This is a big week for the illegal immigration issue. There will be federal hearings in California and Pennsylvania and state hearings in Denver on what, if anything, should be done about illegal immigration.
In the background is a looming national election in which immigration policy will be a major factor.
When the Colorado General Assembly convened in special session Thursday to consider illegal immigration, party lines were quite blurred.
Some Democrats, like former Gov. Dick Lamm, are optimistic that the legislature (controlled by Democrats) will be able to pass a bill along the lines of a recently adopted Georgia law. That measure, which includes tougher regulations on employers who rely on illegal immigrants, would largely satisfy the backers of a proposed ballot initiative that was struck down last month by the Colorado Supreme Court. That decision was roundly condemned by members of both major political parties.
Republican Gov. Bill Owens was among those appalled by the decision that found the initiative violated the single-subject requirement in the state constitution. Owens called the legislature into special session in part to send a strong message to the Supreme Court to avoid future decisions that reek of political motivation and are clearly subjective in nature.
It would be nice to report that as the legislature gets down to its task, the spirit of bipartisanship is in the air and compromise is just around the corner. Alas, that is not the way to bet.
Democratic leaders like Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald have been grumbling that the Owens administration hasn’t been able to quickly come up with estimates on how much it costs to provide services to an illegal immigrant population currently estimated at a quarter-million.
Until very recently, there has been a determined political effort to avoid knowing how much illegal immigration costs the state and its localities. School districts still aren’t allowed to even ask if a student is here legally. Neither are hospitals or most public agencies. Even when the immigration status is known, in most cases there is no effort to act upon the knowledge. It is therefore patently unfair to suggest that legislative action can only be taken once an accurate tally of the costs is available. Best guesses will have to do.
The Georgia legislature certainly didn’t have a complete list of costs when it took action. It simply knew it was facing a growing problem.
Perhaps the most pernicious element of the local debate is the participation of the Bell Policy Center. That left-leaning organization actually claims that illegal immigrants are either paying their own way for services received or coming very close to it.
The state must make a choice. If it were to accept the view of the Bell Policy Center, it should cast around for ways to attract more illegal immigrants. One suspects most Coloradans wouldn’t think that was a bright idea.
The more sensible approach is to confine the legislative deliberations to the main question of whether there is sufficient bipartisan support to pass all or most elements of the Georgia law. Lamm and former Denver Mayor Federico Peña have agreed that three sections of that law can win passage here, the ones dealing with the obligations of employers and with state and local government agencies to verify immigration status before providing certain services. That’s a start.
Agreement even on these issues presents significant risks for both political parties. If Democrats stonewall and avoid passing meaningful legislation, they risk giving the Republicans a powerful political issue to use this fall. If Republicans aren’t willing to share political credit with cooperative Democrats, they could lose the opportunity to actually pass a law they say they support.
The choice for the state isn’t complicated. Does it wish to take sensible steps to either reduce the number of illegal immigrants or at least make Colorado less attractive to this population? If so, it can’t be done without the votes of both Democrats and Republicans.
Scary as that fact is, it makes the current special session one that is worth all the public attention it can get.
Al Knight of Fairplay (alknight@mindspring.com) is a former member of The Post’s editorial-page staff. His column appears on Wednesdays.
