Critics of the controversial legislation that would grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants say Democrats pulled a “sneak attack” yesterday by holding a “surprise vote” on the bill while one Republican lawmaker, who would have voted against the measure and likely killed it, was out of town.
However, the bill’s supporters say that they announced the date change for when the Senate Appropriations Committee would hear the bill 24 hours in advance, as required by Senate rules, and that the Republicans could have appointed another lawmaker to sit in on the committee if they were that concerned.
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed Senate Bill 170 on a 5-4 vote yesterday morning. The bill would provide in-state tuition to students of illegal immigrants who graduate from a state high school that they attended for at least three years. Students would also be allowed to receive an equivalency diploma to qualify.
Harvey out of town
Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, was excused from the vote because he was in Florida helping his Alzheimer-stricken father-in-law move into a retirement home. Harvey said he wasn’t surprised that the committee held the vote without him.
“The Majority Party has been doing everything they can to manipulate their bills through in the manner that they want,” he said. “They simply rescheduled the appropriations committee to ensure I wasn’t there … It’s hard for me not to see the surprise vote as some kind of sneak attack.”
As the head of the appropriations committee, Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, said that the rescheduling of SB 170 wasn’t an attempt to “intentionally squeeze the bill through.” The veteran lawmaker said that the Senate leadership had told him to get as many bills through the Senate Appropriations Committee as possible, and because SB 170 was ready to go, he made it one of the 10 bills the lawmakers heard yesterday in a committee session that was scheduled earlier this week.
When Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, asked Tapia to hold off on the bill until Friday, Tapia said he did what he always does; ask the bill’s sponsor, who in this case was Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, if he wanted to postpone the legislation. When Romer said no, arguing that the appropriations committee is only supposed to act on bills that cost the state money, which SB 170, he said, would not, Tapia went ahead.
“The right thing happened,” said Romer. “It would have been unprecedented for a bill that is basically financially favorable to the state to not get through appropriations.”
Romer added that the bill’s critics will get a chance to express their doubts when it goes back to the Senate floor, which is expected to happen either today or tomorrow.
Tough road ahead?
Romer has acknowledged that getting SB 170 through the legislature would not be an easy task. Opponents claim that so-called tuition equity bills would “replace innocent American students in the limited seats in college at taxpayers’ expense,” while also providing incentives for people to illegally immigrate to America.
However, SB 170 supporters, which include Democrat and Republican businessmen, say the legislation could help Colorado in many ways.
“Everything that people complain about with the immigration issue – crime, teen pregnancy, gangs, uninsured drivers – every one of those issues would get better with (SB 170)’s passage,” said Romer. “While it’s an uphill battle, I continue to try to pass SB 170 because I don’t want to send a hopeless signal to a bunch of kids who deserve to dream and do well.”
