Remember the American SAFE Act? It’s the bill that would have done … something … about tightening up the flow of refugees from Syria to the US. Exactly what it would do was never entirely clear, but it had its 15 minutes of fame when the House passed it last month. At the time, I was unsure it was anything more than a feint to make it look like Republicans were doing something, and suggested that the Senate would ignore it until refugee hysteria had died down and they could quietly kill it.
Yesterday I got curious: how’s it doing? I tried a Google search, but that brought up nothing. Finally I just went to congress.gov to see where it was in the legislative sausage machine. On the day it passed the House, this happened:
Received in the Senate. Read the first time. Deemed read the second time, pursuant to the order of November 19, 2015. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 300.
And that’s it. It apparently hasn’t been assigned to a committee. It hasn’t been scheduled for a vote. Not a single thing has happened. If there’s a hold on the bill, I can’t find it. It appears that it’s just being ignored in hopes that by January nobody will care anymore. That may or may not turn out to be a good bet. We’ll see.