Right Wing Texas Legislators Want To Make Immigration An Issue In 81st Texas Legislature

If you happened to be sitting around wondering just how important it really is to have a Democratic House and Democratic Speaker during the 81st Texas Legislature, consider this:

Conservative Texas legislators made it clear Monday that they’ll again push for strict state laws to crack down on illegal immigration when lawmakers convene in January.

A chief area they’re likely to concentrate on is encouraging local police departments to work with U.S. officials to enforce federal immigration laws, which the House State Affairs Committee is studying.

Believe it or not, we only barely avoided paralyzing the Texas House with a boat-load of anti-immigrant bills last session–everything from denying immigrant children education plus more–thanks to some behind-the-scenes maneuvering and a lack of desire to make the legislative process ten times more contentious than it already was.

Now, however, right-wing Republicans like Leo Berman (R-Tyler) are emboldened and ready for a fight. And, without a Democratic House and Democratic Speaker, chances are a heck of a lot of other state needs won’t be addressed as the House becomes paralyzed over stuff like this:

Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, told the committee that he wants to see legislative proposals in 2009 requiring voters to show photo identification to prove their citizenship, penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants, and paying for local law enforcement to train officers to enforce federal immigration laws.

We all know that Voter ID has about as much to do with illegal immigration as a pile of cow manure has to do with the price of Diebold stock. Even so, Berman and his colleagues throw this in along with everything else.

Worse than that, Berman and his colleagues evidently want the state to spend taxpayer money on programs that are the responsibility of the federal government. I’m not sure when the last time Leo Berman looked at the mosaic in the Capitol Rotunda, but last time I checked, it had the seal of the United States somewhere in there, meaning we’re no longer a sovereign nation and haven’t been since 1845. Therefore, spending state money on these programs isn’t only futile, it’s simply not our job. Is there a problem? Sure, but it is the federal government’s problem to fix, not the Texas Legislature’s problem.

The 81st Texas Legislature will have enough on its plate to deal with without Berman’s bills.

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