It strikes me that a highly successful congressional maneuver of the 1950s might be revived in effort to sink the proposed "comprehensive immigration reform" bill (S.744).
It was then called the Powell Amendment, and it was named for the flamboyant and controversial congressman from Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell (D-N.Y.).
The Republicans in the House, then in the minority, used the Powell Amendment successfully to block something they opposed, but the Democrats wanted — federal funding of local public school construction. There are parallels in the current fight over the proposed massive amnesty.
Let's look back to 1956 when the Democrats had a 232-203 majority in the House, roughly the margin that the Republicans now have there. Brown v. Board of Education had been decided two years earlier and Powell argued, with some justification, that if there were to be federal funds for school construction, those funds should only be used in districts that were not segregated.
The Republicans realized that the federal funds bill probably would pass if there was no non-segregation provision in it, there still being a number of conservative southern Democrats in the body.
About half the GOP members then joined liberal Democrats in passing the Powell Amendment and then the Republicans turned around and, in a bloc, voted down the school construction bill.
The Republicans not only got their way, they pushed many Democrats, including the dean of the Black members, William Dawson (D-Ill.), into a terribly awkward vote, causing him to speak against the anti-segregation amendment. For a scholarly analysis of these developments, see Gerry Mackie's book Democracy Defended.
This time around the equivalent of the Powell Amendment is the effort to make sure that same-sex couples have the same rights under the immigration law as straight ones. There is a lot of support for this among Democrats, including Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), leader of the Senate Gang of Eight, whose bill, S 744, does not include a gay rights provision.
Now Schumer has told the media that he will support an amendment to the bill to extend immigration rights to gay couples. What would happen were he to introduce such an amendment in the Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, and all the Republicans voted for it? This would produce nine votes (including Schumer's) in the 18-member committee and would need one more Democrat to make a majority.
Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has said repeatedly that a gay rights provision would kill the bill in the House.
Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee, or on the House Floor could, similarly, vote for the gay rights amendment, and then could vote against the amended bill.
But will the Republicans be deft enough to take this sure-fire step to kill the amnesty? Their predecessors more than 50 years ago had the needed skills (and nerve) in a similar situation and carried the day.
To some extent this kind of strategic voting takes place routinely in the Congress. For example, pro-gun-control Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted against the most recent gun control legislation so that he could, in the future, move for reconsideration, something he could not do had he voted for the bill. He will not be hurt by that action.
