Chuck Schumer caught asking if Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake get a pass on voting for immigration amendment

This is an interesting catch by Daniel Horowitz at RedState. In short, Chuck Schumer is heard on tape asking “do our Republicans have a pass on this one?” when voting on a Republican amendment brought by Jeff Sessions. ‘Their Republicans’, namely their gang of eight Republicans Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, are going to be allowed to vote FOR the amendment to look good for their constituencies because Democrats know they can defeat the amendment.

Confused? Think back to Obamacare’s passage. Pelosi allowed certain blue-dog Democrats to vote against Obamacare so they could make it look like they were against Obamacare and that would help protect them among their red state Republican constituencies. But she’d only let them do it if they know they have the votes to pass it. It’s all a big ploy.

So basically Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake are trying to protect themselves by looking like they support a Republican amendment, and the Democrats are allowing it because they don’t need their votes on this amendment.

According to Horowitz, this is the amendment:

Senator Jeff Sessions, who has been a statesman on this issue, offered an amendment to bar illegals from receiving refundable tax credits during the “RPI” amnesty status. Remember, that advocates of the gang’s bill are incessantly denying the fact that these people will receive benefits during the first 10 years of the amnesty. Well, every Democrat affirmed what we already know by voting to retain those benefits. Except, in this case, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake voted with Sessions and the Republicans. If you watch the roll call (at around the 3:05 mark), you can hear Chuck Schumer asking an aid “do our Republicans have a pass on this one?” The aid says, “yes.”

Horowitz calls Graham and Flake Chuck Schumer’s puppy dogs and says “If this doesn’t illustrate for you what is wrong with the whole framework of this amnesty bill, I don’t know what will.” Hard to disagree with that.


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