Tuesday’s cloture vote on the senate immigration bill (now S.1639) was only a procedural move to begin discussing the bill (officially called the Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S.1639.) The more traditional cloture vote to begin voting on the actual bill should be later this week.
The same procedure happened in late May when the immigration bill (then S.1348) was first brought to the floor of the senate. That cloture vote to begin debate was on May 21st. Then 69 voted for cloture and 23 voted against. This week’s vote of 64 for, 35 against is a great improvement over May 21st.
June 7th was the cloture vote to close debate and vote on the bill (the one that really mattered.) That vote failed with 34 for cloture and 61 against (Kyl voted against cloture thus helping to stop the bill at that point.)
Looking at this Tuesdays vote in perspective makes it clear that there is still a chance to kill the immigration bill in the senate before it even gets to the house. We will have more updates but do not give up and be ready for action later this week!
