McCain Needs Three Votes

SENATOR John McCain reckoned privately on Friday at the ILIR meeting in the Bronx that he and Senator Edward Kennedy had 57 votes in the Senate to pass their immigration bill, or a close version of it, through the full Senate.

As far as McCain is concerned, 60 votes is the magic number in the Senate, meaning that the bill could not be filibustered and sent to defeat by angry Republican opponents. Under Senate rules 60 votes are needed to cut off debate.

While the McCain numbers may well fluctuate over the next few days, it seems that the Kennedy/McCain forces are in better shape than they could have imagined just a few weeks back.

Then there was considerable concern that the Kennedy/McCain version would never make it out of the Judiciary Committee and that the entire bill might be bottled up there.

Now it appears the bill has a fighting chance even though it may be altered to some extent in the final days. McCain highlighted Texas Senator John Cornyn as a key figure and a swing vote in the debate.

Cornyn has his own immigration bill with Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, which is ore punitive than the Kennedy/McCain version, but not a million miles away from it.

Senator Kennedy actually thought he had an agreed compromise with Cornyn as the legislation was going into the Judiciary Committee but the deal fell through. Assuming Cornyn and Kyl could be brought onside to vote for the McCain version then it is quite likely that one or two other votes would be shaken free.

Cornyn’s Irish Roots

SENATOR John Cornyn met an Irish parliamentary delegation last week as the immigration bill debate was reaching its height. He was at pains to point out his own Irish roots and the fact that he has visited Ireland on several occasions.

Cornyn, in fact, is related to Joe Cornyn, the Manhattan bar and restaurant owner who hails from Co. Limerick and has owned several establishments in the New York area.

Perhaps it is time for Irish lobbyists to remind Cornyn of those Irish roots as he prepares to vote on the Senate bill later this week. How he will vote may well have a vital bearing on the bill.

Gillespie Sounds the Alarm

IF you were looking for an indication of how leading Republicans are worried about an immigration backlash from the Hispanic voters you had to look no further than last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal and an article by Ed Gillespie.

Gillespie is the former head of the Republican National Committee, and he played a key role in electing George W. Bush in 2004. Though now a lobbyist he is still very close to the White House and he has his finger on the pulse of all the polling results which flood in every week on this issue.

Thus his warning to his party was very direct and significant in the Journal.

“The Republican Party cannot become an anti-immigration party. Our majority already rests too heavily on white voters, given that current demographic voting percentages will not allow us to hold our majority in the future,” Gillespie wrote.

“Between 2000 and 2004, President Bush increased his support in the Hispanic community by nine percentage points. Had he not, John Kerry would be president today.

“Hispanic voting percentages are increasingly decisive in swing states like New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, Colorado and Arkansas. Mishandling the immigration debate today could result in the Republican Party struggling in these states and others in the same way it does now in California.”

Gillespie’s father emigrated from Donegal in 1933 and came through Ellis Island. The top GOP operative still returns frequently to his ancestral county.

Certainly, if the right-wingers in the House of Representatives are paying attention, Gillespie’s words will resonate deeply.

Caution Still Urged

EVEN if a good bill emerges from the Senate there is still a long way to go before anything is signed into law by President Bush.

First the House/Senate conference must agree on a compromise bill — no easy task given the massive differences likely between the two pieces of legislation. Then the final version must go to the House and Senate for a separate vote before being sent to the president for signing.

The real trouble, of course, could come in the House, where a third of the Republican representatives have already made clear their opposition to any kind of “amnesty” and want border enforcement only in the bill.

Congressman Tom Tancredo, as close to a nut on this issue as you will find in the House, has a large following of hard right wingers who will swing in behind him to try and destroy any “amnesty” provision. It remains to be seen if House Speaker Denis Hastert will be able to overcome their objections, and how far Hastert wants to push it.

A Credit to Bill Flynn

THE visit of Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Peter Robinson to New York this week to address the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) is a great tribute to NCAFP head Bill Flynn, former chief executive of Mutual of America.

Flynn has been instrumental in bringing numerous key political figures to America in recent times, including Gerry Adams in 1994 when the NCAFP was the sponsoring organization. That visit began the involvement of the U.S. administration in the peace process and was hugely significant.

Now Flynn is doing something similar with Robinson, a politician many believe could do business with Nationalists if the timing was right. Certainly, Robinson coming to America to speak before a mainly Irish American audience is itself significant, and Flynn deserves tremendous credit for putting that together.