'Tuition equity' bill fails in Senate (illegals)

Denver Post ^ | April 6, 2009 | Tim Hoover

[La Lydia]

The Colorado Senate today narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants in-state tuition after five Democrats joined with Republicans to vote against it...Sen. Chris Romer, Denver Democrat who sponsored the bill, said it was hard for some lawmakers to support the bill in the current tough economic times....,adding that he would try to bring the legislation back next year.

The bill would have allowed any student who had attended a Colorado high school for at least three years...to attend public colleges and universities at the in-state tuition rate, regardless of their immigration status....

Republicans argued that the bill would run afoul of a 1996 federal law that prohibits illegal immigrants from getting college benefits that are not available to all U.S. citizens. However, nine other states have passed laws allowing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, and...that practice has not been squarely decided in court....

And in an at times angry speech, Senate President Peter Groff, a Denver Democrat and one of only two blacks in the legislature, hearkened to the civil-rights era and to the country's "dark past."... Democratic Sen. Joyce Foster invoked the Holocaust and appealed to senators' compassion....

It wasn't enough. Democratic Sens. Morgan Carroll of Aurora, Jim Isgar of Hesperus, Moe Keller of Wheat Ridge, Linda Newell of Littleton and Lois Tochtrop of Thornton voted against the bill. Carroll referred reporters to a statement on her website that said she could not support the bill "in a climate where the state is cutting or eliminating over $1 billion of benefits to the people and is facing a $300 million cut to higher education..."Newell, who was elected in November by a razor-thin margin, simply said "I listened to my constituents" when asked about her vote.

[La Lydia]

The problem where I live is that there a limited number of places in the good public universities, and were they to give preference to illegals, even more U.S. citizens would be left out of the schools their parents have been paying taxes to support all of their lives. As it is, the University of Virginia is full of students from New Jersey and Connecticut, supplanting Virginians, but at least they are paying out-of-state tuition.

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[the long march]

We will keep all appendages crossed and say prayers continuously that the Constitution is upheld. Of course what may happen is that it will end the instate/outofstate designation for students and thus raise costs for all. Go figure