(06-23) 04:00 PDT Washington -- House and Senate Republican leaders vowed Thursday to hold dueling summerlong hearings across the country on their wildly different immigration bills, setting up a spectacular clash within the Republican Party on the most contentious domestic issue of the November election.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader John Boehner, as well as a raft of committee chairmen lined up behind them, suggested they would force the Senate to pass and President Bush to sign a get-tough immigration bill before the November election by publicly dissecting what they view as the manifold flaws of the Senate's more liberal approach.
Scheduled for Washington and key border towns from San Diego to Laredo, Texas, the hearings will cover such topics as, "You Don't Need Papers to Vote?," "Is the Labor Department Doing Enough to Protect U.S. Workers?" and "Border Vulnerabilities and International Terrorism, Parts I & II."
Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist countered with a "Dear Denny" letter to Hastert saying the Senate will hold hearings too, reaffirming his stand with Bush that any bill must address the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country and provide temporary visas for the 500,000 more who arrive each year.
Frist conceded flaws in the Senate bill, but pointed out that it gives the United States a leg up in the "brain race" for high-skilled workers whom the House ignores completely.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he came up with the idea for Senate hearings in the shower Thursday morning.
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