WASHINGTON — The White House is poised to begin a last-ditch effort this week to resurrect the compromise immigration bill that was pulled off the Senate floor Thursday, with administration officials insisting another two days of debate could ensure passage of the contentious legislation.
Calling the measure "alive and well," the administration blamed the Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, for prematurely abandoning efforts to get the bill passed, and said President Bush would go to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lobby for the legislation.
"Rather than doing finger-pointing, if Harry Reid is committed to this -- and this is an historic bill dealing with a problem that a lot of people think has to be solved, and it's got to be solved in a smart way -- why not go ahead and set aside those two days for debate?" White House spokesman Tony Snow said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think you're going to find the Republicans and Democrats are willing to do it."
Reid decided to end the Senate's consideration of the bill Thursday evening after a vote to cut off debate failed by 15 votes. Reid, who had allowed debate to continue for two weeks, said he had offered to give Republicans the chance to propose eight amendments to the bill, but GOP officials were seeking to raise as many as 12. The move was seen by Democrats as an attempt to extend debate indefinitely, in effect killing the bill by preventing it from getting to a final vote.
The legislation was proposed by a bipartisan group of senators who had worked for months on a "grand bargain" that would eventually give illegal immigrants a way to stay in the U.S. legally, a provision insisted on by Democrats, but also stepped up border and workplace enforcement, provisions demanded by Republicans.
The White House's stance puts Bush in an unusual position, joining Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate's most prominent liberal and one of the compromise's leading backers, in pressuring Reid to give the Senate more time for considering the bill.
"This bill is alive and well, and we are more determined than ever to get it through," Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, one of the administration's point men on the legislation, said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "What happened is just a break, and people want more debate. They want a little bit more time. We probably need a couple of days more."
