Colorado State Senator Dave Schultheis needs your help

Posted February 16, 2009

Dear Citizens,

I NEED YOUR HELP!

Please consider rallying for jobs for CITIZENS
Please fight SB09-170
Rally For Jobs For Citizens
President Obama will be in Colorado on Tuesday, February 17th to sign the Federal stimulus package, which backers claim will create 59,000 jobs for Colorado. I am rallying activists who want to see those jobs go to Colorado citizens and not illegal aliens. President Obama will be signing at noon at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and we will be meeting on the West steps of the Capitol between 11 and 2. Please bring signs saying things like, "No Jobs for Illegals," "Grandchildren Paying for the Bailout," "Where's the Promised Middle-Class Tax Cut," etc. E-VERIFY SIGNS A MUST!

Fight SB09-170

As many of you may already know, Senator Chris Romer (D-Denver) has introduced SB09-170, which would allow illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition to our colleges. I need your help to kill this bill! Here is more information on the bill:

Read an article in the Examiner here <http://www.swiftpage1.com/SpeClicks.aspx?X=2T0J7AXMHQNMT3PK00YVWU> .

You can also read my reasoning against it on my blog here <http://www.swiftpage1.com/SpeClicks.aspx?X=2T0J7AXMHQNMT3PK01YVWU> .

Read the bill here <http://www.swiftpage1.com/SpeClicks.aspx?X=2T0J7AXMHQNMT3PK02YVWU> .

This is where you can help. Write Senator Romer (Vice-Chair of Senate Education Committee & bill sponsor) hand-written letters, emails, and call him both at home and the office voicing your opposition to this bill. This bill is a slap in the face to Colorado taxpayers and cannot be tolerated. Make your voice heard in the same way to Senators Bacon (Chair), Groff, Heath, and Hudak- the Democratic members of the Education Committee. Also, consider testifying in opposition to the bill when it comes before Senate Education Committee the morning of February 25th upon adjournment of Senate proceedings in Senate Committee Room 354.


Senator Chris Romer:

Office phone: (303) 866-4852

Home phone: (303) 780-9445

Office address: Senator Chris Romer
Colorado State Capitol
200 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80203

Home address: Senator Chris Romer
2775 E 7th Ave Parkway
Denver, CO 80

Email: sen.romer@gmail.com


Senator Bob Bacon:

Office phone: (303) 866-4841

Home phone: (970) 221-4552

Office address: Senator Bob Bacon
Colorado State Capitol
200 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80203

Home address: Senator Bob Bacon
720 Gilgalad Way
Fort Collins, CO 80526
Email: bob.bacon.senate@state.co.us
Senator Peter Groff: Office phone: (303) 866-3342 Home phone: (303) 871-4195

Office address: Senator Peter Groff
Colorado State Capitol
200 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80203

Home address: Senator Peter Groff
1400 Pontiac St
Denver, CO 80220

Email: peter.groff.senate@state.co.us


Senator Rollie Heath:

Office phone: (303) 866-4872

Home phone: (720) 272-2389

Office address: Senator Rollie Heath
Colorado State Capitol
200 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80203

Home address: Senator Rollie Heath
2455 Vassar Dr
Boulder, CO 80305

Email: rollie.heath.senate@state.co.us

Senator Evie Hudak:

Office phone: (303) 866-4840

Home phone: (303) 423-8569

Office address: Senator Evie Hudak
Colorado State Capitol
200 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80203

Home address: Senator Evie Hudak
7649 Harlan Way
Arvada, CO 80003

Email: senatorhudak@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for your active participation.

For a Better Colorado,

Dave Schultheis, State Senator


http://www.americanpatrol.com/MISCNEWS/ ... Visit.html

Sent my comments to all involved. This is insanity as kids working toward their degree (American citizens) have parents mortgaging their homes and a four-year education may turn into a five-year education, if they cannot get the classes needed, because some illegal has planted their rear end in that seat. Hospitals have enough trouble and are shutting down. What is next? Colleges?

Flurry of bills focusing on immigrants now down to one
February 15, 2009 - 4:48 PM
DEAN TODA
DENVER · As usual, this year's legislative calendar is liberally sprinkled with bills aimed at immigrants. And as usual, most of them are biting the dust.

The 2009 legislative session is barely a month old, and already the ax has fallen on bills to:

The 2009 legislative session is barely a month old, and already the ax has fallen on bills to:

· Prohibit a judge from accepting a plea bargain from an illegal immigrant if it would allow the defendant to avoid deportation.


· Establish a presumption that the public would be in "significant peril" if an illegal immigrant accused of a crime is released on bail, and when setting bail to consider an illegal immigrant likely to flee.


· Require employers to use the federal E-Verify system to ascertain the work eligibility of new employees.


· Require proof of citizenship to register to vote.


· Make it harder for immigrants to drive legally: Nonresidents with another country's driver's license would be required to carry a document that authorizes travel in the United States or face impoundment of their cars.


· Make it easier for immigrants to drive legally: Nonresidents with work visas could get Colorado driver's licenses.


All but the last were part of a multi-year campaign to crack down on immigrants. But 2009 may go down as the year when Colorado turned a corner in its attitude toward immigrants.

The last immigrant-specific bill still standing would allow any student, regardless of immigration status, who has attended a Colorado high school for at least three years or has a Colorado GED to get the in-state tuition rate at a state college or university.

Supporters, and at least one leading opponent, say they think the tuition bill will pass this year.

It died the last time it was introduced, in 2005. But since then, the state Legislature and the governor's office have switched from Republican to Democratic control, and for the first time supporters of the bill have backing from some well-known business figures.

"I am a Republican," said Dick Monfort, an owner of the Colorado Rockies. "But I don't even know how a Republican could view this as not a good thing."

Monfort said it is senseless to spend the money to put a child of illegal immigrants through the public school system only to deny him the next and biggest final step. A college degree, he said, "allows this student to make something of his life."

"The business community realized that they needed to overcome the shortsightedness that having uneducated children is good for anybody," the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said.

The first hearing for the bill, SB-170, is scheduled for Feb. 25.


State Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, argued that higher education is not a right and that government has no business helping non-citizens to get it.

"Public schools from kindergarten through high school are already required by federal law to educate all children, regardless of their immigration status," Schultheis said in a statement. "Higher education, on the other hand, while coveted by some, is not a prerequisite for making something of oneself in America."

Schultheis, who has spent much of his nine-year legislative career targeting illegal immigrants, sponsored this year's bills to require foreign drivers to carry a passport and to require employers to use E-Verify, a database operated by the Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration.

It has been criticized as unreliable, and the federal government, facing a lawsuit, has put off requiring its own contractors to use the system.

Schultheis argued that E-Verify is sufficiently reliable and that fines collected under the proposed law would offset the cost of enforcement — a key consideration in a year when legislators are furiously pruning the state budget.

But his main point was preserving jobs for Coloradans.

"If we're really concerned with, quote, jobs by June, which is the big mantra of the Democrats," he said, "we've got to make sure the jobs are to people that are losing their jobs that are citizens."

No matter. On Feb. 9, his bill, SB-023, died in the Senate's State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee on a party-line 3-2 vote, with the majority Democrats offering copious assurances that they wanted to work with Schultheis to better address the issue of illegal immigrants in the work force.

What of the Democrats' professed willingness to cooperate? "Bull," Schultheis said, adding that he was considering an end-run around the Legislature by launching a petition campaign to enact an immigration measure by referendum.

It's unclear whether a referendum would win broad public support. No recent state-specific polling exists on the issue, but in a Rasmussen poll in January, more Americans said the most threatening Mexican export was drug violence, not illegal immigrants.

According to a Gallup Poll from June, twice as many Americans think illegal immigrants cost the taxpayers too much as think illegal immigrants pay their own way.

But the same poll found that by a margin of 5 to 1, Americans think illegal immigrants take jobs Americans don't want and aren't competing with citizens for the same slice of the economic pie.

Chandra Russo, communications coordinator for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said the recession could actually soften public opinion on immigrants.

"Immigration as a wedge issue does nothing for building the economy," she said.

Of the immigration hard-liners, she added, "There's not going to be public support for them, and hopefully our lawmakers are paying attention to that, and they seem to be."

Asked about the climate for his immigration views in the Legislature this year, Schultheis said, "It's not a headwind, but a brick wall."
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CALL TODA: 476-1654
http://www.gazette.com/articles/immigra ... s_one.html