SAVE Act Gains Momentum

As always, the hat tip goes again to Numbers USA. The SAVE Act is picking up steam. It now has more than seventy sponsors and most importantly we are getting a cross section of sponsorship. Republicans and Democrats alike are getting behind this bill. It received a crucial endorsement last week when it received the endorsement of Tom Tancredo. This bill has two members of the Congressional Black Caucus (Rep. Davis (D-Ala.) and Rep. Bishop (D-Ga.) and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (Rep. Rodriguez (D-Texas). It has 46 Republicans and 44 Democrats that have signed on. Even the unlikely bedfellows of Dana Rohrbacher and John Murtha have both gotten on board.

We should all temper our excitement. While I like the bill, I believe it has a serious potential problem. This bill will in fact create a massive new government bureaucracy. More times then not, that does more harm than good. I still have heard nothing about how this will be dealt with. Before this bill gets passed, I hope this is dealt with. Here is numbers on the inside baseball of it.

Our Capitol Hill Team is finding that most of the Republicans who have not yet signed onto this bill have been slowed down by caution from House Republican leadership. The House GOP leaders feel that other enforcement bills introduced this year solely by Republicans are tougher, especially in terms of local arrests and detentions. But it is highly unlikely that any of the GOP bills can be pushed onto the House floor for a vote before the next elections.

GOP leaders also are questioning signing onto the Shuler bill alongside a lot of Democratic freshmen whom they have hoped to defeat next year, in part because they aren't tough enough against illegal immigration. You will want to push your Republican non-signers into co-sponsoring the Shuler bill by putting the improvement of American communities ahead of partisan advantage.

As for Democrats, your Capitol Hill Team is hearing that talk about the Shuler bill is spreading through the Members like wildfire, causing a lot of fence-sitting Democrats to consider appeasing their louder and louder constituents by signing onto this bill.

After being crushed by hostile phone and fax from constituents for several years, many of these Democrats are being tempted to do something popular on immigration with this bill which they consider more moderate than previous enforcement bills that have come before them. Your pressure on your Democratic

Representatives may create just the right amount of extra rationale for Democratic leaders in the House to waive aside their preference for amnesties and allow this enforcement bill to get a vote.

I am also happy to report that Representative Shuler has finally made information about this bill available on his site. This bill has a lot of potential and I believe that when it is passed it WILL be landmark legislation, however everyone must stay on top of it. We cannot assume that big bureaucracy will fix itself. Please urge all legislators to give it a full and fair hearing but also encourage everyone to work on resolving the massive government bureaucracy it may start.