Senate Kills Immigration Bill

In a serious setback for the Bush administration's second-term agenda, the Senate effectively killed the immigration-reform bill today, voting 53-46 to keep the legislation from going forward. The president had actively promoted the bipartisan measure, going so far as to lobby senators by phone this morning, but with his influence at a low ebb, the effort fell short.

Calls from constituents opposed to the bill shut down the Capitol switchboard, the Washington Post reports, even as their legislative counterparts were triumphing in a procedural vote that exposed serious divisions within the GOP. Immigration  reform is unlikely to return to the legislative agenda before 2009, when a new president and Congress are in office. (More George W. Bush stories.)