Johnson: Leaders playing games with immigration

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Friday, June 23, 2006

Where are the grown-ups?

All year now we have been scared senseless about the terrible national threat that is illegal immigration. The president, for goodness sake, has even dispatched National Guard soldiers to the border to protect us.

Yet on both the state and national level, the folks elected to represent us simply fiddle.

Even worse, they are now playing this ridiculous game with illegal immigration, bashing each other about the neck and shoulders with it in a perverse attempt to curry our favor. If we are to accept that illegal immigration is a grave and imminent threat to our way of life, then we should all be both appalled and crazy angry over what is now transpiring.

At the federal level, rather than sitting down and having adult discussions to seek a compromise on the House and Senate versions of an immigration-reform bill, the House this week just packed it in. They're going to hold a series of hearings around the country this summer instead. Figure it all out.

Oh, please.

Here at home, the Democrats have called for a special session on immigration, but need a two-thirds vote in each house to get it. Gov. Bill Owens, meanwhile, says he may call the legislature back to restore to the ballot a poorly worded, overreaching and plain bad initiative the state Supreme Court tossed in the garbage for precisely those reasons.

It would deny illegal immigrants pretty much every taxpayer-funded service. So presumably, under the initiative, everyone proves their citizenship to the fire department before the crew could even begin to knock down the fire raging in the kitchen.

It is why it has been difficult not to laugh at the rhetoric, much of it Republican, that the state high court's decision spawned.

"The Colorado Supreme Court apparently elected itself the 101st legislator," fumed Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican.

"Activist judges!" How many times have we heard this in recent days? It is a term that just slays me.

It is repeated as if it's a mantra and is usually preceded or followed with the word "arrogant," often with "Democrat" placed somewhere not far behind.

Don't believe me? Well, do what I did. Just Google "activist judge." My search shows it to be a phrase near and dear to the Republicans, less so to elected Democrats.

"In my opinion," Gov. Bill Owens said, "the court's decision was inconsistent, it was inappropriate, and yes, I even believe it was arrogant."

And then yesterday, the governor added, "I feel the Supreme Court made a political decision. We have responsibility to right a wrong. I'm going to make sure the Democratic Party doesn't keep Colorado voters from having that debate."

"Activist judge" is often always spat when a court somewhere, anywhere, has turned aside a Republican-authored law that in its raw and naked form would strip or deny human beings of a basic right.

Yet the "activist judge" digression is not the point here.

If the goal is to make the life of illegal immigrants so difficult as to not be worth making the trek to Colorado, the legislature's job it seems is to craft initiative wording that is both precise and legal.

Leveling blame and firing accusatory names across 14th Street at the Supreme Court building is just, well, childish.

Forget the court. Come up with something real, tangible and legal to avert the crisis we are said to be facing.

Andrew Romanoff, the House speaker and a Democrat, got it correct. If Bill Owens believes illegals are receiving services in excess of what the federal government mandates, he is honor-bound to call his Cabinet on the carpet and demand to know which agency is not doing its job.

Under the Democrats' call for a special session, they could give consideration to a Romanoff proposal that I think would immediately move Colorado off this issue: A statute requiring that employers verify a worker's immigration status and employment eligibility.

It is such a simple fix.

"The truth is," Andrew Romanoff said, "it's not the services drawing people to the state illegally, it's the jobs."

I will say this again, and with feeling: Illegal immigrants do not go or settle where there are no jobs available to them.

But what may or may not happen in a special session is, I fear, not the point, either.

The point, sadly, is to keep this issue alive long enough, to keep you angry enough, until you step in front of the voting machine.

It was not that long ago that the president and Congress rolled up their sleeves and confronted real threats to our way of life like adults. They rationally and intelligently did so, without regard to party affiliation, simply because it was the right thing to do.

To those who now occupy the offices, it is all a political game, a contest designed to get you to like them better come November, regardless of what truly is at stake.

We deserve better.

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.