July 27, 2006
It’s true. House Republican leader Dennis Hastert (IL) announced nineteen more congressional hearings on immigration for the month of August. After a month of immigration hearings in July, Hastert continues to refuse to name negotiators to a conference committee to make actual progress on an immigration bill. The political ploy has become laughable by now. The ten hearings conducted so far have led to this contribution to the immigration debate: a House Republican effort to re-label the Republican-sponsored Senate bill. Many of the titles of Hastert’s upcoming hearings concern a non-existent “Reid-Kennedy” bill. Hastert may not like the fact that Republicans Chuck Hagel and Mel Martinez sponsored the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill, but his attempt to attribute the bill to Democrats is both deceitful and childish. It is absolutely appalling that Hastert and his cohorts are playing name games rather than working towards progress on an issue on which Americans are demanding reasonable action. I wish someone would calculate how much money House Republicans will cost U.S. taxpayers to hold nineteen more unnecessary hearings. Judging by the contributions of past hearings, about the only thing the American people can expect from nineteen more immigration hearings are nineteen more opportunities for House Republicans to embarrass themselves.
