If the Senate was ever going to pass a bill to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation, it needed James Lankford.
A conservative senator from Oklahoma with a youthful visage, Lankford had been working since September to help so-called Dreamers. The 49-year-old Lankford dutifully attended bipartisan meetings, cobbling together ideas and trying to enlist support for a bipartisan deal.
But when the group showed him the latest draft of their plan Tuesday night, Lankford was stunned. It was far from what he had expected.
“I looked through the outlines of the proposal and realized: ’This is nothing close to what we’ve talked about,’” Lankford said.
On Thursday, Lankford voted against the last-gasp proposal from Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). So did North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, another critical Republican on immigration. And they were joined by a trio of GOP senators who backed the comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate in 2013 and were seen as gettable this time: Bob Corker of Tennessee, Dean Heller of Nevada and Orrin Hatch of Utah.
|