“A Very Dangerous Piece Of Legislation.”

The Christian Science Monitor has an article describing the mounting pressure on Republican Senators involved in the immigration "reform" bill. It ain't pretty.

 In South Carolina last week during the congressional break, Sen. Lindsey Graham generally avoided crowds. Likewise Sen. Jon Kyl, back home in Arizona, scheduled no public appearances, instead huddling with party officials in Phoenix.

It could not have been an easy week for the two GOP senators, key brokers of the compromise immigration-reform bill that has infuriated so many of their red-state constituents. How well they and other senators in the hot seat endured the heat may become clear when the Senate resumes debate on the bill this week – and whether the amendments to come are designed mainly to alter it or, rather, to kill it.

The week at home made one thing evident: Senators who back this measure, especially Republicans, are taking a calculated risk.

To some, they are traitors and sellouts, offering "amnesty" to illegal immigrants who broke the law by crossing into the US. Angry constituents promise repercussions at the ballot box, and political analysts say those are not empty threats.

"Among a lot of Republicans, there's been intensely negative reaction directed against the Republican senators who have been involved with [the bill]," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta and coauthor of the book "Divided America." Though the Republican senators "are saying that they're actually responsible for most of the conservative parts of the bill, they're not seen that way by their supporters."

To others, Senators Graham, Kyl, and others who've endeavored to repair a broken immigration system are the statesmen of this age – 21st-century John Calhouns determined to forge ahead on resolving a tough issue that, if not as divisive as slavery was 150 years ago, may at least match the fight over abortion for intensity……

……Brett Mecum, spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party, says that from May 21 through May 25 his office received 1,600 calls from Republicans threatening to tear up their membership cards and join other parties. In 12 years in the business, says Mr. Mecum, he's "never seen people try to walk away from the party, this irate over one single issue, as last week here." That volume of calls led Randy Pullen, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, to call a press conference to say that the Arizona GOP opposes the proposed law.

"Our research shows that [Kyl and Graham] are delusional if they think that the Republican base, the conservative base, is happy with that bill," says Matt Towery, CEO of Insider Advantage, a nonpartisan polling firm in Atlanta. "I think they're trying to talk themselves into believing that, but it's not working."Adds Mr. Towery, "Will certain Republicans lose a percentage of their core base over this? At least temporarily, yes. Will it make them more vulnerable? Yes."

The focus of this article is on the Republicans, but there is one, tiny little sentence that bears attention:

The only real public support Kyl has received so far has come from Arizona's Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who wrote an op-ed calling the legislation a good start. Democratic lawmakers, for their part, are also feeling the heat. Illegal immigration "is a complex problem – it cuts at our core values of what it means to be American, part of which is being fair and at the same time not getting a free ride," says US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona, who has held constituent meetings throughout her 9,000-square-mile district that includes the busy border crossing at Douglas. (Emphasis added)

I think this will damage every Senator up for reelection in 2008 who supports it, regardless of party. And, yet again, for the record, I believe that if the government addresses the border first, the rest can be dealt with. But that is the only way this is going to be palatable to the vast majority of voters in this country. There have been too many broken promises for the voters to believe that the tough talk about borders isn't being undermined by other provisions in the monster bill the Senate has produced. Here's an idea: break the border security provisions out into a separate companion bill and make that bill tough, easy to understand and legislatively bullet-proof. (In other words, make sure it cannot be undermined by provisions in the rest of the "compromise." Do that and maybe you can, in the immortal words of Mel Brooks, save your phony-baloney jobs. If not, the closing line of the article should give Senators - regardless of party - pause: "But for every one of these senators … this is a very dangerous piece of legislation."