House Democrats hope that passing the bill in their chamber first will provide some momentum for Senate passage. In discussions Wednesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) personally urged Reid to postpone the Senate vote until Thursday, said a senior Democratic aide.

“If the bill had gone down in the Senate first, it would have been very hard to get it across the finish line in the House,” the aide said.

All but eight Republicans voted against it (Castle, Djou, Ehlers, Inglis, Cao and Latinos Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Mario Diaz-Balart).  On the Democrats’ side, it seems that 38 voted against the DREAM:

Altmire, Arcuri, Baird, Barrow, Boccieri, Boren, Boucher, Bright, Carney, Chandler, Childers, Costello, Critz, Dahlkemper, Donnelly (IN), Ellsworth, Higgins, Holden, Kaniorski, Kaptur, Kissell, Kratovil, Lipinski, Matheson, McIntyre, Patrick Murphy, Nye, Owens, Peterson, Rahall, Ross, Schrader, Shuler, Space, Stupak, Taylor, Visclosky, Wilson (OH).

Does that list looks familiar?  That’s because all of them, except for the ones in bold, are official members of the Blue Dog Conservative Democrats.  On the flip side, it was great to see Latino Blue Dog Democrats like Joe Baca, John Salazar, and Loretta Sanchez vote for the DREAM Act, but perhaps these folks should re-evaluate belonging to this Blue Dog Democrats club of traitors that chose to vote against the interests of the Latino community.  

So what next?  The Huffington Post reports:

[…] the fight isn’t over — the Senate’s version of the bill is set to come up for a vote tomorrow and faces a steep climb to get past a cloture vote.

Strong opposition to the bill during the House debate, particularly among Republicans, set the stage for tomorrow’s vote in the Senate, where it is expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

[…] 

The Senate delayed a cloture vote on the bill until Thursday morning. Prospects for the bill there remain bleak, with likely opposition from all 42 Senate Republicans citing the need to resolve tax issues first.

If the cloture vote fails, the Senate could still take up the House’s version of the bill — but time is running short.

It is not clear if all Republicans will oppose the DREAM Act, being that both GOP Senators Lugar (who co-sponsored the DREAM Act) and Bennet have already come out forcefully in support of the DREAM Act.  

Update: …and as predicted (get ready for it), Rachel Maddow ignored the DREAM Act again, offering no coverage whatsoever of this historic vote. 

Update # 2: the Senate will proceed to vote on cloture on the DREAM Act at 11:00am ET.  However, via DailyKos:

The Senate is currently scheduled to vote on a motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of the DREAM Act under the designation of S. 3992. However, the House-passed version of the DREAM Act from last night is under H.R. 5281 (which began life as a completely different bill, on a completely different subject, but was amended by the House yesterday to carry the DREAM Act). Whether the Senate will change its plans in some way is unknown at this point, but it would sure be a faster path to completion if the Senate opted to take up H.R. 5281 instead. Even if the texts of H.R. 5281 and S. 3992 are identical, the key is passing them under the same designation. So if the Senate defies the odds and invokes cloture and eventually passes S. 3992, it’d only have to go back to the House for another vote, and the last one was too close for comfort as it was. So we may very well see something engineered in the Senate to get them to H.R. 5281 instead […].

Update #3: apparently Rachel Maddow did cover the House vote on the DREAM Act, but apparently by “cover” she means the usual fleeting mention that she usually gives it in passing rather than an actual entire segment (like she does with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, for example) explaining what the DREAM Act is, what the politics of it are, and what is the latest strategy.