Spreadsheet Changes + Interpreting Senate-Speak

In the next few hours, there are going to be some changes to the spreadsheet. We're going to have to make columns for "firmly against," "leans against," "firmly for," and "leans for" because its hard to get a position out of many politicians.

To be fair -- none of these representatives have read the bill yet. I doubt ANYONE other than the aides doing the writing has read it yet.

But the other reason? Your representatives aren't speaking clearly on this issue.

When you get a response from a Senator that he/she "opposes amnesty." What does that mean? Very little. You need to know whether the Senator thinks this bill is amnesty. Even some of the bill's sponsors yesterday said the "I oppose amnesty" line.

One constituent of Sen. Sessions was pointed by an office worker to this link:
http://sessions.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=273994

Now, does this entire release really say much? The one thing we know Sen. Sessions stands for is sufficient time to read the bill. What a brave stand, akin to Nathan Hale! /sarcasm. This is classic "Senate-Speak" for "I've left wiggle room to go either way on this bill, and some awfully powerful people like President Bush and Senator Kyl are pushing this on me, so unless my constituents go crazy, I can be persuaded."

So go make those calls and send those emails.