Chait celebrates the Senate’s lopsided cloture vote on the bill today:
It’s a vote to have a debate on immigration reform, not a vote for a particular bill, which is sure to attract fewer than 82 votes in the end, and probably far fewer. But it gives the general impression that conservative opponents are merely going through the motions and have made their peace with a likely defeat. And that impression is not wrong.
That 82 votes is a signal that Republicans in the Senate are, indeed, not using every tool they have to block a bill. Eighty-two votes to proceed is a way of signaling that the status quo, not the expected outlines of a bill, is what is most unacceptable. This is the opposite of how Republicans have approached the major legislation of the Obama era, beginning with the stimulus, when they did not make any distinction between voting to allow debate and voting on the underlying merits of the final bill. Republican senators today faced a choice to position themselves as fundamentally opposed to the entire process, and most of them decided to stand aside.
Weigel adds:
Only the delegations from Alabama, Idaho, and Wyoming voted fully against proceeding to debate. Less trivially, reformers have stuck to “70” as the number they need to hit in the Senate in order to build momentum for a vote on a House reform bill. They can afford to lose 12 of today’s “aye” votes; Republicans are convinced they can limit those losses if they allow some amendments that allow them to save face on “border security.”
Barro believes that immigration reform is going to pass:
For many, many House Republicans, the ideal situation is for a reform bill to pass over their objections. Business interests will get the bill they want, Democrats will be deprived of a powerful talking point with Hispanic voters, and individual house members will be able to tell conservative primary voters that they tried to “stop amnesty.” Win, win, win.
The Dish 