(CNN) Remember that big, amendment-laden debate the Senate was preparing for as the world's greatest deliberative body began to grapple with what to do about the nation's broken immigration system?

The actual debate over a series of proposals -- a conservative one, a compromise one -- lasted less than a day. Actually, less than an afternoon.

No proposal was able to get the 60 votes required to end debate.

"I don't see it," Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican, said of the possibility of the Senate taking up immigration again. "We couldn't get it together this week. We've got other things we have to do, which are pressing."

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