The President of the United States, the bigwigs in both political parties, most of the mainstream media, big business, most national religious leaders, and most of the Washington establishment wanted passage of the so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” bill S.1639. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put his political reputation on the line initiating procedural shortcuts that had never been used before in US history — the “clay pigeon” technique — which outraged many senators as a violation of our historic democracy. President Bush shamelessly bribed holdout votes with promises of pork. Draconian intimidation tactics were employed and opponents were vilified with accusations of racism.

In the end, for the first time in our legislative history, the total establishment got — as Pat Robertson put it — “body-slammed” by an outraged American public. Middle America roused from its preoccupation with daily life and got involved. In the last day, over 6000 activists joined NumbersUSA, the spearhead organization of the resistance — well over 6000 new members in one day. All of the Senate switchboards crashed under the flood of incoming calls, and had to be shut down in the middle of the workday.

Update 10 PM from the National Review:

Today’s defeat of the Senate amnesty bill was more than a run-of-the-mill legislative victory, representing as it did a self-organizing public’s defeat of combined force of Big Business, (some of) Big Labor, Big Media, Big Religion, Big Philanthropy, Big Academia, and Big Government….

Here’s how the vote broke down in the senate. Feel free to email, phone, and fax your senators who killed amnesty for illegal aliens (voted NAY on cloture) and thank them. Also feel free to email, phone, and fax the senators who voted for amnesty and scold them. And be sure to tell them you have a long memory!