Fence Watch 2: The Senate Approves Measure 80-19

For those who chastized me for suggesting that the President focus on the remaining 80 percent of the folks who could potentially be convinced of the importance of major issues because there's 20% who refuse to accept anything the GOP says or does, it's interesting to note that the 700 mile fence bill was passed by the Senate 80-19. Here's how the Times describes matters:

The Senate vote, 80 to 19, came as lawmakers finished a batch of legislation before heading home to campaign. It sent the fence measure to President Bush, who has promised to sign it despite his earlier push for a more comprehensive approach that could lead to citizenship for some who are in the country illegally.

House Republicans, fearing a voter backlash, had opposed any approach that smacked of amnesty and chose instead to focus on border security in advance of the elections, passing the fence bill earlier this month. With time running out, the Senate acquiesced despite its bipartisan passage of a broader bill in May.

House Republicans feared a backlash, but the Democrats in the Senate completely caved, with how many Democrats joining the GOP in voting to approve the measure? That's not counted towards the fear of voter backlash? The Times partisan agenda shines through once again, because anyone with a pulse should know that the Republicans do not have 80 members in the Senate. That means quite a few Democrats crossed the aisle to vote on this legislation.

Here's the Senators who voted against the bill:

Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM, Cantwell (D-WA), Chafee (R-RI), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Kerry (D-MA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (D-CT), Menendez (D-NJ), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Salazar (D-CO), Sarbanes (D-MD)

While Chafee, who's facing a tough reelection bid crossed the line to vote with against the bill, by my count 24 Democrats voted for the fence legislation, including Senators Schumer, Clinton, Rockefeller, Feinstein, Obama, and Dodd. Ted Kennedy did not vote.

Perhaps the real reason that the bills were passed by the House and Senate by the margins they were was because everyone realized that the fence first option did the most to improve national security and gives ICE the ability to begin to catch up on their mandated job of policing illegal aliens currently in the country and lets Congress punt the issue of how to deal with those illegals already in the country into the future. That so many Democrats voted for this bill suggests that so much of the discussion about the fence legislation was bluster on the part of Democrats who realized that there were real security gains to be had by getting a fence appropriated.

That said, there's still issues to deal with the fence. Funding for the fence appears limited to only build about half of the 700 miles. That's got to be corrected in the new session.

UPDATE:
There's another possible reason that Democrats voted for the bill - they wanted to enhance their credibility on national security, and some of the possible presidential candidates for 2008 voted for this bill, including Biden, Dodd, Clinton, and Obama. So, far from this being all about GOP voter backlash, it can just as easily be a preemption by Democrats to burnish their security credentials. That part escaped the Times analysis. Figures.

The full roll call vote is here.

UPDATE:
The Washington Times has a far more comprehensive take on the border control bill, and Ed Morrissey runs through some of the numbers and rationales for the switches among those Democrats who voted against cloture and then for the bill.

Others blogging: Mickey Kaus, Blue Crab Boulevard, Scott at Powerline, and Hot Air - who notes that Michelle Malkin doesn't think much of even this version as it's underfunded and doesn't quite get the job done.

I've got to disagree with Malkin on this. Something is better than nothing, and it shows that there is sufficient support to get the fence done first. There was insufficent support to go amnesty first and then the fence, or to do the two concurrently. Therefore, I'd suggest that this was a good first step. The next will be to get the rest of the 700 miles built and soon, and then finish off the rest of the US border with Mexico.

Technorati: border control, fence, immigration, mexico, national security.