NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, January 13th, 2014

Bring the DREAM Act up for a vote, Senator! An open letter to Majority Leader Rodney Tom

Edi­tor’s note: Ear­li­er today, fol­low­ing the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ light­ning fast pas­sage of the DREAM Act, NPI founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor Andrew Vil­leneuve sent this mes­sage to Sen­a­tor Rod­ney Tom, who rep­re­sents the 48th Dis­trict (Belle­vue, Red­mond, Kirk­land, Med­i­na, Clyde Hill) and is — at least in name — the Major­i­ty Leader of the Wash­ing­ton State Senate.

Sen­a­tor Tom:

I’m writ­ing about some com­ments you made today. From The Seat­tle Times:

Asked about the Dream Act and the Repro­duc­tive Par­i­ty Act, anoth­er Democrat[ic]-priority bill, Rod­ney Tom said his cau­cus intends to stick to jobs, edu­ca­tion and the budget.

The DREAM Act has to do with edu­ca­tion. So it’s with­in the purview you out­lined to the Seat­tle Times’ Olympia cor­re­spon­dent, Andrew Garber.

Do you have a fall­back excuse to explain why this leg­is­la­tion won’t be com­ing up for a vote this ses­sion, even though the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has just vot­ed, giv­ing the Sen­ate ample time for consideration?

If you’re tru­ly the major­i­ty leader, as opposed to major­i­ty leader in name only, you should be able to bring this bill up for a vote in the Senate.

I mean, besides you, just one oth­er vote from your cau­cus would be need­ed, and then togeth­er, with the Democ­rats, there’d be twen­ty-five votes for this bill.

Sure­ly you could round up one of your fel­low cau­cus mem­bers to cross the aisle and vote aye on the DREAM Act? You’re the one sup­pos­ed­ly in favor of putting things up for a vote when there is a “philo­soph­i­cal” major­i­ty… isn’t that what all that Ninth Order busi­ness was all about in 2012?

What does it mat­ter if the House does­n’t oper­ate that way? It did­n’t stop you, Sen­a­tor Kas­ta­ma, and Sen­a­tor Shel­don from team­ing up with the Repub­li­cans to take over the Sen­ate near­ly two years ago. So what’s to stop you from team­ing up with Democ­rats to pass the DREAM Act now?

I mean, here’s the ludi­crous thing, Sen­a­tor: You still call your­self a Demo­c­rat, but you won’t work with Democ­rats to pass leg­is­la­tion that you say you sup­port.

Since you’re act­ing like a Repub­li­can, you should­n’t be sur­prised when those of us who are actu­al­ly Democ­rats — like me! — call you a Republican.

Actions speak loud­er than words, Sen­a­tor, and talk is cheap.

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One Ping

  1. […] prob­a­bly the bill’s ulti­mate fate, but unlike me, Andrew at NPI took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to write his Sen­a­tor (Sen­a­tor Tom, as it […]

    Ping from HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » WA DREAM Act :: January 15th, 2014 at 7:58 PM
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