“WE HAVE the votes for your amendment,” Dermot Kane told me a couple of weeks later. “The other side doesn’t like it, but they need a lot of our votes to pass the legislation. It’s top priority at the White House. We have them over the barrel for the moment.”
“Then in the conference committee we can stonewall the delegates from the House.”
“You’re a quick study, Senator.”
“An exhausted study,” I said.
“You’ll learn to pace yourself.”
“I hope so.”
I seemed to be stumbling around in a fog every day. My sleep was untroubled, except for dreams about blood pouring from Johnny Dale’s chest. There was so much to do every day, even those days like Monday and Friday when most of my colleagues were home fund-raising.
“The leader wants you to speak for the amendment. Two minutes maybe. Four-thirty if we’re lucky.”
“Of course.”
“His LA tells me that the leader was very pleased with your questions at the Armed Forces hearing.”
“The Chairman wasn’t.”
“We shouldn’t worry too much about him.”
That was about as close as a good, professional LA would go in criticizing one Senator to another, a relic of the past when the Senate was a more gentlemanly place. Younger LAs were less reverent.
Dermot was Montana Irish, a tall, lanky Plainsman with a strong touch of the Mick mixed in.
“I’m glad to hear that. My instincts said we shouldn’t.”
“Not that you would have behaved differently.”
“Not on that Admiral.”
Voting on the Immigrant Reform Bill would be late on Thursday evening. Thursday was the day when the Senate tried to clean up all its business for the week before many of the members dashed to National Airport to fly back to their constituencies, their fat cats, and perhaps their families. Thursday was the one day of the week when voting on legislation was likely to occur, the one day during which the real business of the Senate transpired. Not that, I had discovered to my dismay, the other days were not horrendously busy.
The leaders would meet in the cloakroom before the session and work out the final schedule and the mechanics. Since both leaders supported the bill, there would be little conflict in the cloakroom. The difficulty would be controlling the many dissidents in both parties who wanted to go on record against anything tainted with the word “immigrants.” We would be fortunate if we could adjourn before midnight. Few senators would dare leave for the airport before the final vote on this bill.
Our leadership would make sure that there were enough votes on the floor for my amendment to pass. The other side wouldn’t much care. They wanted to pass the bill, go home, and leave its fate to the conference committee where it would languish till just before summer adjournment. Then the White House would become nervous and insist on a report from the conference committee and a vote on the last day of the session. The members of both houses would hope that it would be lost in the other last minute measures and their constituents wouldn’t notice.
My amendment was called at 7:30.
“I recognize the Senator from Illinois for two minutes to speak in support of his amendment.”
“Mr. President, I will be brief. The requirement that immigrants from Mexico pay two thousand dollars for their green cards, disguised as a ‘fine,’ is blatantly punitive and violates the Constitutional provision for equal justice under the law. Will we charge immigrants from Western Europe, England and Ireland, let us say, for their green cards? Moreover, the income
tax and Social Security they will pay in their first year will be much more than two thousand dollars. If the Treasury needs income, we could make the green cards available after five years instead of six. Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Will the Senator from Illinois, yield, Mr. President?”
The vast mound which was Richard “Poor Richard” Yardley from Oklahoma rose unsteadily at his desk. Dressed in western boots, a snow white “Western” suit that Cowboys might wear to court pretty ladies from the East, a string tie, but not wearing his cowboy hat, Poor Richard started to drink at noon every day, was incoherent at the Thursday Republican caucus lunch, and slept most of the time when he was in the Senate chamber. He was a figure of fun even among his fellow Republicans, but he still had one percent of the vote in the United States Senate.
“The Senator has already finished his allotted time, Senator.”
“I demand a Senator’s right to respond.”
“Two minutes, Senator.”
I remained standing.
“These illegal criminals belong in jail, that’s where they belong. Why are we giving them illiterate vermin the right to come into our country, take our people’s jobs, send American money home to their vermin families in Mexico, and ruin our country? We should horsewhip them all and send them back to where they belong, that’s what we should do. We should shoot them on sight at the border, that’s what we should do. If we don’t protect our borders, this won’t be America any more.”
He babbled on for five more minutes—the C-SPAN camera grinding away and the members growing restless. I wondered if anyone from Oklahoma was watching. Would they be ashamed of him or proud? Bobby Bill Roads who had doubtless poured millions into his campaigns would surely be very proud.
The President Pro Tem touched the handle of his gavel to his desk, a gentle hint. Poor Richard became more incoherent on the subject of vermin, but did not take the hint.
Finally, after half way through eternity, the President Pro Tem spoke up.
“The Senator from Oklahoma has exceeded his time. Will he yield?”
“Poor Richard” simply collapsed into his chair and fell asleep.
“Does the Senator from Illinois wish to respond?”
He didn’t.
“There being no other speakers, we will proceed by unanimous consent to voting on this amendment.”
No one requested a quorum call. The amendment passed by nine votes, what we had expected. Was it all a charade? Was the whole long afternoon and evening a waste of time because everyone knew the bill would pass by five or six votes, many of them reluctant?
We voted and went on to the next amendment which would mandate health examinations prior to the awarding of green cards.
“These people are sick,” the supporting senator argued. “We can’t give them permanent residence unless we are sure they won’t bring contagious diseases into our country and infect our people.”
The research showed that, on average, the immigrants were more healthy than average Americans. However, everyone knew that wasn’t true. Nonethless the amendment was doomed because it didn’t have the votes. It lost by five votes—the size of the majority that the two leaders had created against the will of their respective caucuses.
A page, Asian, pretty, with braces, brought me a note from the Minority Leader. He wanted to see me in the cloakroom.
“You did good, Tommy.”
“Thank you, Senator.”
“Sorry you had to put up with ‘Poor Richard.’”
“He’s a member of the United States Senate. He has the right to be heard, poor dear man, as my wife would say.”
“As does the Senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.”
He laughed.
“I figured you and he wouldn’t get along when I put you on the committee. It’s so easy for those guys to sell out to anyone with stripes and ribbons. They’ll be more careful about who they send up to the committee now that they know they have you to contend with … How do you see the Conference Committee on this bill?”
“There’ll be two of us from the two houses on the committee and three of them. We’re down six to four. And we hold all the cards thanks to the White House.”
“Right, they want immigration legislation and they know—or at least they’ve been told by my friend across the aisle—that they’re going to get the legislation only if they can hold the Democrats in both houses. So if our guys hang tough the Conference will report out mostly our bill.”
“An opportunity to be seized.”
“Would you mind seizing it?”
“Not at all if you want me to.”
“You’ll have to spar all through the summer up to recess with the nativists.”
“I’m prepared to do that.”
“Everyone will see the handwriting on the wall when you hang tough. So they’ll probably only schedule a meeting every week. Not all of them will come either.”
“It should be interesting. Poor Richard will be there?”
He grinned. “No way, but guys that are sober most of the time with the same ideas.”
“Will the White House stick with us?”
“They’re notorious for cutting the ground out from under us. This time my friend across the aisle will probably hold their feet to the fire.”
The Immigration Reform Bill passed at 11:55. Many of the Senators had left for the airport. We still had our six-vote majority. I went home exhausted and depressed. So much fighting, so much fooling around for a law that would not help very much, but was better than nothing. That is the burden of democracy, I told myself.
My wife, with a gender-discrimination case before the court, one in which she had little confidence because of mistakes at lower levels, was sound asleep. I didn’t bother her.