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Lame-Duck Session Might Include Amnesty Push

By Joe Guzzardi

Between today and Jan. 3, when the 118th Congress convenes, the nation may undergo a shift away from the party that minimizes border security to the party that favors enforcement and a more rational immigration policy. The outcome will depend on more than the Election Night results.

A hotly contested lame-duck session that will include a major amnesty push will play a significant role in the political dynamic of the next two years. Voters have consistently rejected amnesty because legalizing illegal immigrants incentivizes future illegal immigration waves, immediately expands the labor market, thereby harming U.S. workers, most particularly the 4 million that turn 18 each year, and vulnerable low-skilled, American job seekers.

Lame-duck sessions represent opportunities for the outgoing Congress to make one final push for their pet causes, even though, despite their terms in office, they’ve been unable to legislatively achieve their personal wish list. From the defeated or retired legislators’ perspectives, since they’re no longer accountable to their constituents, they have nothing to lose.

Efforts to end lame-duck sessions, dating back 90 years, have failed. The 20th Amendment, approved in 1933, was originally drafted to eliminate the lame duck. The amendment’s proponents argued that lame ducks were subject to nefarious influences. Moreover, passing lame-duck legislation might contradict the voices of the people as expressed in the last election. But the 20th Amendment didn’t definitively prohibit lame-duck sessions. Instead, dodging its original intention, the amendment simply moved the date on which the newly elected President and Congress took office from March to January.

Since the 20th Amendment didn’t kill off the lame duck, Congress will have to deal with it. If Democrats prevail in November, then a disastrous amnesty and other immigration-expanding measures are possible. More immigration has a host of Capitol Hill allies: religious and academic institutions, special interest groups, social media, big business and lobbyists who spent $3.7 billion to influence peddle targeted congressional members.

Higher immigration levels mean more consumers, and more cheap labor, so naturally corporate interests favor higher immigration levels. Democrats are united and tireless in their commitment and determination to enact amnesty. Last year, Democrats tried to sneak amnesty into a larger budget bill. This bill was scheduled to go through the reconciliation process, meaning it would only require a simple majority to pass, and the problematic filibuster would have been avoided. But the Senate Parliamentarian had to confirm that the bill’s contents specifically dealt with the federal budget.

Democrats unconvincingly argued that giving millions of illegal aliens legal status was a budgetary matter. Nevertheless, the Parliamentarian ruled against all three amnesty attempts.

Big business, anticipating December, is hard at work with a multifaceted game plan that includes multiple immigration provisions in unrelated amendments that it wants to include in the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act. The amendments would give more low- and high-skilled workers legal U.S. work permission.

Other amnesty schemes are afoot. California Senator Alex Padilla, appointed to replace Vice President Kamala Harris, is working in concert with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin to change registry laws to allow illegal immigrants to apply for permanent residence after they’ve lived in the U.S. for at least seven years, legalizing about 8 million illegal aliens. Padilla’s proposal reflects Democrats’ mindset – all roads can lead to amnesty.

When the lame-duck period begins, one fundamental principal should guide the GOP – no amnesty deals! The U.S. has more immigration than the nation can manage. More than 1 million lawful permanent residents arrive annually; millions more enter on employment visas, and fiscal year 2022 ended with a staggering 2,378,944 migrant border encounters, the highest ever recorded, but exclusive of the 599,000 known “gotaways” that Customs and Border Protection agents estimate eluded capture, but including an estimated 78 on the FBI’s terrorist watch list.

Since the only way to ban the lame duck would be through another constitutional amendment, Democrats and Republicans could adopt a civil tone if just for a few weeks. The parties could agree that a lame-duck session cannot create major legislation and simply let the next Congress take up leftover business.

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Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Babe Ruth Promised Johnny Sylvester A Home Run And Kept It

By Joe Guzzardi

Baseball is rich with legend and lore. At the center of many of the most well-known stories is Babe Ruth. The Big Bam’s 1932 called shot off Chicago Cubs pitcher Charlie Root is still contested today. But in the 1926 World Series, when New York Yankees faced off against the St. Louis Cardinals, details about Ruth’s promise to a hospitalized young boy, Johnny Sylvester, have, over the elapsed decades, become muddled.

Charlie Poekel’s book, “Babe and the Kid,” sets the record straight. Eleven-year-old Johnny, kicked in the head by a horse and considered at death’s door, was a huge New York Yankees fan. His father, a well-connected New Jersey executive, got word to the Yankees that his son’s spirits would be lifted if the team could do something special for Johnny.

The Yankees received the message and sent an autographed ball to Johnny in care of his father’s New York office. One side read: “We’re glad to know you knocked the bug for a home run.” On the ball’s other side, Ruth wrote, “I’ll knock a homer for you on Wednesday’s game.” The Cardinals also sent an autographed baseball that included 14 players and Rogers Hornsby’s signature: “Hoping you will soon be batting 1,000 percent in good health.” Historians consider Hornsby baseball’s best-ever right-handed hitter; the “Rajah” hit .400 or better three times.

Although many accounts have Ruth at Johnny’s bedside when he made his promise, on game day October 6 the Bambino was in St. Louis where he hit three home runs, and led the Yankees to a 10-5 victory that tied the series 2-2. Johnny’s doctors noticed that his temperature miraculously dropped two degrees, and within a few days, the boy was back home. Then followed an even greater surprise for Johnny. Ruth strode into Johnny’s room where he spent about half an hour. When a shocked Johnny finally could form words, he expressed regret that the Yankees lost the series. Tactfully, Sylvester didn’t mention that Ruth made the seventh game’s final out when he was caught stealing, the greatest baserunning blunder in the sport’s history.

While the Ruth baseball was Johnny’s most treasured possession, Lou Gehrig sent a signed game-used ball; Wimbledon tennis champion “Big” Bill Tilden and football great Red Grange, the University of Illinois’ “Galloping Ghost,” gifted an autographed football and a tennis racquet. Each wrote personal letters to Sylvester.

As Johnny grew into adulthood, he attended Princeton, starred on the university’s varsity hockey team, and once scored a hat trick, three goals in a single game. In 1942, his application to serve as an apprentice in the U.S. Navy was accepted, and he spent most of World War II in the Pacific Theater as a lieutenant commanding submarine chaser 520s that patrolled offshore for enemy activity.

Johnny ended his naval service in 1945, and two years later, April 27, 1947, the nation celebrated “Babe Ruth Day.” Attention then returned to the by-now familiar Ruth-Sylvester saga. Ruth, however, had recently been in New York’s French Hospital for 81 days; no visitors allowed. Cancer had cut Ruth’s time short. The Daily News brokered a reunion – 21 years after their initial meeting – that included Ruth, Sylvester and his wife Marita. Babe to Johnny: “The last time I saw you, you were a skinny little kid.” Johnny to Babe: “I’m all grown up now, thanks to you.”

A few minutes of friendly banter followed as Johnny pulled out the ball that Ruth signed. Seeing the signatures again, Ruth spoke wistfully about his 1926 teammates. When their time together ended, Johnny observed to Marita that Ruth had lost weight, and, dressed in pajamas and bathrobe, was gaunt. As he took one last look around before leaving Ruth’s apartment, Johnny said: “Ain’t he a swell guy.”

On a sweltering August 19, 1948, thousands lined up around St. Patrick’s Cathedral to pay their final respects to Ruth. Inside, at a service presided over by His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman, and assisted by 44 Roman Catholic priests and 12 altar boys, sitting front and center was Johnny Sylvester, linked forever in baseball lore to Babe Ruth.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Babe Ruth Promised Johnny Sylvester A Home Run And Kept It