Monday night I sat with close friends and other soldiers in the cause watching the screening of The Senators’ Bargain.   The screening was kicked off by the Senator Kennedy’s widow and partner and there was not a dry eye in the theater by the time the film ended.  Now on HBO On-Demand you get a chance to share in the experience.

The film is a front row seat to how government really works.  When the project first came to life, I was one of the skeptical ones that doubted anyone would be able to make a “cloture” vote interesting.  But perhaps, in a time when cable news regularly discusses the mechanics of  the reconciliation process, there is new attention for how bills become laws or don’t.

For the participants, The Senators’ Bargain is more than a yearbook–it is a eulogy.  As Doug Rivlin wrote, the film made us face our grief  once more that Senator Kennedy is not still with us offering his advice and fighting tooth and nail for reform.  The Lion of the Senate, as Senator Kennedy was often called, is living proof that the notion that everyone is replaceable is poppycock.  Kennedy has not been, nor will he ever be, replaced.

Had it not been for the fact that I spent this past Sunday with 200,000 patriots on the National Mall rallying for comprehensive reform of our broken immigration laws, watching the loss of 2007 would have been unbearable.   Instead, having seen the vibrancy of the immigration reform movement and its beautiful diversity on March 21st, Senator Kennedy’s post-mortem floor speech, in which he assured us that the fight would go on, rang true.

My children– my generation Y focus group — having grown up with me pacing the floors in our home on conference calls with Angie, Frank, Marshall, Cecilia and gang, having UFW black eagle t-shirts in their closets, having been at both the rally in 2006 shown in this episode and at which Kennedy spoke and on March 21st, and having screened the Senators’ Bargain — ask every week “did you pass your bill?”    They simply do not understand the views of those who would deny the women and men who pick our lettuce, clean our houses, and care for them the legal right to work without fear in this country.    They do not understand the delay.

I am hoping this series will lead others to be similarly impatient.