As they leave office, they will take with them their publicly discredited preference for illegal foreign workers and the employers that hire them. And they take with them their callous indifference to the millions of Americans who don't have a job because these departing Members used their positions of power to keep illegal aliens in their jobs.
Yes, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the DREAM Act amnesty. But only because of all of these defeated and retiring Members voting for it. Not only will the new Congress in the new year be absent these pro-amnesty Members, but nearly all of them are being replaced by ANTI-amnesty freshmen who were elected in November by voters clearly fed up with the federal government's preference for illegal foreign labor.
Sadly, some of the Members on this list generally held the line against illegal immigration as long as they felt they had to face the voters back home. But once they didn't have to answer to voters any more, they sided with the illegal worker lobbies.
Yes, I know that most of these Members had a sincere concern about the compelling cases of young adults who were brought here illegally at a young age.
But none of these Members had enough interest in the compelling cases of unemployed Americans to consider the fact that the DREAM Act amnesty would have done nothing to slow down future illegal-worker migration while creating more incentives and hopes for millions more illegal foreign workers to come to take U.S. jobs. They allowed this amnesty to be brought up without any chance to amend it to make it more protective of unemployed Americans. They allowed it to come up without any opportunity to try to perfect it in committee.
Every one of the Lame Ducks on this list acted recklessly and callously toward the interests of the 22 million Americans who want a job but can't find one and toward the children who suffer in these unemployed homes.
Lame Duck REPUBLICANS Who Voted YES For Amnesty
Delaware
Mike Castle
Florida
Lincoln Diaz-Balart
Hawaii
Charles Djou
Louisiana
Anh "Joseph" Cao
Michigan
Vernon Ehlers
South Carolina
Bob Inglis
Utah
Sen. Bob Bennett
Lame Duck DEMOCRATS Who Voted YES For Amnesty
Alabama
Artur Davis
Arizona
Harry Mitchell
Arkansas
Vic Snyder
Sen. Blanche Lincoln
California
Diane Watson
Colorado
Betsy Markey
John Salazar
Connecticut
Sen. Chris Dodd
Delaware
Sen. Ted Kaufman
Florida
Allen Boyd
Alan Grayson
Ron Klein
Suzanne Kosmas
Idaho
Walt Minnick
Illinois
Melissa Bean
Bill Foster
Debbie Halvorson
Phil Hare Stephanie
Indiana
Baron Hill
Sen. Evan Bayh
Kansas
Dennis Moore
Louisiana
Charlie Melancon
Michigan
Mark Schauer
Minnesota
James Oberstar
Missouri
Ike Skelton
New Hampshire
Paul Hodes
Carol Shea-Porter
New Jersery
John Adler
New Mexico
Harry Teague
New York
John Hall
Dan Maffei
Michael McMahon
Scott Murphy
Nevada
Dina Titus
North Carolina
Bob Etheridge
North Dakota
Earl Pomeroy
Sen. Byron Dorgan
Ohio
Mary Jo Kilroy
Steve Driehaus
Pennsylvania
Joe Sestak
Sen. Arlen Specter
Rhode Island
Patrick Kennedy
South Carolina
John Spratt
South Dakota
Herseth Sandlin
Tennessee
Lincoln Davis
Bart Gordon
John Tanner
Texas
Chet Edwards
Solomon Ortiz
Ciro Rodriguez
Virginia
Tom Perriello
Wisconsin
Steve Kagen
David Obey
Sen. Russ Feingold
LAME DUCK DEMOCRATS WHO DIDN'T QUACK BUT INSTEAD STUCK WITH UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS BY VOTING AGAINST THE AMNESTY
I sincerely bid a fond farewell to the following Democrats who not only went against their Party's pro-illegal-worker leadership in most of their career, but also opposed the amnesty after they were Lame Ducks and no longer had to face voters back home.
Even though they were leaving Congress at the first of the year and could have done like so many other Lame Ducks in currying favor with Party Powers, these Democrats demonstrated that they were themselves sincere in their campaign statements that they opposed illegal immigration and wanted to stop it from putting Americans out of work.
Alabama
Bobby Bright
Indiana
Brad Ellsworth
Maryland
Frank Kratovil
Michigan
Bart Stupak
Mississippi
Travis Childers
Gene Taylor
NewYork
Michael Arcuri
Ohio
John Boccieri
Zack Space
Charlie Wilson
Pennsylvania
Christopher Carney
Kathy Dahlkemper
Paul Kanjorski
Patrick Murphy
Virginia
Rick Boucher
Glenn Nye
Washington
Brian Baird
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA