House Democrats ready to give immigration bill another shot

I must be missing something........but when did the the first shot fire ? or was it a blank ?

Regardless of the reason,the House Democrat members appears to be exerting more will then the Senate this time around.Here are the highlights of the article.

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            <b>House Democrats are laying the groundwork for another major immigration debate later this year, despite the risk that it could prove politically destructive for their party.<br />

Moving broad legislation that would put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship seemed politically impossible until fairly recently and may still end up too hot for Congress to touch.

Yet Obama sent a signal this month to Hispanic Democrats that he is still committed to the cause and that he plans to host a White House immigration summit before the end of May. That has bolstered the hopes of the legislation’s biggest advocates on Capitol Hill.

“In a sense we’ve been given the green light to have more robust discussions about this,” House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) said.

“The signal was clear to Congress that we can be instrumental in getting things going,” Becerra said of the March 18 meeting with Obama. “Now, from the practical side, the question is, How do we set the table to move this forward?”

Drafting the legislation may end up being the easiest part. Finding enough support when the economy has near-double-digit unemployment and violence across the U.S.-Mexico border dominates the airwaves is likely to make legalizing millions of illegal immigrants a hard sell.

“If you’d picked any issue that’s not on the front-burner right now, you’ve picked it,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), who was among those Republicans who backed the failed proposal in the 110th Congress. “Nobody’s thinking about it because we’ve got all these emergencies on our hands. Let’s get these emergencies resolved and then we can turn to other things.”

Nonetheless, Becerra is optimistic. He said the most immediate task is to formulate a strategy for legislation ahead of Obama’s summit, and to begin discussions with Republicans who joined with Democrats in 2007 to support the legislation that crumbled under the weight of conservative backlash.

One of those key Republicans, Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), said he would be on board, perhaps again teaming up with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s (CHC) immigration task force, to sponsor the House version of the comprehensive bill.

“I expect to be pushing for it,” Flake said.....


.......Far more than the House, the Senate will determine whether the political wherewithal exists for passing — or even debating — a major immigration overhaul this year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is supportive of the so-called comprehensive immigration reform bill, according to a Reid spokesman, and Reid has said he hopes to pass a bill before the end of the year.

“He believes it is important that we move quickly to pass reform to fix our broken immigration system that is tough on people who break the law and practical to implement,” said spokesman Jim Manley. “The bottom line is, he is ready to move a bill when a bill is ready for him to move.”

Between the health problems of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the retirement of Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and the tough reelection campaign facing Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) — just to name a few obstacles — questions remain about who could carry the immigration torch in the upper chamber, even if there were momentum for it.

At the same time, the growing number of House Democrats from conservative districts could complicate even that chamber’s efforts.