There’s this draft-bill photo going around (Via N.Z. Bear).
It can only get bigger….?
Indeed. A Senate staffer notes:
The immigration bill is bigger than the Bible, but we’ve had at least a few thousand years to read the Bible.
Note that were this “draft” text of the immigration bill in the official format for Senate legislation, the stack of pages would probably be two to three times higher than it is now. The pictured stack is about 400 pages, but we estimate that the final version of the bill, which may not even be available until after the Senate is forced to vote on it, will likely be close to 1,000 pages.
Also, remember that this is not actually the final version of the immigration language. Who knows what other changes have been made behind closed doors since the photographed version found its way into our hands…
Another Senate aide adds:
it’s still being negotiated and they haven’t given us the final version… e.g. they’ve delayed the “RPC staff briefing” while they keep trying to negotiate…
another key issue here – some perspective on the Administration’s and Republican approach to negotiating is interesting: 1. they agreed to amnesty for all before they got agreement on beefed up enforcement (if you assume any trade would be worth amnesty anyway);2. today’s situation is illustrative as well – they’ve all announced a deal has been reached, Lindsey Graham saying it will pass overwhelmingly, but yet they don’t have text because Kennedy is holding it up – so how do you think those issues will be resolved – in favor of republicans or in favor of democrats – and which side do you think the White House will be on?