that the senate gang of eight, and i will continue to call them gang members, that they stuck together. they were actually able to defeat the worst amendments that had been offered, many amendments actually weren t offered up for a vote and, in fact, we were able to get many affirmative positive amendments through, so i think at the end of the markup, the bill has been mostly unscathed, slightly improved. that said, there are actually a lot of problems in the base bill, as felipe mentioned, for example, the fact that the sibling category has been eliminated, the fact that diversity visas were struck, the fact that lgbt binational partners aren t able to petition members out of yesterday s vote. it will continue to be tougher votes. quickly, felipe, you going to get another shot at this, you think? i want to finish by saying 267,000 immigrants are lgbt.
politically? they feel they made the right choice yesterday. i don t know that ultimately is the right choice in history. i think as senator leahy said, 50 years from now, our grandchildren will look back and say, how did this discriminatory law stay as part of our immigration law. that said, though, this is a very complexed immigration law, the bill is very complexed, and we re going to be this is just one of many difficult choices, many difficult votes, that will have to be made throughout the next months. felipe, my read of the politics, and i could be completely wrong, my read is that could have been a poison pill, which is the reason why they made the right call. to argue against myself for a second, it does strike her, the next question you asked, if the democrats are willing to compromise on this, what else are they willing to compromise and have they set themselves up with a much weaker hand going
can. i accept the tough choices and the painful, but necessary imperfection of compromise, which is at the heart of our system of government. we re talking about the landmark immigration reform bill that passed a major hurdle in the senate at the expense of a provision that would have protected gay and lesbian couples. jo felipe, since you don t agree with my reading of the politics on this, why do you think democrats were wrong to kill the leahy amendment yesterday? they had a false choice. their choice was to either cement discrimination into immigration law or to change the system that has been wrong from the very beginning. we re talking about comprehensive immigration reform, and we should comprehensively change laws that harm people in real life and real time. do you reject the political