California fem-Dems to Push Skil Bill
California fem-Dems to Push Skil Bill
Date: Friday, November 10, 2006 12:32 AM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1586 -- 11/09/2006 >>>>>
There is one surefire method for knowing when to signal a "code red" alarm
- when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) says that she is hesitant to support
another huge H-1B visa increase. Whenever something bad is brewing on H-1B,
her modus operandi is to pretend she is against it, and then to change her
mind and vote for it at the last moment. Feinstein's California
constituents are kept happy because they only remember her criticisms of
the H-1B increase, and her corporate customers are happy because she
delivers the goods to them every time.
Yesterday's newsletter with quotes from immigration lawyers might have
seemed very scary to you, but just wait until you read what the
fem-Democrats from California have up their skirts! It ain't pretty.
For the Democrats, happy days are here again!
``For all this to happen, after 12 years in the desert,
is a little hard to believe,'' said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA)
To understand what the California fem-Dems are getting so hot and bothered
about, let's get a word from the world famous Corporate Pimp-Daddy, Sen.
John McCain (R-AZ). He decries the fact that the comprehensive immigration
bill (S. 2611) with its huge increase of H-1B visas was stopped by the
House. McCain's veiled message that H-1B needs to be fixed was not lost on
the fem-Dems.
The stalemate over immigration also blocked action on the
H-1B visa cap, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told tech
leaders in San Jose last week.
According to Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the Republicans couldn't deliver the Skil
Bill, but the Democrats will. She promises that we will finally get a
Congress that gets things done, like destroying more of our jobs!
``A broad consensus of Democrats supports this [Skil Bill],
while Republicans talked about it but didn't act,''
said Lofgren.
Our new speaker of the House wasted no time to scold the mostly male
Republicans for their failure to deliver the Skil bill.
House Republicans omitted skilled immigration from their
"Innovation and Competitiveness Act," released with much
pomp last week, prompting House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to blast the proposal as doing
nothing "to ensure that the best and brightest from around
the world are able to contribute to innovation in the
United States."
When Pelosi talks about the world's "best and brightest" she isn't talking
about the Americans that built Silicon Valley, she is referring to the
foreigners who come to California on H-1B visas to toil in high-tech
plantations!
The cheap labor lobby is mobilizing quickly. They plan to lobby the lame
duck Congress next week for the Skil Bill. Count on the fem-Dems to lead
the charge.
Lezlee Westine, president of Tech Net, a political network
of technology company CEOs in Washington, said she was
hopeful that renewal of the tax credit and more H-1B visas
for tech workers would be approved in the lame-duck session
of Congress starting next week.
The good ol' girl network sounds like the good ol' boy network when it
comes to the corporate shills, and it doesn't seem to make a difference
what Party they are in. Read this one carefully.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the presumptive speaker of the
House after Democrats take over, represents much of the city
of San Francisco, and four representatives who represent
parts of Silicon Valley to the immediate south, are all
Democrats. Pelosi has particularly close relationships with
Representatives Anna Eshoo, who represents the Palo Alto area,
and Zoe Lofgren, who represents part of San Jose, said the
lobbyist, who asked not to be identified.
"On lots of issues, we can work with these guys,"
[he means gals] the lobbyist said.
The Skil Bill isn't the only mischief brewing in Washington DC. Arlen
Specter (R-PA) is back at work to tweak the Comprehensive Immigration Bill
(S. 2611), which also contains the Skil Bill, amnesty, and the new H-2C
guest worker bill that will allow millions of so-called unskilled workers
into the U.S. You just have to wonder what else Specter is going to put in
this disastrous bill.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a
controversial 300-page bill by Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., now being rewritten by the
committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by
the end of the month.
If there is one thing the Dems and Repugs agree on -- they both win if they
can get these immigration bills passed before the public wises up. They
couldn't care less what happens to the collateral damage, which happens to
be you and I. It's sort of yicky to hear Democratic Party strategists
saying that what they do is good for themselves as well as George Bush.
What ever happened to good old fashioned partisan politics?
Getting a comprehensive immigration plan into law ``would be
a win-win for a Democratic Congress and for Bush,''
said Maria Cardona, a Democratic consultant who has worked on
the issue.
This is the answer to that question above. There is no partisanship when it
comes to H-1B. They all want it.
"We've worked very closely with both Republicans and Democrats
for a long time," said Robert Holleyman, BSA's president and
chief executive officer. "Tech issues have been some of the
most bipartisan issues in Washington for a long time."
PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS:
1 - A major push next week for the Skil Bill.
2 - The Specter bill will rear its ugly head by the end of this month.
3 - These bills will be passed by Congress in the dark of night, and George
Bush will sign them before you can blink an eye.
3 - The final act will include financial ruin of the American middle class,
and downward mobility for everyone!
***** DISCLAIMER *****
A feminist reviewed and approved this newsletter prior to publishing, so if
it seems to be somewhat piggish it's probably just your paranoid
imagination.
Articles Included
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/10/MNGV9HLVAE1.DTL
Immigration bill would add visas for tech workers
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/elections/15968322.htm
Democrats pledge tech attention
http://www.itworldcanada.com/Pages/Docbase/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=idgml-de7fa0ba-f380-423c-9ac5-2f9cd7d1d3c7
We can work better with Democrats, say some tech lobbyists
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/10/MNGV9HLVAE1.DTL
Immigration bill would add visas for tech workers
- Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Friday, March 10, 2006
Buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill -- hardly noticed amid a
fierce debate over a guest-worker program for unskilled laborers -- are
provisions that would open the country's doors to highly skilled immigrants
for science, math, technology and engineering jobs.
The provisions were sought by Silicon Valley tech companies and enjoy
significant bipartisan support amid concern that the United States might
lose its lead in technology. They would broaden avenues to legal
immigration for foreign tech workers and would put those with advanced
degrees on an automatic path to permanent residence should they want it.
The measures include nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker
temporary visas to 115,000 -- with an option of raising the cap 20 percent
more each year. H-1B visas were highly controversial in the Bay Area when
their numbers reached a peak of 195,000 in 2003.
Congress had increased the visas during the late 1990s dot-com boom, when
Silicon Valley complained of tech-worker shortages, although native-born
engineers complained that their wages were undermined by cheap labor from
India and China.
With the tech crash and the revelation that some of the Sept. 11, 2001,
hijackers had entered the country on student visas, the political climate
for foreign workers darkened, and Congress quietly allowed the number of
H-1B visas to plummet back to 65,000 a year.
The cap was reached in August -- in effect turning off the tap of the visas
for 14 months. A special exemption of 20,000 visas for workers with
advanced degrees was reached in January.
"We're in a bad crunch right now," said Laura Reiff, head of the Essential
Worker Immigration Coalition, a business umbrella group backing more
immigration. "We are totally jammed on immigrant visas, the green card
category, and totally jammed on H-1B visas. You can't bring in tech workers
right now."
Alarm in Washington has shifted from student hijackers to U.S.
competitiveness. Indian and Chinese students face brighter prospects in
their own booming economies, and the fear now is that they no longer want
to come to the United States.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page
bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., now being
rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by
the end of the month.
Other provisions include a new F-4 visa category for students pursuing
advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. These
students would be granted permanent residence if they find a job in their
field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and training of U.S.
workers.
Labor certification rules also would be streamlined for foreigners holding
the desired advanced degrees from a U.S. university. Immigrants with
advanced degrees in the desired fields, as well as those of "extraordinary
ability" and "outstanding professors and researchers," would also get an
exemption from the cap on employment-based green cards and slots for
permanent residence.
"The U.S. is educating these people," said Kara Calvert, director of
government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council, a
tech industry group. "This allows these students to remain in the U.S. and
contribute to the U.S. economy."
The provisions for highly skilled workers enjoy support in both parties in
the Senate and in the Bush administration after a raft of high-profile
studies have warned that the United States is not producing enough math and
science students and is in danger of losing its global edge in innovation
to India and China.
Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy echoed many in the tech industry at a
conference in Washington on Wednesday when he warned that if skilled
immigration is not expanded, "There will be a great sucking sound of
innovation out of the U.S.''
Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr suggested at a technology
summit last fall that the United States "should staple a green card to
every kid, every foreign national that graduates with a degree in
engineering and science, so that they stay here. Imagine innovation in
America without Andy Grove, without Jerry Yang, without Sergey Brin --
Hungarian, Chinese, Russian. These immigrants have contributed enormously
to innovation and our well-being."
But House Republicans are cool toward any increase in legal immigration,
including skilled workers, and are at sharp odds with the White House. They
passed a bill in December to crack down on border enforcement, calling for
construction of a 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico.
House Republicans omitted skilled immigration from their "Innovation and
Competitiveness Act," released with much pomp last week, prompting House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to blast the proposal as
doing nothing "to ensure that the best and brightest from around the world
are able to contribute to innovation in the United States."
Nor has Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat on the Judiciary
Committee, shown much enthusiasm for more skilled workers, preferring her
own plan for a guest-worker program limited to agriculture. Feinstein
questioned the tech proposals in an interview last week.
Her stance has angered California's high-tech business community. Industry
officials said CEOs from California and across the country have pleaded
with Feinstein to no avail. They complain that she is ignoring the
technology industry, which they contend is vital to the state's economy,
but is willing to provide amnesty to 900,000 Mexican farmworkers, most of
whom work in California.
Opponents of broadening immigration for skilled workers said doing so would
defeat efforts to get more Americans interested in science, math,
engineering and other technological fields.
"It sends the message to students in those fields now, why bother if you're
going to have a hard time getting a job in the U.S. because we're importing
workers in those fields who are working for less than it would take to hire
an American worker," said Caroline Espinosa, spokeswoman for NumbersUSA, a
group opposed to expanding immigration.
NumbersUSA estimated, using Department of Education figures, that 250,000
nonresident aliens are studying math, science, engineering and related
fields in the United States.
E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/elections/15968322.htm
Posted on Thu, Nov. 09, 2006
Democrats pledge tech attention
CALIFORNIA WANTS ACTION ON RESEARCH AND IMMIGRATION
By Frank Davies
MediaNews Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The seismic shift of power to Democrats in Congress gives a
jolt of energy to issues crucial to the Bay Area, from immigration to
investment in research and other tech priorities, according to advocates,
analysts and House members.
``For all this to happen, after 12 years in the desert, is a little hard to
believe,'' said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Palo Alto Democrat and close friend of
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who basked in the media spotlight
Wednesday, poised to be the first woman and first Californian to become
speaker of the House.
Ron Dellums, a 27-year veteran of Congress who was elected mayor of
Oakland, stressed that his city and the Bay Area would gain from the
enhanced power of the region's congressional delegation.
``George Miller is chair. Tom Lantos is chair. Nancy Pelosi is speaker.
We're going to go lobby our friends in Washington,'' Dellums said.
Eshoo and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a San Jose Democrat, said Pelosi had already
committed to giving more attention to tech-sector issues, from renewing the
research and development tax credit to more investment in scientific
research.
``A broad consensus of Democrats supports this, while Republicans talked
about it but didn't act,'' said Lofgren, who joined Eshoo and Pelosi to
present an ``innovation agenda'' a year ago at Stanford University.
Lezlee Westine, president of Tech Net, a political network of technology
company CEOs in Washington, said she was hopeful that renewal of the tax
credit and more H-1B visas for tech workers would be approved in the
lame-duck session of Congress starting next week.
``Now that we're past this highly charged election environment, we're
optimistic on these issues -- they are not partisan,'' said Westine, who
worked in the Bush White House for Karl Rove.
She also said President Bush's competitiveness agenda, which languished
after he announced it in the State of the Union speech in January, and the
Democrats' innovation agenda ``were actually similar'' on the need for more
scientific research and investment.
Eshoo and Lofgren said that as ``network neutrality'' issues play out in
telecommunications legislation, Internet companies will get a more
sympathetic hearing from congressional Democrats. Telecom and cable
companies that want the latitude of charging different rates for Internet
content generally had support from GOP leaders.
The incoming chairs of the House committee and subcommittee that deal with
that issue -- John Dingell, D-Mich., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., respectively
-- support strong network-neutrality provisions, Eshoo added.
The complex, emotional issue of immigration reform may also provide
``common ground'' for the Bush administration and congressional Democrats
to forge an agreement, Bush said at his Wednesday press conference.
This year, the Senate favored a comprehensive approach -- with a plan to
legalize the status of some of the nation's 12 million illegal residents --
but GOP hard-liners in the House blocked it, hoping that would help
Republicans in the election.
That didn't happen, said advocates of legalization. Two hard-line opponents
of immigration reform lost in Arizona -- Rep. J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf
-- and some polling shows that the unwillingness of GOP leaders to tackle
this issue fed into the disapproval of Congress.
Getting a comprehensive immigration plan into law ``would be a win-win for
a Democratic Congress and for Bush,'' said Maria Cardona, a Democratic
consultant who has worked on the issue.
The stalemate over immigration also blocked action on the H-1B visa cap,
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told tech leaders in San Jose last week.
Jim Greenwood, a Pennsylvania Republican in the House during the 1990s,
said divided government does not have to mean gridlock. The Clinton
administration and the GOP Congress reached agreement on welfare reform and
other issues.
Greenwood, who heads a biotech trade association, said immigration,
alternative-fuel investment and other non-partisan issues are areas where
progress can be made.
``The president wants to build some kind of legacy, and Democrats will want
to go into 2008 showing that they can accomplish something,'' he said.
Lofgren may chair the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, and said
that role would be ``a great opportunity'' to get something done, once the
emotions of an election year have cooled.
``A lot of the discussion on immigration has been at the bumper-sticker
level, and we need to get past that,'' Lofgren said.
Other Bay Area Democrats in the House in line for new leadership positions
are Rep. Tom Lantos of San Mateo, who will chair the International
Relations Committee, and Rep. George Miller of Concord, who takes over the
Education and Workforce Committee.
If Democrats secure a majority in the Senate, which seemed likely late
Wednesday, California's two senators will gain considerable clout as well.
Barbara Boxer would probably chair the Environment and Public Works
Committee, and Dianne Feinstein is in line to head subcommittees on
technology and on military construction.
Agreement on any issues will depend to a large extent on whether Bush and
congressional Democrats can actually work together. Wednesday, Bush and
Pelosi insisted they could.
Eshoo said the future speaker's emphasis on bipartisanship should not be
surprising.
``She understands in a powerful way that any important legislation has to
be done in a bipartisan way or it will divide people,'' Eshoo said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.itworldcanada.com/Pages/Docbase/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=idgml-de7fa0ba-f380-423c-9ac5-2f9cd7d1d3c7
We can work better with Democrats, say some tech lobbyists
By: Grant Gross
IDG News Service (Washington Bureau) (10 Nov 2006)
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE
Technology trade groups and vendors say they stand ready to work with a
U.S. Congress controlled by Democrats, with some in the tech industry
suggesting a change in the majority may yield better results.
Most tech issues in Congress tend to be bipartisan, and most tech industry
representatives don't expect a big change in the way Congress approaches
those issues now that Democrats have taken a majority in the House of
Representatives and Senate.
But many in the tech industry have privately and sometimes publicly
complained about a lack of action on a variety of tech-related issues in
the Republican-controlled Congress of the past two years. Other issues,
including the war in Iraq, domestic security and immigration, have
dominated Congress' time.
The Republican Congress of the past two years accomplished little that
helped the tech industry, one tech lobbyist said last week, before
Tuesday's elections. On the other hand, California's Silicon Valley
consistently elects Democrats to Congress.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the presumptive speaker of the House after
Democrats take over, represents much of the city of San Francisco, and four
representatives who represent parts of Silicon Valley to the immediate
south, are all Democrats. Pelosi has particularly close relationships with
Representatives Anna Eshoo, who represents the Palo Alto area, and Zoe
Lofgren, who represents part of San Jose, said the lobbyist, who asked not
to be identified.
"On lots of issues, we can work with these guys," the lobbyist said.
A Democratic Congress could focus more on domestic issues now that the
campaign, which focused on the Iraq war and other international issues, is
over, added Marne Gordan, director of regulatory affairs at cybersecurity
vendor Cybertrust. Gordan's company called on Congress to pass a law that
would require companies with data breaches notify affected customers. Among
the strongest privacy advocates in the Senate are Democrats Dianne
Feinstein of California and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, she said.
During the past two years, members of Congress introduced more than a dozen
data breach notification bills and none of them passed.
"I think that tech was not a priority," she said. "It just got eclipsed by
larger things."
Other tech-related issues Congress failed to act on during the past two
years:
-- A wide-ranging broadband bill that would allow telecom providers to
bypass local franchise agreements while providing competition to cable
television services. The telecom bill was largely sidetracked by largely
partisan arguments over net neutrality, with many Democrats wanting a law
that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing competing
Web content. Activists on both sides of the net neutrality debate say they
don't expect a huge shift in the way Congress would have eventually handled
net neutrality.
-- Two bills that would prohibit activities related to spyware and
strengthen penalties passed the House, but failed to pass the Senate. --
Many tech companies called on Congress to reform the patent system by
improving the quality of patents approved and making it tougher for
patent-holders to gain court injunctions against alleged violators. Some
pharmaceutical companies and independent inventors opposed a change in
court injunctions, and Congress didn't get far with patent reform.
-- Many tech companies have called for a higher cap on skilled immigrant
workers under the H-1B program, while tech worker groups have opposed an
increase. A couple of attempts to raise the H-1B limit failed.
Still, tech trade groups including the Information Technology Association
of America, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), and the Computing
Technology Industry Association, say they are looking forward to working
with the new Congress.
"We've worked very closely with both Republicans and Democrats for a long
time," said Robert Holleyman, BSA's president and chief executive officer.
"Tech issues have been some of the most bipartisan issues in Washington for
a long time."
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