Over the past few months, ThinkProgress has reported several times on the prison industry’s role in helping to enact Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB-1070. In October, NPR followed up with a widely cited story which claimed the idea for SB-1070 “took shape” at a conference hosted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a powerful front group that helps corporate representatives craft template legislation for state lawmakers, funded partially by the private prison industry.

Yesterday, at a panel discussion hosted by the right-wing organization called Judicial Watch on the “current and upcoming fights over immigration enforcement,” I asked SB-1070′s sponsor, Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), about the role Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) played in passing the bill. Pearce replied that he’d like to set the record straight, saying, “zero role, zero money, zero impact”:

That story was simply made up. After I introduced this bill in 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, and 2010 — so to assume we wrote it in December 2009 is more than just a stretch. They’ve never had any role. That’s called zero for those who understand math — that’s the very bottom. It has no number to it at all. They had zero role in that.

So it’s pretty disappointing that people can’t find enough real information that they have to make up stuff to demean what’s going on. And it’s insulting. And I made that very clear at the time and I’ll make it clear now: it was an absolute lie that report. Complete manufactured misinformation. And it’s pretty disappointing, so I will set the record very straight — zero role, zero money, zero impact. It was done because it was the right thing to do.

Watch it:

Pearce is right about the fact that he has been introducing versions of SB-1070 for years. NPR’s coverage only went as far back as 2009 and didn’t seem to acknowledge the bill’s legislative history. It’s been known for a while that the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) drafted the legislation — a fact which Pearce would have a hard time denying.

However, just because SB-1070′s language has been around for a while doesn’t preclude ALEC’s or CCA’s involvement in getting passed. NPR didn’t fabricate the fact that 30 of the 36 SB-1070 co-sponsors received donations from prison lobbyists or prison companies. Meanwhile, Pearce’s immigration bill has been adopted as model legislation by ALEC and CCA continues to funnel significant amounts of cash to those pushing Arizona copycat legislation in other states.

A local Arizona TV news station has extensively documented Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R-AZ) conflict of interest in her support of Arizona’s immigration law. CBS5′s KPHO TV found that “two of Brewer’s top advisers have connections” to CCA: Paul Senseman, Brewer’s deputy chief of staff and Chuck Coughlin, who manages her campaign, chaired her transition into the governorship, and is one of the governor’s policy advisors. KPHO reported that Senseman is a former lobbyist for CCA and his wife continues to lobby for the company. Coughlin is president of HighGround Public Affairs Consultants, which lobbies for CCA.

Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with a large financial stake in CCA, openly noted that CCA’s profitability depends on increasing numbers of immigrants sent to prison. And since CCA is a member of ALEC, the front group has a responsibility to promote CCA’s profitability. When it comes to immigration, Pearce is an ideologue, so there’s little doubt in my mind that he’s been pushing SB-1070 for the past five years because — according to his value system — he believes it’s the “right” thing to do. Yet, to suggest that two powerful entities which have a clear interest in pushing SB-1070 through played “zero” role in its success is at the very least naive, if not outright misleading.

Last night, the House of Representatives approved the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act which “offers a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to this country illegally before age 16 and who have enrolled in college or entered the military.” The vote essentially split along party lines. However, eight brave Republicans bucked their party and voted in support of the DREAM Act.

The votes of three Florida Republicans — Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — came as no surprise. All three of them have been avid supporters of the DREAM Act. Rep. Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao (R-LA) was also a cosponsor of the DREAM Act and voted in favor of it last night. Cao, a Vietnamese immigrant, lost his bid for reelection this past November and had nothing to lose last night by voting for the bill.

The other three Republican votes were not a huge surprise, but they were also by no means in the bag. Rep. Charles Djou (R-HI) probably wasn’t afraid to vote “yes” as he will be leaving the House in January after a brief stint in Washington, DC. Although Djou appears to support Arizona’s draconian approach to immigration, he is himself a son of immigrants and has been a proponent of immigration reform that’s focused on attracting high-skilled labor to the U.S.

Rep. Vernon Ehlers’ (R-MI) stance was always a toss-up. A right-wing website describes his immigration record as moderate. “Representative Vernon Ehlers seems to take immigration reform as a pick and choose issue,” notes the website. He was declared “on the fence” by the DREAM Act Portal largely due to the fact he is retiring from the House at the end of the year. Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE) also has a fuzzy immigration record and his vote was unclear up until the very end. Castle is leaving the House after losing the Senate primary to Christine O’Donnell.

Rep. Bob Inglis’ (R-SC) “yes” vote was a little more out of the ordinary. The anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA — which grades lawmakers on how tough they are on immigration — gave Inglis an A+ over the course of his career. The DREAM Act Portal identified Inglis as a “nay” vote. Yet, the fact that Inglis lost the Republican nomination for reelection to a tea party-backed GOP candidate probably changed the political calculation behind his vote.

All of these Republicans come from vastly different states and backgrounds. The common denominator seems to be that they are all leaving (except for Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart). Apparently, the only Republicans with any spine on immigration are the ones who don’t have to worry about pandering for votes — which says a lot about how the Republican Party operates on the issue. The Senate has many fewer outgoing Republicans. However,Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seems to think that he at least bought Democrats some time by holding a vote to table today’s DREAM Act vote to convince a few Republicans to cross the aisle on the widely supported issue.

The Politico reports that Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) doesn’t think there is enough time to get New START done. Well, at this point, who cares what Kyl thinks. He is no longer pivotal to the ratification effort. The fact is Harry Reid controls the Senate calendar and has pledged to hold a vote on START and enough Republicans now support it to make ratification increasingly likely.

Importantly, you can’t filibuster a treaty, since it only takes 50 votes to start debate. Therefore, the treaty was not included in the letter from the Senate GOP caucus that threatened to block any legislation that came before tax cuts. The danger has always been that Republicans would endlessly delay the final vote on START through pointless and ridiculous amendments – hence Kyl insisting it would take “two weeks” of floor time as opposed to five days for START I and two days for SORT. Kyl’s leverage was in stringing out the process. But Reid now has leverage with the tax cut vote. Every day Republicans delay only pushes back a vote on tax cuts, which only delays their Christmas vacation.

Kyl’s caucus is also rapidly abandoning the untenable talking point that “there is no time” to do the treaty. A wave of Republican Senators have endorsed having a vote on START in the lame duck, Sens. Lugar (R-IN), Judd Gregg (R-NH), George Voinovich (R-OH), Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Bob Corker (R-TN), and Bob Bennett (R-UT) are all on record in support of having a vote in the lame duck period. And Republican opponents of the treaty were only able to get 22 Republican members of the caucus to support calling for delay.

To make matters worse for Kyl and treaty opponents, a slew of big time endorsements occurred this week. The START treaty got endorsements from George W. Bush’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. And yesterday President George H.W. Bush went public urging the Senate to ratify the treaty. Last week, Senator Susan Collins insisted that the endorsement of George H.W. Bush would persuade her to vote for the treaty – Collins told the Washington Post:

It would be wonderful if President [George H.W.] Bush would come out for the treaty. That would be so powerful and definitely help.

So while Kyl doesn’t think there is time to do the treaty, if enough other people on both sides of the aisle do then that is what matters. As Richard Lugar’s spokesman said today:

The senator [Lugar] is hopeful we can get to it right away next week… We’re optimistic about the number of votes we’re going to get.

It is not about Kyl anymore. It is about whether Harry Reid will ever bring START to the floor.