The Senate Appears Ready to Move Ahead with Immigration. A story at Roll Call looks into what is an “alternate plan” to tackle immigration. John Staton and Kathleen Hunter write, “Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (N.J.) released a detailed summary of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.” According to the story, the bill will be largely based on earlier negotiations between Sens. Schumer and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

D.C. Awaits for Arrival of “Mystery” Climate Bill. It seems the legend of the Senate climate bill grows with each day it is not released. According to Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones, some are jokingly referring to the bill as “sasquatch.”

A Florida Foursome Could Be in the Cards. Ben Smith at Politico noted that Democratic Florida billionaire Jeff Greene could be the next to throw his hat in the ring. According to Smith, Democrats are worried such a move could upset Rep. Kendrick Meek’s race for the seat. This seems unlikely, as Smith also points out that Green made some of his fortune betting against the housing market as it was collapsing. Even better–Mike Tyson was the best man at Smith’s wedding and he purportedly enjoyed a friendship with Heidi Fleiss.

WSJ reports on the GOP’s “Suburban Strategy.” As part of its 2010 strategy, the GOP will be focusing on winning the suburbs, which according to the WSJ comprise nearly half of the country’s population. According to one poll cited in the article, “Hofstra University’s Center for Suburban Studies found that 31% of suburban voters felt that government actions had hurt their family’s finances—up from 15% the year before.” Such a shift, despite gains made by Democrats in 2008, could be troublesome.

House votes to forego pay hike. It seems Congress can’t justify a pay raise while ordinary Americans are still feeling it in the pocketbooks.

Texas Governor Rick Perry goes jogging, shoots a coyote. He says it’s to protect himself from snakes. I’m guessing it’s an attempt to steal crazy from Sarah Palin.

Sens. Schumer, Bennett (Colo.), Begich, and Franken, go after Mark Zuckerberg. The foursome sent a letter to Zuckerberg, raising questions about information sharing between third parties. The senators wrote, “We are writing to express our concern regarding recent changes to the Facebook privacy policy and the use of personal data on third party websites … The expansion of Facebook — both in the number of users and applications — raises new concerns for users who want to maintain control over their information.”

Democrats are planning another August health care push. This time it’s to sell the bill to constituents and with the PR war. As Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) put it: “We’re going to go out to the American people and let them know exactly what’s in the bill … I think you’re going to see a big difference this August than last August.”

The country is in the midst of a perfect storm–high unemployment and rising consumer prices (2.3% in 12 months) are conspiring to slowly delay an economic recovery. Any resulting discontent among voters will ultimately be passed on to the party in power, despite populist efforts to reform health care or reign in Wall Street. Combined with the trend of the party in power losing seats during a midterm election, and Democrats could lose up to 50 seats in the House. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight recently suggested the best case scenario is a 20 seat loss. Ouch.

This shouldn’t be surprising, as discontent has taken over the country in the form of not only “tea partier” types, but I would argue so-called “mainstream Americans” as well–Democrat or Republican. Whether it’s the person we buy our coffee from, your kid’s soccer coach or the people we work with, the questions asked remain the same. Will I have my job tomorrow? Will my family have adequate health care? Can we afford to fill up the car with gas? No matter how many pieces of legislation we pass, whether it be health care or climate bills, these questions will not be answered in full by November. But it’s possible Democrats can go a better job of selling the “win.”

November will be about reminding the American people why Democrats were put in the majority to begin with–to bring about the long term and forward-looking notion of change. This means fighting for Main St., not Wall St. And this certainly means laying the ground work to begin a transition to an easier and more cost-effective health care system. One that will ultimately save lives and the money of tax payers–a real pocketbook issue.

Despite calls for immigration reform, some in the Senate are hesitant.
According to the Washington Post, unnamed Senate aides are pushing back against immigration reform. According to one aide, “We don’t even have a bill yet.” Some argue immigration reform led to climate talks falling apart.

Eliot Spitzer asks: Do investment banks do anything that helps America anymore?
While some are suggesting Spitzer will challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, he seems to be playing the role of potential candidate quite well. He’s been working hard to polish his image and go after the man. Spitzer’s recent piece at Slate likens Goldman Sachs to a “casino” and asks whether or not investment banks any longer perform “economically useful functions.”

Lastly, it seems Pat Buchanan has once again flown off the handle. He claims that without immigration reform, the United States risks being broken into a set of ethnic enclaves. Ok Pat, how’s this for a set of enclaves? Several groups, including the city of San Francisco, are calling for economic sanctions against the state of Arizona. It seems Pat, that the Arizona immigration law has in fact, turned the state into an enclave. Good one.

During his weekly update, Sanders disputed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s statement last week that the “recession is very likely over.” While the recession, according to Bernanke’s textbook definition, could very well be over, millions of American’s are still feeling the effects of the worst economic contraction in decades. Unemployment may be holding around 9.7 percent, it’s the real employment rate of nearly 17 percent—as Sanders notes—that is the most telling. Real unemployment takes into account those who have stopped looking for work or cannot find jobs, because they believe none exist. Millions of Americans are experiencing this and too many cannot afford to keep their home or pay for the costs of their health care. For these Americans, the recession is not over.

You may or may not agree with Sanders’ political views, but I think his remarks hit on what seems to be the Beltway-Main Street disconnect—it is far too easy for those of us in Washington, D.C. to get bogged down in lofty policy proposals or economic reports that we ignore the realities for those living in America’s Heartland or throughout the Sunbelt and along the borders of the Southwest.

It’s not just bureaucrats—all too often, Congress appears comfortable in its status as a terribly unpopular branch of U.S. government. It is even more troubling that a group of professionals and civil servants—who, every two or six years, spend untold millions of dollars on consultants, polling and focus groups to learn how to get voters to like them, but cannot figure out that a majority of American’s disapprove of they way do their job. While troubling, this is not terribly surprising—all it takes to win an election is 51 percent of the vote, sometimes less. Congress doesn’t necessarily act in the interest of 60, 80 or even 90 percent of its constituents. Instead, far too many Senators and Representatives seem to perform a delicate dance based on appealing to a slim majority of voters and nothing more.

I do not support what Rep. Wilson did. It was disrespectful to the President, Congress, and the country. But I also do not support any formal disciplinary measure taken against Rep. Wilson by the House of Representatives. Doing so will likely further divide the parties, and when taking into account the political reality that votes might be difficult to come by, it does not make sense for Democrats to potentially further inflame those against health care reform. We need to be working to reinforce support among Democrats and to bring people across the aisle in favor of reform–not against.