The immigration bill that died on Capitol Hill on Thursday may have been President Bush’s last chance at enacting a major domestic initiative in the final 19 months of his term.
With the nation’s attention already shifting to Bush’s possible successor, most political analysts give him little chance of reviving immigration reform or other pet programs, such as Social Security reform, which died in 2005.
“From here forward, on the domestic front, he can only tweak things,” said Richard Benedetto, who teaches politics and journalism at American and Georgetown universities. “I can’t see anything on the horizon that Bush can push through.”
Senate backers of Bush’s immigration bill, which would have granted legal status to illegal immigrants, could only muster 46 votes to end debate Thursday, 16 shy of the necessary 60, effectively dooming the legislation. A grim-faced Bush expressed his disappointment during a trip to Rhode Island, although he refused to give up on his broader domestic agenda.
“The American people understand the status quo is unacceptable when it comes to our immigration laws,” Bush told reporters. “A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn’t find common ground. It didn’t work.
“Congress really needs to prove to the American people that it can come together on hard issues,” he added, citing energy, health care and the need to balance the federal budget. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
But an increasingly emboldened Democratic Congress has shown little interest in handing Bush legislative victories, particularly on the domestic front. The last best effort in this arena might have been immigration.
“There just isn’t a legislative agenda anymore. That’s it. That finishes it,” said presidential historian Stephen Hess, who teaches at George Washington University. “I would say that he will focus for the rest of his term on international relations. This in fact is not so unusual at the end of a two-term administration.”
Benedetto cautioned against writing off a president who swings for the fences when least expected.
“What strikes me about Bush is that he seems to be different from a lot of other presidents in the second half of their second term, when they really end up just sort of playing defense,” he said. “I get the sense that this guy, Bush, is going to continue to at least try to do some things on offense.”
Key provisions of the failed immigration bill:
¯ The Z visa would have granted probationary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
¯ The Y visa would have allowed hundreds of thousands of temporary guest workers to stay in the U.S. for two years.
¯ The bill would have beefed up border security by adding 20,000 border patrol agents and 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border.
