Day two, and the senate barely out of first gear on immigration debate. Alex bollton, senior staff writer on the hill has joined us, what has kept the debate from moving forward on tuesday . Well, republicans and democrats cant agree on what the first votes are going to be, and more specifically democrats dont want to vote on a proposal sponsored by pat toomey, the republican from pennsylvania that would penalize cities, socalled sanctuary cities that dont cooperate with federal Law Enforcement on immigration law. Thats a vote that democrats dont want to have and republicans have insisted on it a couple times already to come to the floor. Mitch mcconnell tried to bring it up midday tuesday and then again at the end of the day tried to get a vote on the toomey proposal. Democrats objected both times. Instead the democrats want to vote on a bipartisan plan backed by chris coons of delaware and john mccain of arizona. That would essentially provide a path to citizenship for the socalled dreamers, the Illegal Immigrants that came at a young age in exchange or Border Security, 25 million in Border Security parcelled out over time. And the other proposal, the democrats have suggested voting on is the legislation sponsor by Chuck Grassley and tom cotton that reflects the president s fourpoint immigration plan. The democrats would rather vote on the trump immigration proposal rather than the toomey sanctuary cities proposal. So, in effect, both sides have really shown their hands on this in terms of what the republicans want, what the democrats want. Ideally at the end of the week what are you hearing from people off the floor and senators of what they think is able to be accomplished by weeks end . Its hard to say at this point because i think the two sides are at logger heads. The schumer says that the basically that the key points of president trumps plan, which is to change the waiting that failing relationships get for green cards and to substantially overhaul the diversity visa lottery program, those arent acceptable. Thats he says thats going beyond the scope of the deferred action for Childhood Arrivals Program which trump rescinded in september, Gave Congress a march deadline to do something with it. Hes willing to entertain reforms that are limited to recipients and the family members of daca recipients, and he doesnt want to go farther than that. If you want to broaden out reforms like republicans do, then the democrats will want additional concessions. He says we wont need to bring out the 11 million living in the shad do shadows. He wants more people wants more citizenship. Thats Chuck Schumers position. Thats unacceptable with republicans right now. To answer your question, where does this all independent up . Its very hard to say. Someone is going to have to back down. Think mcconnell is pretty much daring the republicans to take the republican offer. Its almost a take it or leave it offer at this point, thats what it appears to me. Well see what the democrats do, but given how short the debates going to be, mcconnell emphasized this is only going to go on through the end of the week and theyre not going to take it past the present recess. Its hard to see them arriving at a solution in the next 48 hours. Let me ask you on the headline of the senate because you cover the Senate Leaders and the headline about the Senate Leaders meeting. You talked about mcconnell. The headline said the senate needs to move on from immigration. Theyve got other business, obviously. Whats the timeline this week or specifically wednesday for moving ahead with the immigration debate . Well, this debates been delayed as of tuesday evening, the senate is not on the shell of a bill yet. The democrats had not yielded back the postcloture time. So that means on wednesday morning, the senate will finally be on the bill and then they can start proposing amendments to it and mcconnell can start the process of filing cloture on the amendments, but that means unless there is a bipartisan agreement on how to proceed, the votes may be delayed adds late as friday. Mcconnell told reporters after the republican lunch on tuesday that he is only going to allocate this week to debate immigration reform. He said that he he says that the senate should be able to wrap this up before the present day recess, which starts on saturday and goes for a week, and when the senate comes back he says we have other things to do, so lets get it done down, but there has been a pretty substantial delay to this debate and we dont have time set on amendment votes or we dont even know what those amendments are going to be yet. Lastly, i know youre focused on the senate, but your colleague scott wong had a headline, house gop leaders will whip conservative immigration bill. What are we to make of that . Well, paul ryan, the house speaker, is under pressure from members of his caucus to put forward a conservative immigration counteroffer, and this is something that even goes if its the goodlatte bill, it goes beyond what the president has proposed, the fourpoint plan, but think its essentially hes emphasizing to the democrats in the senate that if you pass if you manage to pick off 11 republicans and pass a narrow bill that trades Border Security for a legal status or path to citizenship for 1. 8 million dreamers, its not going to go anywhere in the house, so i think its a message from the house to senate democrats, basically backing up the position of Mitch Mcconnell and the Senate Republicans that if dreamers are going to be protected, there need to be some substantial reforms included. Alex bolton, senior staff writer with the hill. You can read his reporter at thehill. Com. As always, we appreciate the update. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning, Georgia Republican congressman rob woodall discusses the trump administrations 2019 budget and infrastructure plan. Then California Democratic congressman John Garamendi will also weigh in on president trumps budget. And Wellesley College professor katherine moon will discuss the u. S. Goal of using the olympics to highlight issues with north korea. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, wednesday morning. Join the discussion. Coming up, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the Senate Finance committee on the president s 2019 Budget Proposal. Well join his testimony live starting at 10 30 a. M. Eastern here on cspan3. Veterans Affairs Secretary dr. David shulkin testify testifies about his agents 2019 Budget Proposal thursday. Secretary shulkin appears before the House Veterans Affairs Committee Live at 8 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan3. Sunday night on after words, former u. S. Trade negotiator and Senior Senate staffer ira shapiro with his book broken can the senate save itself and the country . Hes interviewed by former Senate Majority leader tom daschle. Politics was supposed to be about finding a way to overcome some of those differences through principled through extended discussion and a real legislative process, through principled compromise. It wasnt supposed to be about one Party Winning on their own. The times, as you know, the times in history when one party has been able to do this on your own are very few, maybe 1933 and 34, fdr dealing with the depression. Lbj, 64 65, but even lbj reached out to republicans and fdr had republican support the first two years. Watch after words sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2s book tv. Next,
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