Will Hastert Be the Villain?

HOUSE Speaker Dennis Hastert may well be the fly in the ointment when it comes to passage of an immigration bill this year. With a bipartisan compromise bill set to pass the Senate this week, Hastert has decided to get his retaliation in first when it comes to the House/Senate conference to find an agreed bill.

The Washington Post reported that Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean says his boss will invoke the “majority of a majority” rule when it comes to the issue.

In other words, if Hastert is not able to convince a majority of his own party in the House that the bill that comes out of conference is saleable then the immigration issue is dead.

Bonjean stated that Hastert “still embraces the majority of a majority rule first enunciated in a 2003 speech and he intends to do so with any immigration bill that comes out of a House-Senate conference.”

All of which may make some of us wonder what happened to old-fashioned democracy. It appears now that there is a bipartisan majority in the House for the Senate bill and that most of the legalization provisions could remain intact.

However, if Hastert is determined to close down debate and insist that only his side gets to vote, it appears the bill will face a major crisis.

Relations between Hastert and President George W. Bush have become strained recently, especially after Bush fired CIA chief Porter Goss, a close friend of Hastert. If Hastert is making it clear that he will not support the bill in any form then he is on a collision course with Bush, who has now staked his presidential reputation on it.

Of course, we must bear in mind that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was making similar sounds about the need for a Republican majority in the senate and also introduced an enforcement only immigration bill before he saw the light and became a proponent of comprehensive immigration reform that offers a chance of legal status to a good deal of qualified undocumented residents of the U.S. Let’s hope Hastert will head in the same direction.

Is Bush Playing Politics?

IN the same Washington Post article, Bush strategist Charles Black definitely went off message when he suggested that the Bush support for the Senate bill could really just be a ploy to affix blame for any failure of the bill on Democrats.

Black, who has close ties to the White House, stated that the House/Senate conference session would produce a bill much more to the liking of House Republicans than Democrats and that the Senate knows that the bill they are about to pass “is not going to survive in conference.”

Black predicted that “Senate Democrats will kill the conference report, because it will not fulfill their basic requirements. And then who killed immigration reform?” Black asked rhetorically.

Clearly, there are some Republicans and Democrats too, like Black, who see this issue as just one more political pawn in a wider game. Sad to see that they are playing around so thoughtlessly and unfairly with the lives and dreams of millions.

Dodd for White House Run

SENATOR Chris Dodd announced this week that he is fully exploring a run for the presidency in 2008. The Connecticut senator told his local newspaper in Connecticut that he was going to hire a staff and do everything possible to gauge the interest in his candidacy.

The Hartford Cour-ant reported that Dodd made his decision to go for it over dinner with his wife Jackie recently and that he has fully committed to entering the race.

While he would be a longshot, Dodd should not be underestimated. He is one of the most able members of the Senate and has long been a very committed friend on Irish issues. Dodd, a lover of Irish literature, travels to Ireland very frequently and stays in a cottage in the West of Ireland.

Meanwhile, another Irish American in Connecticut, Ned Lamont, is proving a surprisingly strong challenger to incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman. Lamont won almost a third of the votes against Lieberman at the Democratic Party’s state convention last weekend.

With a personal fortune north of $100 million Lamont could prove very troublesome for Lie-berman, who has already gone on the offensive against him — a remarkable move for a sitting incumbent.

Mitchell Scholars Meet Again

MORE than 60 George J. Mitchell Scholarship alums met in Dublin last week to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the program, which was founded by Trina Vargo, former foreign policy staffer for Senator Edward Kennedy. Vargo is now head of the US-Ireland Alliance which chooses the scholars.

Alliance benefactor Derek Quinlan of Quinlan Capital introduced Tanaiste (Deputy Leader) Mary Harney who gave the keynote address and joined Quinlan in presenting the graduating 2006 Scholars with their class rings.

The nearly 200 in attendance included President Bush’s special envoy for the peace process, Mitchell Reiss, U.S. Consul General in Belfast Dean Pittman, and Abbey Theatre director Fiach MacConghail.

The 60 scholars met with young Irish and Northern Ireland leaders, in what was described as one of the rare times such a group has come together to discuss major issues and areas of shared interest and how they could work together. These sessions involved culture, politics, business, science and medicine.