DREAM Act Fails to pass Senate

This Saturday, the controversial DREAM Act effectively died in the Senate after failing to get enough support to overcome a Republican led filibuster. The formal title of the bill is the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. The act originally was introduced about a decade ago in 2001. The bill would have given illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children a path toward eventual citizenship. It also would have covered those immigrant who went to college or joined the military. The bill had support from liberal Democrats and immigration activists, who staged rallies, sit-ins and even hunger strikes to raise support for the bill. The legislation was fiercely opposed by conservative Republicans, who argued that the bill would be, in effect, amnesty for illegal immigrants in the country. The Act had been passed through the House of Representatives last month with a vote of 216-198.

The final vote in the Senate was 55-41, which meant that supporters of the bill lacked one crucial vote to break a Republican-led filibuster. Only a cloture vote, which requires 60 votes, would have broken the filibuster. Such a cloture was supported by three Republicans, but a majority was not reached when five Democrats voted against it. Passage of the bill would have been a key victory for Democrats and President Obama, who are seeking to pass through as much legislation as possible through the "lame duck" session of Congress before Republicans take control of the House next year. In a statement after the vote, Obama called the defeat of the bill "incredibly disappointing" and also pledged not to give up on the cause of immigration reform. More disappointed, however, were activists who were in the Senate chamber to witness the vote. Reportedly, as the crowd was leaving the chamber, some were seen to be crying over the blow.

Sources include:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46573.html
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/18/dadt.dream.act/index.html?hpt=T1
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-pn-senate-dream-20101219,0,4190962.story

The Contract With America: How did it Affect the Country?

In 1993, soon after the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Republican leaders, among them soon to be Speaker Newt Gingrich, Tome DeLay, and future Speaker John Boehner, introduced a document which they claimed outlined the  laws they planned to pass once in office. This document, titled the Contract With America, would, according to the Republicans, "restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives". These laws would apparently be instrumental in making a government that would be more fiscally responsible and less wasteful with tax payers money. The Republicans promised to bring these laws to the the floor of Congress within the first 100 days of the new Congress.

The Contract With America featured eight major reforms that would "restore the faith and trust" of citizens in the government. The statures are listed below as follows:
1. "Require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress
2. "Select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse"
3. "Cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third"
4. "Limit the terms of all committee chairs"
5. "Ban the casting of proxy votes in committee"
6. "Require committee meetings to be open to the public"
7. "Require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase"
8. "Guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

The first of these reforms was the Fiscal Responsibility Act that would establish an constitutional amendment aimed at requiring Congress pass a balanced budget unless sanctioned otherwise by a vote of three fifth's from both houses. The Taking Back Our Streets Act was an "anti-crime package" that primarily was aimed at strengthening law enforcement and criminal laws. The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act would be incentives for small business's. In short, all of these laws were aimed against the perceived wasteful spending Washington was attached to. The previous two years of the Clinton administration had been unpopular with the public. The Republicans promised to bring conservative measures to Washington.

The Contract With America had mixed results overall. Some measures, such as the Taking Back Our Streets Act passed through Congress easily, while others, including the Fiscal Responsibility Act, were either watered down, or struck down by presidential vetoes and court orders. The Contract is still a controversial issue debated today. Conservatives praise the measures as the way toward reforming Washington society. Liberals criticize it for being overly conservative and radical.