As mid-october rolls around, I proud to be the person to report on the latest legislative update.

As of today, we currently have 100 co-sponsors in the House, while in the Senate we have reached the halfway mark with 30 co-sponsor. For those of you who are reading posts at DreamActivist for the first time, have still to brush up on your civics, or you’re that one person that still does not familiarize themselves with the legislative process, this solely means that we have half the amount of votes needed in order to break filibuster* and ensure the safe passage of the Dream Act.

*an action such as a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a legislative assembly [Congress] while not technically contravening the required procedures: i.e The Dream Act  it was defeated by a Senate filibuster in November.

While the example above has some truth to it, we need to ensure that this time around that is not the case. Since its introduction on March 26th of this year, we have come a long seven months in order to get to where we currently are. That is without say that we haven’t had our hiccups, our fun times, more or less hilarious anecdotes that we will probably publicize at some point in time (maybe….). However, we have also gone back and forth within the votes that we need, most notably in the Senate which seems to be the place where the most wacky-crazy things happen this time around.

Senator Specter changed parties, and is now a co-sponsor. Senator Kennedy passed away, and with his death we lost one of the biggest advocates for immigration reform, which in turn also means a potential lost vote for the Dream Act. Senator Mel Martinez, a previous on the fence Senator, and ultimately a secured vote for the Dream Act as of the vote in 2007, resigns and moves on with his life and leaves Senator LeMieux in charge to finish his term.

Now, the first two examples mentioned above are encouraging and sad respectively, yet, the later one seems to be a bit concerning. Senator LeMieux has not taken a concrete stance on immigration. The only thing that we know on him is a couple statements he made on regard to the topic in a couple media interviews:

“First and foremost we have to secure the borders,” he said. “Then we’re going to have to figure out what we do with the 12 million or so folks that are in this country illegally.” He said he would have to study the issue more before commenting on the failed proposal Martinez worked on. – Tampa Bay

This enforcement first, then solution approach does not sound to appealing to myself, or any fellow pro-migrant folks here in Florida. However, do rest assure that we are working diligently around the clock to see what Sen. LeMieux’s stance on the DREAM Act is, and what will happen to the “lost” vote on both immigration reform and the DREAM Act, since Senator Mel martinez was the one responsible not only for securing Florida’s second vote in the Senate, but for pointing the GOP in the right direction on the immigration issue; something, that his party has been looked upon from every angle.

As always, if you guys have any questions, please feel free to drop us a comment!

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