Joe Lieberman: “with so many important questions facing this Senate, and so little time left before we adjourn before the fall…”

“with so many important questions facing this Senate, and so little time left before we adjourn before the fall elections, I am dismayed that we are considering this so-called Secure Fence Act. I say this as a supporter of the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform we passed in May. I say this as one of many who followed the leadership of Senators Frist and Reid, Specter and Leahy, McCain and Kennedy, when 62 Senators voted for true reform legislation. And now look where we are. After a great success, the Senate is now considering abandoning that truly comprehensive and bipartisan solution to a festering national problem and replacing it with an incomplete, ineffective response to our broken immigration system. How did we come to such a low point this fall, after such promise this spring? I will tell you how. The opponents of reform obstructed and delayed. They refused to enter into a conference--even to discuss the possibility of reconciling House and Senate legislation. Instead we watched the opponents of reform roll out a farcical road show of hearings designed to distort the facts, confuse the issues and roil the waters to create a national anxiety that need not exist. With that out of the way, these same obstructionists have now reintroduced large portions of the punitive and ineffective House legislation the Senate already rejected earlier this year.”