Dude...FIVE Dems voted agains the Bill....that killed it without any help from the GOP
and that included Schumer...head of Senate
The border security bill, S.4361, received fewer votes Thursday as a standalone bill than it had as part of the larger foreign aid package in February, when it failed on a 49-50 procedural vote. Sixty votes are needed to advance bills in the Senate.
The bill did not get all Democrats on board, which Schumer acknowledged earlier this week was a possibility.
“We do not expect every Democrat or every Republican to come out in favor of this bill,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “The only way to pass this bill – or any border bill – is with broad bipartisan support.”
But the bill failed to attract that broad support, losing backing even from Democrats who had voted for the foreign aid package.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said in a Wednesday statement that while he voted for the larger package in early February — mostly because it included critical aid to Ukraine — he would not do so this time around because the bill was too restrictive.
“I will not vote for the bill coming to the Senate floor this week because it includes several provisions that will violate Americans’ shared values,” Booker said. “The proposed bill would exclude people fleeing violence and persecution from seeking asylum and instead doubles down on failed anti-immigrant policies that encourage irregular immigration.”
‘Another cynical, political game’
Democratic senators who voted against moving the bill forward included Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler of California, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Booker. Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sinema also voted against.
Sinema said she voted against advancing her own bill because she felt Democrats were using her bill to “point the finger back at the other party.”
“Yet another cynical, political game,” she said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to vote to advance the bill after Lankford voted against the bill he helped write.
Lankford said Thursday’s vote was “a prop.”
“Everyone sees this for what it is,” he said. “It is not an actual effort to make law, it is an effort to do political messaging.”
Padilla, who voted against the larger package, said on the Senate floor Thursday that he was disappointed Democrats were voting on the bill again because it did not address the root causes of migration or create lawful pathways to citizenship for children brought into the U.S. without authorization known as Dreamers, farmworkers, and noncitizens who have been in the country for decades.
He urged other Democrats to vote no.
“The proposal before us was initially supposed to be a concession, a ransom to be paid to Republicans to pass urgent and critical aid to Ukraine,” Padilla said. “What’s this concession for now? It’s hard to swallow.”
Senate Republicans accused Democrats of bringing the bill as a political stunt.
“One thing the American people don’t have to wonder about is why Washington Democrats are suddenly champing at the bit to convince their constituents that they care about border security,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor Thursday. “(Americans) know the solution is not cynical Senate theater.”
Biden called McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday night to ask them to vote for the bill, but both Republican leaders rejected that appeal.
