C060407b A New Quorum

As the Senate stumbles over itself to create a viable immigration reform
bill that is less than 90% amnesty, it might be of value to consider that
twenty-one current members of the Senate were around in 1986, the
last time the Congress passed a "non-amnesty" immigration "control"
bill. That attempt wasn't called amnesty then either, but now most
Senators around for Amnesty I, consider it amnesty today.

The compromise believed by Senate leaders to have been agreed to by
a sufficient number of Senators on April 6th was rebuked on the floor of
the Senate that same night for not allowing more than two opportunities
for members to present and debate up to twenty amendments. Imagine
that... a compromise heralded in a news conference by the Senate
"leaders" a few hours earlier did not meet the standards of more than
60% of the members of the Senate, who wanted the supposed world's
most deliberative body of government to actually deliberate and discuss
the most important immigration bill in our nation's history. Do the
leaders talk with their "followers" anymore? Are the leaders too busy
considering how their efforts will relate to their presidential aspirations?

Fortunately, work by some newbies in the Senate brought about some
needed debate and realities to the immigration topic. Senators
Sessions (R, AL), Martinez (R, FL), and Graham (R, SC) bolted from
their "leadership" and spoke on the floor for many other members, I
suspect, that were incredulous to the compromise made by Senator
Frist.

Unfortunately, using the word leadership seems less and less
appropriate when discussing either the Republican or Democrat leaders
in the Senate, and is a rapidly dying art in our nation's capital.

How healthy is it for our nation to have twenty-one Senators getting a second chance at deciding major
immigration reform? Twenty-one members serving during at least four presidential administrations and several for
many more than that. Twelve states have elected both of their current Senators for more than two consecutive
terms (12 years) and 41 of 100 current Senators are in at least their third consecutive term. Do these states
really expect representative governing by people that have lived only part-time in their state for the last 13 - 47
years?

The citizen legistator tradition our founding fathers presumed would continue, and therefore didn't feel the need
to include limitations of service for in the Constitution, is over. We need to add safeguards in the Constitution
to recreate the citizen legislator that doesn't allow Congress to be a career, but instead an opportunity to serve
briefly, and then return to from where he or she came. Over thirty years of deficit spending under both
Republican and Democrat controlled Congresses make the need clear. We are a large and talented country, so
having over 40% of the current Senate serving for at least the last 13 consecutive years is preventing both fresh
new approaches by talented people and truly representative government.