Just a brief word on the church of the savvy smugly saying that whip counts efforts like this are misguided because of all the “wiggle room.” I’m building that into my analysis. I think I’m representing an accurate snapshot in time of where the House is at on this bill. People are going to guess about this anyway, so a whip count that takes into account other information has plenty of value, more than a simple info dump.

In other words, NBC, I’m way ahead of you.

At long last, Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) is set to introduce his version of comprehensive immigration reform, tomorrow. The last time I wrote about Rep. Gutierrez introducing this bill, I chided him for failing to co-sponsor the DREAM Act. The fact that Gutierrez wanted to include the DREAM Act in his bill, but failed to co-sponsor it before, is just one of many ways the voices of migrant youth are stifled, used, and taken for granted in the U.S. immigration debate. I commend Rep. Gutierrez for finally showing migrant youth the respect we deserve by co-sponsoring the DREAM Act.

The debate over health care just added a new wrinkle. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a key ally of Barack Obama’s from Illinois, said today that he would find it “extremely difficult if not impossible” to vote for a health care bill that included the restrictive and discriminatory measure on undocumented immigrants that appears in the [...]