The issue: Full Senate action would show that our legislative system works as intended if given the chance

“Miracle” is perhaps too strong a word, but it is a major marvel that in the current poisonous, take-no-prisoners atmosphere of Washington, the Senate Judiciary Committee produced a complicated — 800-plus pages — and comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. It’s the first, despite repeated efforts, since the Reagan administration.

MOREOVER, SPEAKING of marvels, the measure was bipartisan, drafted by the so-called “Gang of Eight,” four Republicans and four Democrats, and was reported out of committee on a 13-5 bipartisan vote.

In businesslike fashion that reminded Senate watchers how things used to work before obstructionism and grandstanding became politics as usual, the panel marched steadily through 200 proposed amendments, some of them poison pills intended to make the bill unacceptable to one faction or another.

Along that line, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., decided not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good when he let slide a deal-killing amendment of his that would have made the foreign spouses and partners of gay Americans eligible for green cards.

With a massive, groundbreaking piece of legislation like the immigration bill, it’s important just to get the thing passed and worry about fixing any imperfections later. The measure makes a bow to a perennial GOP goal by calling for stepped-up border security, irritates the Democrats’ union backers in allowing foreign workers into the country legally for both high-tech and low-skilled jobs and gives the Democrats their long-sought goal of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here, even though it would be a 13-year process.

THE SENATE Democratic leadership says it will bring the bill to a vote after the Senate returns from its Memorial Day recess on Monday. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says that while he’s undecided about the measure, he would not block the Senate from voting on it.

Full Senate action on the bill would show that our legislative system works as intended if given the chance. Then it would be up to the House to see that the system keeps working.

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