Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this weekend promised to force the Senate to vote on an immigration bill, the Dream Act, in a lame-duck session of Congress next month.
Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is in a desperate battle to keep his Senate seat, told Univision's "Al Punto," a Sunday political talk show, that he has the right as majority leader to decide what legislation reaches the floor, and said he is "a believer in needing to do something" on immigration.
In doing so, he elevated immigration to join jobs, spending and tax cuts — the issues most lawmakers expect to dominate Congress when they reconvene in November.
"I just need a handful of Republicans. I would settle for two or three Republicans to join with me on the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform, but they have not been willing to step forward," Mr. Reid said. "They want to keep talking about this issue, and I say [it] is demagoguery in its worst fashion and is unfair to the Hispanic community."
The Dream Act would grant legal status and a path to citizenship to illegal immigrant schoolchildren and to illegal immigrants who agree to serve in the U.S. military.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/31/reid-vows-immigration-vote-lame-duck-congress/
