DREAM Act Whip Count Update
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on Tuesday that he would be “filing cloture” for the DREAM Act, the first step to bringing it to the floor. It now appears that action on the bill could come as early as this week.
The DREAM Act would give undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children a path to citizenship through college enrollment or military service. It’s expected to pass the House of Representatives easily, but in the Senate it needs a super-majority of sixty senators to end debate and allow an up-or-down vote to be held.
Thirty-five Democratic senators have signed on as sponsors of the DREAM Act, and another ten Democrats are understood to be reliable votes for its passage. On the other side, twenty-nine Republicans have long been known to be rock-solid in opposition. That leaves twenty-six senators who are at least theoretically up for grabs, and proponents of the bill need fifteen of those twenty-six to vote yes.
Last Friday I ran down the list of those twenty-six, sussing out where I thought each one stood. Some new info
