All of the races listed below could go either way, but it’s worth speculating on where the election could have an effect on immigration policy:

Majority leader: The Senate race between Sen. Harry Reid (D) and Sharron Angle (R) could open up the position of majority leader, which Reid currently holds. It’s unlikely Republicans will take over a majority of the Senate, but losing Reid would put another Democrat in charge of the push for immigration legislation. Luckily for reform supporters, both of the senators likely to take over as majority leader if Reid loses are equally strong supporters of immigration reform as Reid — perhaps even stronger.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), currently second in command, is the chief sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would provide legal residency states to some undocumented students and military service members, and supports comprehensive immigration reform. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is considered the favorite to take over as majority leader because of his past success as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He also supports comprehensive immigration reform, and wrote a blueprint for comprehensive immigration reform this spring with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Immigration subcommittee: Schumer heads the Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, which will remain in the hands of Democrats unless Republicans take over a majority of the Senate. The committee could see some shifting if the current members lose their seats, but most who are up for re-election have comfortable leads. Schumer looks certain to win against Republican challenger Jay Townsend, while Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) looks like he’ll be safe against Republican candidate Len Britton and his five other challengers. The other Democrats on the committee — Durbin, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — aren’t up for re-election this year.

On the Republican side, only Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is up for re-election. He is favored to win over Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin. The other GOP members of the subcommittee — Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions — aren’t up for re-election. In the very unlikely event that Republicans win control of the Senate, Cornyn would be the chairman of the subcommittee on immigration.

Other immigration-related races: In the Senate especially, every member’s views on a given issue are important for passing legislation. A few races between pro- and anti-immigration reform candidates could make the difference for passing comprehensive immigration reform or, in lieu of that, smaller-scale legislation such as AgJOBS to create paths to legalization for some farm workers.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) faces a challenge from Republican Carly Fiorina, who supports the DREAM Act and reform of the guest worker system but argues against “amnesty” for illegal immigrants — the derisive term used by conservatives to refer to efforts to allow some undocumented immigrants already in the United States to earn legal status. Boxer, on the other hand, has been a consistent supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, arguing Congress should pass a bill increasing border security and enforcement efforts while also allowing some illegal immigrants in the country to remain here legally.

In New York, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who was appointed to Hillary Clinton’s old seat, is favored to win over Republican Joseph J. DioGuardi. Gillibrand was originally considered an anti-immigrant pick for the Senate seat, but has since shifted to a pro-immigration reform view and advocates legislation that would allow some undocumented immigrants in the country to become legal residents.

Open seats could see the addition of some immigration hardliners. Rand Paul, a Republican running for Senate in Kentucky against Democrat Jack Conway, supports state-led solutions to illegal immigration such as Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law. He also wants to built an electric fence between the United States and Mexico and move overseas military bases back to the country to man the border. Conway, on the other hand, said he supports more border agents but also paths to legalization. “Let’s take people out of the shadows and turn them into taxpayers,” he said during a debate.

Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias are facing off for Obama’s former seat in Illinois. If Giannoulias wins, the Democrats will have a nearly sure vote for comprehensive immigration reform as well as the DREAM Act. But Kirk has said that the Senate should tackle border security first, and that he would vote against the DREAM Act and other immigration reform.

“The election rules that were recently announced by this regime leave no opportunity for legitimate political dialogue because they prevent key stakeholders from participating, making the upcoming elections a charade,” Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who sponsored the resolution, said in a statement Friday. “The U.S. expects the military regime to dramatically expand political participation and create an environment free from fear and intimidation before we will consider elections in Burma as anything but a farce.”

Trouble is, Burma’s leaders haven’t cared what the United States thinks of them for decades, and they have no reason to start now. Despite being cut off from most of the West, Than Shwe and his minions have done just fine for themselves by forging lucrative gem, oil and timber deals with China, Thailand and other Southeast Asian neighbors, who’ve shown zero inclination to jeopardize those trade relations over something as petty as human rights.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party announced this week that it has chosen to disband rather than participate in an election that would require the party to accept the nullification of the 1990 vote that should have swept it into power.

Thus, the competitive activities of health insurers and medical malpractices insurers remain effectively unchecked.  While there are divergent views on the best way to introduce choice and competition into health insurance market, we can surely agree that health and medical malpractice insurers should not be allowed to collude to set prices and allocate markets.

They should have addressed their concerns to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Why? Well, the House health-reform bill already includes a repeal of the anti-trust exemption, and the Senate bill would have, except that Reid was forced to scrap it to satisfy Nelson, a former insurance industry executive.

Thursday’s letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Pat Leahy (Vt.), John Kerry (Mass.), Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), Joe Lieberman (Conn.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Ed Kaufman (Del.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Michael Bennet (Col.) and Al Franken (Minn.).

There are some powerful folks on that list, which represents nearly a third of the Democratic caucus. Cruelly, however, it just takes a single “no” vote from Nelson to sink the entire bill. That means that if Nelson insists that the provision is out, then the provision will be out.

“No words I have ever spoken or written have received so much attention,” said Sotomayor. Speaking carefully, looking occasionally down at her hands, Sotomayor declined to take the path recommended by many pundits and offer an outright apology for her words. She was, she said, speaking to young Latinos and trying to inspire them. She didn’t believe that race or ethnicity made one person better at the job than any other person. “Every person has an opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background and experience.”

This obviously won’t be the only bite at the apple, as most of the Republicans on the committee have broadcast their intent to grill Sotomayor on this.

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O’Connor was unanimously confirmed.

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Although Napolitano did say she supports the DREAM Act — which would provide some children of undocumented immigrants raised in the United States a path to legalization if they complete two years of college or military service — Napolitano carefully avoided questions about whether a comprehensive immigration reform bill should include broader opportunities for legalization of the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Her refusal to offer an opinion on that highlights just how controversial and politically dicey that issue will be as a new proposal for comprehensive immigration reform gets hammered out over the next few months.

Napolitano’s refusal to sanction legalization seemed to please Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala), the new ranking Republican on the committee, who pressed the issue by saying that while “we need to fix our immigration system,” in his view, “the American people correctly are dubious of a plan that gives lawfulness now to people who came in illegally without confidence that the legal system is going to work in the future.” That “amnesty” would become “a magnet or a message abroad,” he said. “When the American people realize that the broken pipe is being fixed … we can have a far better discussion about how to deal fairly and humanely with people who have been here a long time.” That echoes a common argument from restrictionist quarters that strict border enforcement must precede any considerations of legalization.

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), the Judiciary Committee chairman, presented a more sympathetic case for legalizing undocumented immigrants now “living in the shadows” and tried to elicit Napolitano’s support. She wasn’t biting. The secretary refused to say she supports legalization, saying only, in response to Leahy’s question about whether it makes sense to try to deport 11 million people, that “the sheer logistics of doing that are overwhelming.”

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Well, maybe the truth commission idea still has some life in it after all. At least, Leahy wants you to think it does. His office put out a statement this afternoon:

In contrast to reports circulating on the Internet, Leahy said he is continuing to explore the proposal.

“I am not interested in a panel comprised of partisans intent on advancing partisan conclusions,” Leahy said. “I regret that Senate Republicans have approached this matter to date as partisans. That was not my intent or focus. Indeed, it will take bipartisan support in order to move this forward. I continue to talk about this prospect with others in Congress, and with outside groups and experts. I continue to call on Republicans to recognize that this is not about partisan politics. It is about being honest with ourselves as a country. We need to move forward together.”

So there you have it. Not dead! Just on life support. And the plug is slowly slipping out of the wall …

I thought from President Obama’s answer to Sam Stein’s question at his press conference last month that he was lukewarm on Sen. Pat Leahy’s (D-Vt.) efforts to establish a truth commission for Bush-era abuses. But then why release all these Office of Legal Counsel memos that indicate deeper abuses took place than most of us expected? Today the Senate Judiciary Committee is exploring the contours of such a commission, and the release of the OLC memoranda can only fuel the political dynamics for establishing one.

So is Obama playing some kind of inside-outside game by releasing the memos? That is, he publicly indicates his antipathy to a commission, professes a desire to move on, but feeds the Senate Dems what they need to empanel a commission — and lets them take the heat when Republicans inevitably bray about a witch hunt? Or am I misunderstanding this?

Didn’t see it? You can watch Daphne’s segment right here.

You might also notice that TWI is listed in the segment as the source of a quote from former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Thanks to some very heads-up reporting by our own David Weigel, who ran into Gonzales at a forum in Washington Thursday, Gonzales is on the record saying he’ll cooperate with a truth commission.

But there’s more. If you saw MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, you would have seen that the meat of Olbermann’s No. 5 story was … Gonzales’ comments. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t have had any idea that TWI was the source of the comments. (To be fair, Olbermann has cited TWI’s work previously with attribution, so we’re willing to forgive last night’s oversight.) Anyway, here’s the Countdown segment (skip two minutes in):

Great work, Daphne and David!

“My view has always been to be as cooperative as possible,” said Gonzales, “and that’s what I’ve been with respect to everything. As far as I’m concerned I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ll cooperate. Every time I’ve been asked to cooperate, I’ve cooperated. In terms of what happens in the future, I’m not going to comment on that, but that is what I’ve done in the past.”

Gonzales went further: “I think only a fool would be unconcerned about any kind of commission or investigation in this political town and in this political climate. Having said that, again, because I feel like I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m not worried about the truth, so long as what we’re talking about is the truth and things don’t become politicized.”