April 24, 2012 08:16 PM UTC

Inevitable Shenanigans on Immigrant Tuition?

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The Pueblo Chieftain’s Patrick Malone reports:

The push for a discount rate of college tuition for illegal immigrants educated in Colorado crossed a line Monday that it has never breached before.

The Republican-controlled House Education Committee passed SB15 on a 7-6 vote. A similar proposal last year died at the same juncture in the legislative process.

The difference this year was in the details of the bill as seen by committee chairman Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs. He cast the vote to torpedo the bill last year, but on Monday he cast the vote that kept it alive…

The bill already has passed in the Democratically controlled Senate, where Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, is a sponsor. It faces a serious challenge next in the Republican-led House Finance Committee. If it passes that test, it must clear one more committee before reaching the House floor for debate, a milestone that Hickenlooper announced on Twitter that he would like to see the bill achieve.

Here’s the problem: according to all accounts we can verify, and for some reason totally missed by the many media outlets reporting this story, the bill’s likely death in the House Finance Committee is a new development, a change by Speaker Frank McNulty in the last few days. Our understanding is that the bill’s proponents only found out about this change yesterday, where previously the bill was slated for House Education and Appropriations–then the floor.

So what happened?

Our sources consider it most likely (though they admit to speculation) that Speaker McNulty was unsure the Republican majority on the Appropriations Committee would act to kill the bill before it reaches the House floor, where it would likely pass with the support of Rep. Tom Massey. There’s a theory involving Majority Leader Amy Stephens’ hot primary against Rep. Marsha Looper, and a major disincentive to allowing this bill to pass “on her watch.”

We’re not completely sure about that particular theory, but we do understand why House Republicans are having problems with this legislation. A number of high-profile GOP elder statesmen have been lobbying for its passage as an economic as well as practical political measure, while the GOP is simultaneously trying desperately to narrow a massive lead in Hispanic support enjoyed by Democrats and President Barack Obama. On the other hand, a crucial segment of the GOP electorate in Colorado is composed of Tom Tancredo style anti-immigration hard liners who will not tolerate any “appeasement” on the issue whatsoever.

With all that in mind, maybe some kind of lame kabuki cop-out really is their only choice.