May 19, 2008 12:53 PM
I was talking to Nadia Marin Molina at Workplace Project today and discussing the depressing nature of our defeat last week in the battle over IR 1105 and the likely prospect that a new fight over e-verify might begin in June.
I observed that I had spent almost 500 hours working to defeat the bill. Time that did not halt its relentless advance.
But I was reminded that although we lost, the bill was all but dead just a month ago. Frankly, had one legislator not begun moving out of his district prior to his retirement, the bill would have died an unmourned death.
Even during the hectic three weeks after the bill was revived by the legislator's absence, under the leadership of Long Island Immigrant Alliance, we were able to orchestrate press work, protests, and mass turnout at the legislature even though we did not control the bill's timing and had only a few days warning of upcoming hearings.
With an even greater fight in the offing, it is important to remember that while our efforts were incomplete, we were able to carry on the fight without abatement for four months on a variety of fronts against the toughest of odds.