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June 21, 2024
Editor, The News-Gazette: Patricia Anthony, in a recent letter to the editor, thanked Ben Cline for supporting HR2, an immigration bill, and criticized Senate Democrats for “ignoring common sense immigration reform from the House.” Perhaps, if the authors of HR2 had collaborated with their colleagues across the aisle in writing the bill, it might have found a more receptive audience.
On the other side of the Capitol, a better example was set by Senators Sinema and Murphy, both Democrats, and Senator Lankford, a Republican. They worked together for over four months to craft an immigration reform bill restrictive enough to earn the endorsement of the Border Patrol union. Senator Lankford, when speaking with people who wanted him to focus only on Republican priorities, would smile and say, “Welcome to governance.”
Virginia’s senators, Kaine and Warner, voted twice in favor of advancing the bipartisan bill. Most Republicans did not — they, like Ms. Anthony, were evidently more interested in preserving the border as a focus of outrage in an election year than they were in governance.
Ms. Anthony also wrote glowingly of Cline’s vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, without stating that Mayorkas had violated any law. Actually, he hadn’t. A few principled Republicans, one of whom has since resigned in disgust, recognized this all too well, which is why the impeachment failed on the first attempt.
The person who launched the Mayorkas impeachment has since tried to remove the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, for the unpardonable crime of working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown. Johnson did not have enough Republican support to remain in his job, but he is still there thanks to help from his colleagues across the aisle. They still believe in governance, you see.
Does Ben Cline? His record suggests the answer is no. MARINA PRATT Buena Vista
