Hastert Actually Listening?

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has suddenly signaled that he will want to seriously look at the bill passed by the Senate on immigration reform.

Hopes for a quick compromise on immigration were dealt a blow Tuesday after House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he wanted to take a "long look" at a Senate bill offering possible citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants.

Hastert said hearings on the Senate bill should be held before appointing anyone to a House-Senate committee to negotiate a compromise immigration bill. Later, he said he was unsure what the House's next move would be.

"We're going to take a long look at it," Hastert said late Tuesday.

House Majority Leader John Boehner agreed. "I think we should know clearly what's in the Senate bill," Boehner said. But he added there are lots of ways to understand its contents.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also scheduled a hearing for Monday to review provisions in the bill requiring employers to verify that their workers are legal.

Cornyn said he opposes a provision allowing workers to use up to 20 documents to verify they are legal workers. Also, the Department of Homeland Security has raised concerns about how quickly it must have in place an electronic system that employers will use to verify their workers legal status, Cornyn's spokesman Don Stewart said.

"This will give us a chance to look at it in more detail," Cornyn said.

Sending a bill that has already passed the Senate to hearings would be a highly unusual move and make completing a final bill before Congress goes on its summer recess in August far less likely. Disagreement on procedural issue has kept negotiations from starting, but there were hopes that could be resolved this week.

I smell serious trouble for the roll-job the Senate tried to buffalo though. Good. First get the border secure, then start working on compromise for the rest of it. Anything else will not work. Secure the border and a lot becomes possible. Put the monster the Senate gave birth to in place and we are in serious trouble as a nation.