don’t hesitate to call your U.S. Rep.
# TO BEST FIGHT THE SENATE AMNESTY, read Rosemary Jenks’ short summary of all the key elements of the S. 1348 Bush/Kennedy amnesty bill as introduced. Scroll down to BACKGROUND INFORMATION.
# Read short descriptions of all amendments the Senate has already passed to modify the bill. Scroll down to FINISHED VOTES.
Friends,
I regret to tell you that our victory of last Thursday night has eroded to almost nothing by this morning.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senate Republican Whip Trent Lott of Mississippi have succeeded in twisting nearly enough GOP arms to assure Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) that they can deliver the votes to pass his S. 1348 amnesty for 12-20 million illegal aliens.
Here is the pitch that McConnell and Lott are said to be using — and the pitch that only you can persuade Republican Senators to reject:
Lawmakers are being told that they must agree to vote for cloture on the amnesty in exchange for a chance to have some favorite amendments brought up OR they will lose a chance to “sit at the table” in final fashioning of this bill.
A senior GOP leadership aide confirmed that anti-amnesty Republicans are being told by Party leadership that they need to get on board if they want to remain relevant.
I have some actions related to Democratic Senators that I’ll detail further in this email. But our most urgent work today is with GOP Senators.
NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU HAVE PHONED IN THE LAST MONTH, YOUR PHONE CALLS ARE DESPERATELY NEEDED TODAY.
CALL SENATORS IN D.C.
202-224-3121
(If you live in Mississippi and Kentucky, I’ve already sent you your action opportunities. You have to take responsibility for the two Senators who at this moment are competing for the title of America’s No. 1 and No. 2 Enemy. I am sending this alert to you so you have the additional information that is in it.)
TELL GOP SENATORS TO REFUSE ‘A SEAT AT THE TABLE’ AND TO REMAIN ‘RELEVANT’ BY PROTECTING THE WORKERS AND VOTERS OF THEIR STATE
Call their offices and tell them you have heard of the ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ deal they are being offered and that your advice is:
“Refuse a Seat at The Table If All They’re Serving Is Rancid Mush.”
Tell them that permanently legalizing 12-20 million illegal aliens and giving them permanent access to our jobs is a dish not worth fussing over. No amount of seasoning or ingredient changing can make this dish palatable to the voters of your state.
Any amendment that would truly protect Americans would be killed by the Bush/Kennedy coalition.
No matter how many amendments are allowed for votes, the end result bill will be terrible — maybe slightly less terrible than now, but still terrible. There is no point in trading away a YES vote on cloture for the chance to offer an amendment.
You must make it clear to every one of these Senators that they will be made to pay politically over and over the next year (maybe their whole careers) for a YES vote if this bill comes up again on cloture.
Remind them that Sen. McCain has seen his front-runner status in the Presidential primary race plummet because of his highly public support for this bill.
Why would any of these Senators want to carry around that same kind of baggage?
And tell your Senators that they have all the “relevance” they need by being the representative or your state in the U.S. Senate. They don’t need George Bush or Karl Rove to give them relevance, especially if relevance has to come at the expense of principle.
EXPOSE AND CHALLENGE THE LIES THAT POLLS SHOW AMERICANS SUPPORT THIS AMNESTY
Yet more news media polls are being released purporting to show that the majority of the public supports this Senate amnesty bill. The big use of these polls by reporters and open-borders advocates is to supposedly prove that all of your phone calls are just a loud-mouthed minority.
The fact is that nearly all the media polls fail to offer people the choice of Attrition Through Enforcement.
When Americans are offered a choice between legalization, attrition or mass deportations, most Americans choose attrition. And an overhwelming portion choose either attrition or mass deportation.
You can find great backing of what I just said by going to our web page on polls.
OUR ARMY IS GROWING — Let’s Hold Back Disaster While We Recruit Another Army of Reinforcements
I hope you feel encouraged to know that another 4,081 Americans registered with NumbersUSA and immediately began faxing and phoning — that was just yesterday, one day.
Day after day, the word is getting out. More and more Americans understand that they must take real action if they are to save their American quality of life.
We started the year with around 250,000 activist members. Barely a month ago, we hit the big 300,000 milestone. It looks like we will hit the 400,000 mark tomorrow!
In addition, we have a total email list of more than 1.5 million now.
Unfortunately, not everybody who connects, becomes a direct activist with us (although we assume they are having some influence among their friends and colleagues). And not all who register as activist members respond regularly to our Alerts. We know we probably need to have 2 million activist members to ensure that 500,000 are acting at any point. This is true of any organization. But we appreciate every one of you for whatever you are able to do. It all adds up to something strong.
Numbers of faxes you ordered the last two days:
Tuesday — 89,776 faxes
Monday — 61,647 faxes
HOLD ONTO OUR DEMOCRATIC ANTI-AMNESTY VOTES
It is imperative that we hold onto at least 9 of the 12 Democratic and Independent NO votes we got last Thursday on the cloture vote.
Phone these offices and urge them not to be taken in by the Republican leadership’s pandering to Big Business lobbyists who are demanding to keep employing their 7-million-plus illegal workers and are demanding an amnesty for all the lawbreaking by the outlaw companies in the past.
Tell these Democrats that they are standing with the American workers on this and should be proud of their principled stand against Pres. Bush’s dream of globalizing the American labor force.
THE 12 NON-REPUBLICANS WHO VOTED AGAINST AMNESTY LAST WEEK
(* Up for re-election in 2008)
* Baucus (D-Mont.)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-Calif.)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
* Landrieu (D-La.)
McCaskill (D-Mo.)
* Pryor (D-Ark.)
* Rockefeller(D-WV)
Sanders (I-Vt.)
Tester (D-Mont.)
Webb (D-Va.)
THE BASIC MATH
Last week, 45 Senators voted for cloture. It takes 60 votes for cloture to pass, thus ending a filibuster and allowing a final vote, which at this time would require at most 50 votes to pass.
The pro-amnesty Bush/Kennedy coalition has to persuade 15 Senators who voted NO last week to switch to YES if the cloture vote comes up again.
The only thing that can keep that from happening is an even larger outpouring of phone calls, faxes and local demonstrations at Senate offices, etc.
