Macaca
11-28 07:49 AM
As Lott Leaves the Senate, Compromise Appears to Be a Lost Art (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702358.html) By Jonathan Weisman | Washington Post, November 28, 2007; A04
In January, as a dormant Senate chamber entered its fourth hour of inaction and a major ethics bill lay tangled in knots, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) took to the Senate floor with a plaintive plea.
"Here we are, the sun has set on Thursday. It is a quarter to 6. The sun officially went down at 5:13. We are like bats," the veteran lawmaker lamented to a near-empty chamber. "Hello, it is a quarter to 6. . . . I have called everybody involved. I have been to offices. I have been stirring around, scurrying around. Is there an agenda here?"
The next 10 months appear to have given him the answer. A major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws went down in flames. Just two of a dozen annual spending bills passed Congress, and one of those was vetoed. Repeated efforts to force a course change in Iraq ended in recrimination and stalemate. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) filed 56 motions to break off filibusters to try to complete legislation, a total that is nearing the record of 61 such "cloture motions" in a two-year Congress.
And on Monday, Lott, one of the Senate's consummate dealmakers, called it quits.
"Is he the most frustrated he's ever been? Probably not," said David Hoppe, Lott's longtime chief of staff, now with the lobbying firm Quinn, Gillespie & Associates. "But frustration is cumulative."
Lott's departure from Capitol Hill in the coming weeks after 34 years in Congress -- 16 in the House, 18 in the Senate -- is further evidence that bonhomie and cross-party negotiating are losing their currency, even in the backslapping Senate. With the Senate populated by a record number of former House members, the rules of the Old Boys' Club are giving way to the partisan trench warfare and party-line votes that prevail in the House. States once represented by common-ground dealmakers, including John Breaux (D-La.), David L. Boren (D-Okla.), James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), are now electing ideological stalwarts, such as David Vitter (R-La.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
"The Senate is predicated on the ability of people being able to work together," said former senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who was majority whip for much of Lott's years as majority leader. "I'm not throwing rocks at anybody, but there's just been a lot less of that."
Former majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) agreed: "Senator Lott's resignation means the loss of one of the few Republicans in leadership who often excelled in finding compromise and common ground."
Lott has never been a policy moderate, inclined to reach agreement with Democrats on ideological grounds. But he has almost always been a pragmatist, relishing the art of the deal. Just last month, as he labored to crack a wall of Democratic opposition to the confirmation of U.S. Appeals Judge Leslie H. Southwick, Lott wondered aloud to an aide why he was working so hard for a man he did not really know and for someone who was much more closely allied with Mississippi's other Republican senator, Thad Cochran.
"I said to him, 'You know, it's not that you like Southwick. You just like the process. You want the deal,' and he just smiled," recalled the Lott aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was divulging private deliberations. "It was a game. It was, 'Let me figure out how to get this done.' "
Such dealmakers still wander the Senate's halls: Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah.). And others could arise as a generation schooled in pragmatism -- such as John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) -- heads for the exits next year.
"Just because an individual leaves doesn't mean you're not going to find new centers to structure work in the United States Senate," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to former majority leader (R-Tenn.). Lott would "be the first to say that no individual is indispensable."
But with the Senate almost dysfunctional, those new power centers are difficult to find.
"The Senate is still a great deliberative body," Nickles said. "But it's a little less congenial and a little too partisan."
Lott made a career out of the art of the deal. In the summer of 1996, after then-Sen. Robert J. Dole resigned to pursue the White House full time, Lott took the reins of a Senate that had ground to a halt as Democrats moved to thwart GOP accomplishments ahead of the presidential election. Lott implored his colleagues to act.
In short order, Congress approved a major overhaul of the nation's welfare laws, cleared a bevy of other bills and cut a deal with the Clinton White House on annual spending bills. After the election, Hoppe recalled, Clinton called Lott to joke that had he not gotten the Senate back on track, the Democrats might well have recaptured a chamber of Congress.
The next year, White House Chief of Staff Erskine B. Bowles and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin -- both wealthy Wall Street financiers -- sat huddled in Lott's office, as Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tried to cut a final deal on a balanced budget agreement that included a cut to the capital gains tax rate.
"There they were, two Democrats who had been very successful in business, squaring off with two Republicans who didn't have two nickels to rub together," Hoppe recalled.
They struck a deal: Cut the capital gains rate and create a major federal program to offer health insurance to children of the working poor.
After the 2000 election, which left the Senate deadlocked at 50 seats apiece, Lott again struck a deal that angered many in his party. Although Republicans technically had control of the Senate with the vote of newly elected Vice President Cheney, Lott and Daschle agreed to evenly divide the committees. Moreover, they agreed, if one party won a majority midstream, either through a party switch, a resignation or a death, the other party would agree to relinquish control without a fight.
Lott reasoned that the deadlocked Senate could waste the first months of George W. Bush's fledgling presidency in a process fight, or he could relent early and get to work.
But such deals are getting harder to come by.
On June 7, as Lott absorbed increasingly virulent attacks from conservatives for his support of a bipartisan immigration overhaul, he took to the Senate floor for another appeal.
"This is the time where we are going to see whether we are a Senate anymore," he intoned. "Are we men or mice? Are we going to slither away from this issue and hope for some epiphany to happen? No. Let's legislate. Let's vote."
Three weeks later, the immigration bill fell to a Republican filibuster, and Congress slithered away from the issue.
In January, as a dormant Senate chamber entered its fourth hour of inaction and a major ethics bill lay tangled in knots, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) took to the Senate floor with a plaintive plea.
"Here we are, the sun has set on Thursday. It is a quarter to 6. The sun officially went down at 5:13. We are like bats," the veteran lawmaker lamented to a near-empty chamber. "Hello, it is a quarter to 6. . . . I have called everybody involved. I have been to offices. I have been stirring around, scurrying around. Is there an agenda here?"
The next 10 months appear to have given him the answer. A major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws went down in flames. Just two of a dozen annual spending bills passed Congress, and one of those was vetoed. Repeated efforts to force a course change in Iraq ended in recrimination and stalemate. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) filed 56 motions to break off filibusters to try to complete legislation, a total that is nearing the record of 61 such "cloture motions" in a two-year Congress.
And on Monday, Lott, one of the Senate's consummate dealmakers, called it quits.
"Is he the most frustrated he's ever been? Probably not," said David Hoppe, Lott's longtime chief of staff, now with the lobbying firm Quinn, Gillespie & Associates. "But frustration is cumulative."
Lott's departure from Capitol Hill in the coming weeks after 34 years in Congress -- 16 in the House, 18 in the Senate -- is further evidence that bonhomie and cross-party negotiating are losing their currency, even in the backslapping Senate. With the Senate populated by a record number of former House members, the rules of the Old Boys' Club are giving way to the partisan trench warfare and party-line votes that prevail in the House. States once represented by common-ground dealmakers, including John Breaux (D-La.), David L. Boren (D-Okla.), James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), are now electing ideological stalwarts, such as David Vitter (R-La.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
"The Senate is predicated on the ability of people being able to work together," said former senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who was majority whip for much of Lott's years as majority leader. "I'm not throwing rocks at anybody, but there's just been a lot less of that."
Former majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) agreed: "Senator Lott's resignation means the loss of one of the few Republicans in leadership who often excelled in finding compromise and common ground."
Lott has never been a policy moderate, inclined to reach agreement with Democrats on ideological grounds. But he has almost always been a pragmatist, relishing the art of the deal. Just last month, as he labored to crack a wall of Democratic opposition to the confirmation of U.S. Appeals Judge Leslie H. Southwick, Lott wondered aloud to an aide why he was working so hard for a man he did not really know and for someone who was much more closely allied with Mississippi's other Republican senator, Thad Cochran.
"I said to him, 'You know, it's not that you like Southwick. You just like the process. You want the deal,' and he just smiled," recalled the Lott aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was divulging private deliberations. "It was a game. It was, 'Let me figure out how to get this done.' "
Such dealmakers still wander the Senate's halls: Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah.). And others could arise as a generation schooled in pragmatism -- such as John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) -- heads for the exits next year.
"Just because an individual leaves doesn't mean you're not going to find new centers to structure work in the United States Senate," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to former majority leader (R-Tenn.). Lott would "be the first to say that no individual is indispensable."
But with the Senate almost dysfunctional, those new power centers are difficult to find.
"The Senate is still a great deliberative body," Nickles said. "But it's a little less congenial and a little too partisan."
Lott made a career out of the art of the deal. In the summer of 1996, after then-Sen. Robert J. Dole resigned to pursue the White House full time, Lott took the reins of a Senate that had ground to a halt as Democrats moved to thwart GOP accomplishments ahead of the presidential election. Lott implored his colleagues to act.
In short order, Congress approved a major overhaul of the nation's welfare laws, cleared a bevy of other bills and cut a deal with the Clinton White House on annual spending bills. After the election, Hoppe recalled, Clinton called Lott to joke that had he not gotten the Senate back on track, the Democrats might well have recaptured a chamber of Congress.
The next year, White House Chief of Staff Erskine B. Bowles and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin -- both wealthy Wall Street financiers -- sat huddled in Lott's office, as Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tried to cut a final deal on a balanced budget agreement that included a cut to the capital gains tax rate.
"There they were, two Democrats who had been very successful in business, squaring off with two Republicans who didn't have two nickels to rub together," Hoppe recalled.
They struck a deal: Cut the capital gains rate and create a major federal program to offer health insurance to children of the working poor.
After the 2000 election, which left the Senate deadlocked at 50 seats apiece, Lott again struck a deal that angered many in his party. Although Republicans technically had control of the Senate with the vote of newly elected Vice President Cheney, Lott and Daschle agreed to evenly divide the committees. Moreover, they agreed, if one party won a majority midstream, either through a party switch, a resignation or a death, the other party would agree to relinquish control without a fight.
Lott reasoned that the deadlocked Senate could waste the first months of George W. Bush's fledgling presidency in a process fight, or he could relent early and get to work.
But such deals are getting harder to come by.
On June 7, as Lott absorbed increasingly virulent attacks from conservatives for his support of a bipartisan immigration overhaul, he took to the Senate floor for another appeal.
"This is the time where we are going to see whether we are a Senate anymore," he intoned. "Are we men or mice? Are we going to slither away from this issue and hope for some epiphany to happen? No. Let's legislate. Let's vote."
Three weeks later, the immigration bill fell to a Republican filibuster, and Congress slithered away from the issue.
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Blog Feeds
08-03 12:50 PM
A Federal Judge has certified a nationwide class in a challenge to the USCIS's restrictive interpretation of the "automatic conversion" clause in the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) of 2002. This opens the way for children who have "aged-out" to be reunited with their parents. The USCIS has resisted implementing this important section of law for the past seven years. Just a few weeks ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), in Matter of Wang, adopted the government's restrictive interpretation of the automatic conversion clause. On July 16, Federal Judge James Selna (Central District, California), over government objections, made his...
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/carlshusterman/2009/07/cspa-update.html)
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/carlshusterman/2009/07/cspa-update.html)
[uber]
05-24 06:17 PM
um can't see it
2011 Drink Up The Black amp; White
Kevin Sadler
May 14th, 2004, 04:35 PM
do rating guidelines exist somewhere?
actually i'd rather just give feedback and no rating. is that possible?
thx everyone. this is a great site and i hope to contribute.
actually i'd rather just give feedback and no rating. is that possible?
thx everyone. this is a great site and i hope to contribute.
more...
amitga
06-05 04:49 PM
EB2 - ROW has 5000+ cases pending = No Spill over:(
dealsnet
04-29 02:00 PM
You ask this question to lawyers in IV.
Lawyers are giving US immigration answers. Not Indian PIO vs OCI cards.
You can ask GC related questions here.
If you are lazy to search in google, see the link below.
OCI vs PIO Card. Detailed comparison whether you should get OCI card or PIO card for persons of Indian origin (http://www..com/nri/pio-vs-oci.html)
Lawyers are giving US immigration answers. Not Indian PIO vs OCI cards.
You can ask GC related questions here.
If you are lazy to search in google, see the link below.
OCI vs PIO Card. Detailed comparison whether you should get OCI card or PIO card for persons of Indian origin (http://www..com/nri/pio-vs-oci.html)
more...
muralip
10-10 11:04 AM
Hi,
Can anymore list down what are the documents required to show up at USCIS for Finger Printing.
Regards,
Murali
Can anymore list down what are the documents required to show up at USCIS for Finger Printing.
Regards,
Murali
2010 The Black and White Years
santoshmn
06-17 12:47 PM
Hi all,
My PERM labour certification was filed on 25th oct 2006, my case was selected for random audit on dec 06. My attorney replied with all the evidence for the audit. After reviewing the case CO at dol denied my case on Feb 07.
My attorney has asked my case to be reconsidered/reopen on March 2007 as they are confident that they have supplied all the documents required for the case. My attorney says it will take 6-8 months for DOL reopen the case and judicate the same which is Nov 07. what is best option i have as all the dates are current now? i have discussed with my attorney they have told me clearly they are not going to reapply as its a very big company and it will take lot of time for me to get clearance to file my perm again.
Does anybody having experience like my case can share your views it will be really helpful.
Thanks,
Santosh.M.N
My PERM labour certification was filed on 25th oct 2006, my case was selected for random audit on dec 06. My attorney replied with all the evidence for the audit. After reviewing the case CO at dol denied my case on Feb 07.
My attorney has asked my case to be reconsidered/reopen on March 2007 as they are confident that they have supplied all the documents required for the case. My attorney says it will take 6-8 months for DOL reopen the case and judicate the same which is Nov 07. what is best option i have as all the dates are current now? i have discussed with my attorney they have told me clearly they are not going to reapply as its a very big company and it will take lot of time for me to get clearance to file my perm again.
Does anybody having experience like my case can share your views it will be really helpful.
Thanks,
Santosh.M.N
more...
nfinity
04-16 03:40 PM
Hello Attorneys,
My company recently moved offices to a new location just a few miles from the old location. Its in an adjacent county but with in the same state. We moved from Northbrook, IL to Deerfield IL, does this warrant a change in LCA/H1B?
Please advise.
Thanks
My company recently moved offices to a new location just a few miles from the old location. Its in an adjacent county but with in the same state. We moved from Northbrook, IL to Deerfield IL, does this warrant a change in LCA/H1B?
Please advise.
Thanks
hair Scott, The Black And White
mn1975
05-09 11:59 AM
Hello
Is there a time limit within which one has to enter US after he/she gets a tourist visa (B2)
any help is appreciated
thanks
Is there a time limit within which one has to enter US after he/she gets a tourist visa (B2)
any help is appreciated
thanks
more...
HaveQuestions
03-16 03:50 AM
Hi all,
I have posted my case details but here it is again. I got a reject on my H1 after receiving 221(g) form. Same old reason cited in the letter. The case reached USCIS on 28th Jan and no progress after that.
My husband works for the same company and he got his visa stamped after 221(g). Now i am planning to apply for H4. I have a few questions.
1)Can i go for H4 stamping without revoking my earlier H1? Will i be asked to revoke my H1?
2)Since my husband works for the same firm and i got a reject working for the same firm, can my H4 be a problem?
3)Can it be a problem to my husband's H1 who got it stamped successfully and is already in the US?
4)My idea of not revoking H1 is because i want to try a COS once i am in US, which some people have done it successfully. But does anyone know if this has to be done before April, before the new H1B quota opens up?
I have posted my case details but here it is again. I got a reject on my H1 after receiving 221(g) form. Same old reason cited in the letter. The case reached USCIS on 28th Jan and no progress after that.
My husband works for the same company and he got his visa stamped after 221(g). Now i am planning to apply for H4. I have a few questions.
1)Can i go for H4 stamping without revoking my earlier H1? Will i be asked to revoke my H1?
2)Since my husband works for the same firm and i got a reject working for the same firm, can my H4 be a problem?
3)Can it be a problem to my husband's H1 who got it stamped successfully and is already in the US?
4)My idea of not revoking H1 is because i want to try a COS once i am in US, which some people have done it successfully. But does anyone know if this has to be done before April, before the new H1B quota opens up?
hot The Black and White Years have
MerciesOfInjustices
03-05 08:58 AM
If there are any physician members in the DC area, we need your help - mainly for a meeting next Friday-Saturday. Even if you are a physician member in another part of the country who can travel to the DC area on March 10-11, 2006, please email us at alok@immigrationvoice.org.
more...
house The Black and White Years
jaisanuj@gmail.com
06-16 08:16 PM
Hi,
Is it possible to start process of h1 transfer with two companies? I have started process with company A and now i have got company B who want to hire me and they want to do H1 transfer. Please let me know.
Thanks
Is it possible to start process of h1 transfer with two companies? I have started process with company A and now i have got company B who want to hire me and they want to do H1 transfer. Please let me know.
Thanks
tattoo The Black and White Years CD
agesilaus
November 24th, 2005, 12:14 PM
File->Script->Image Processor lets you batch convert to .jpg, tif and psd. Or any combination thereof. You can run an action on the batch too.
BK
BK