Late Night Vote Killed Immigration Bill?

That's what Politico.com is reporting. They note that a late night vote on an amendment to the huge immigration bill may have killed the deal. The amendment was proposed by Sen. Bryan Dorgan (D-SD) to eliminate the temporary guest worker program after five years:

By a one-vote margin, just after midnight, the Senate adopted a potential deal-killer amendment to the immigration bill.

The late-night voting spree tested the bipartisan Senate coalition's ability to swat aside so-called killer amendments, at times using procedural maneuvers to block their passage.

But they couldn't thwart adoption of an amendment from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-S.D.) that would disband the temporary guest worker program after five years. It was unclear how the coalition would proceed.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told the Associated Press that he or his allies would slightly reword Dorgan’s amendment and hope for a change of heart by one or more senators who “don’t want to kill the bill.”

Two weeks ago, the Dorgan amendment failed by a one-vote margin after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) convinced Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) to change his vote on the Senate floor. It received broad Democratic support, and its inclusion could make the bill more palatable to Democrats, who dislike aspects of the guest worker program. However, the program is crucial to winning support from business groups.

This time, two strong opponents of the bill -- Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) -- switched their votes from "no" two weeks ago to "yes" this morning, as did Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.).

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) went from a "yes" two weeks ago to a "no" this morning.

The missing senators were Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a presidential candidate, who has voted for the Dorgan amendment, and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who is recovering from a brain hemorrhage.

Those who opposed the immigration bill, such as DeMint and Bunning, appear to have made the strategic and tactical move here to support a poison bill provision (the sunset provision on the guest worker program) that would effectively kill the entire package.

It remains to be seen whether immigration bill backers would have enough votes to get this deal through. The Washington Post claims that the immigration bill has sufficient support, but only barely. There were other amendments made last night as well, which alter the "flavor" of the bill from grossly distasteful to mildly distasteful:

Still, the bill took a decidedly conservative turn last night with the adoption of amendments that would at once declare English the national language and designate English the "common language" of the United States. The Senate also blocked the bill's newly legalized undocumented workers from receiving the earned-income tax credit, while denying legalized undocumented workers any Social Security benefits they may have earned after overstaying their visa.

Senators also undid a provision that would keep information from visa applications confidential.

But those changes were not immediately hailed as deal-breakers. The vote to sunset the guest-worker program came so late that its impact was not clear. The known challenges to the bargain were defeated, however. One such proposal, by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), would have blocked legalization for a broad array of legal infractions, including scrapes with immigration courts.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has been covering all the events late into the night and has a mondo roundup of the amendments that passed and failed.

UPDATE:
If you want an example of why I think this immigration bill is ineffective and would not alleviate any of the problems that its proponents claim would be solved, I point you to the implementation of passport changes earlier this year that require US citizens going to Mexico, Canada and the Carribean to have passports. The government can't get that program operating correctly or process applications timely, and we're supposed to believe that illegal aliens who have already shown that they do not adhere to the law would follow the procedures or that the government has the capacity to process said forms properly (ie conduct proper background checks and not some asinine less than 24-hour check? I don't think so.

UPDATE:
The immigration bill is dead for now after the pro-amnesty bill folks couldn't get enough votes on a motion to end debate (cloture). Hot Air and Michelle Malkin have the details. Michelle has been live blogging the debate and various procedural moves all day long, and the latest move to end debate failed 45-50, which signaled to Reid that he simply didn't have the votes.

He's said that he'd try to pass various parts of an immigration package over the next few weeks.