Thread: Pull punches? Not when votes beckon

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Johnson: Pull punches? Not when votes beckon

July 7, 2006
Wishing doesn't make it so.
I forget, exactly, who taught me that. Maybe I just know it instinctively. But it has always been true.

It is why I love Ron Lemons' story. I think it is instructive.

It happened about a week ago. He and eight other family members and friends traveled from their Westminster homes to the Denver Coliseum to watch a boxing match in which a friend was fighting in the main event.

They were already seated when about two dozen men slid into the rows below them. They were all, Ron Lemons says, of Mexican descent.

That they were whooping, hollering and waving Mexican flags when his friend's opponent, a Mexican, was introduced pretty much gave it away, he said.

Yet none of that really bothered Ron Lemons and his family and friends. The trouble started after the announcer introduced his buddy, when the national anthem soon began playing.

All of the men in front of them - except for six - stood for the anthem. The six that sat, staring blankly down at the ring, were set upon verbally by both the Lemons group and their own friends who had risen to their feet.

"They upset everybody," Ron Lemons, 64, said. "We were yelling at them. Their buddies were yelling at them."

It lasted well into the first round, at least until Ron Lemons' friend knocked out his opponent mere minutes into the bout.

"We probably got lucky the fight didn't go the full eight rounds, or somebody for sure would have gotten hurt. I really think so," Ron Lemons said.

He has been to Mexico, attended sporting events there and always stood and faced the Mexican flag during their anthem.

"So it really upset us," he said. "They showed absolutely no respect for America or the flag. It makes no sense to me. They live and work here. They shouldn't have been allowed to get away with that crap."

Oh, how he wanted to just beat them.

"I'm 64, but on that night, I know I could have taken them," Ron Lemons said. "Well, I had my sons and other men with me. And they were young punks, so I know I wouldn't have had a problem."

Yet he held his group back, even when they walked past the six men while leaving the building after the bout.

"It really upset us," he said. "You want to lash out, but it would have just put us on their level."

His story, I think, is a good metaphor for what is occurring at the Capitol this week.

Called back into special session by Gov. Bill Owens to address the issue of illegal immigrants in Colorado, the legislature is fast discovering it has few teeth - not without legislative or moral violence - to put a big bite on a problem many of them see right before them.

Cut 'em off! Starve 'em out!

This largely has been the House and Senate Republicans' approach to the issue of illegal immigration in Colorado, a dubious approach because, it turns out, the state spends very little of its money beyond what the federal government demands.

The governor, himself, learned this firsthand after famously marching across East 14th Street on Wednesday to a Joint Budget Committee hearing where one state agency head after another told him, well, the state actually pays out relatively little over what the feds require it to.

In a brief discussion on Thursday, one agency head - who asked not to be identified lest his words only miff the governor - scratched his head when asked how much his department was spending beyond the federal mandate.

"Uh, not much. OK, I suppose we could deport every illegal once they get arrested - no bail, no lawyers, no trial. That will save money. But, trust me, they will be right back here the minute they're dropped in Mexico."

Up and down the line, departments reported relatively small amounts of money spent on the undocumented.

Human Services, for example, reported it spends $3.5 million annually on the undocumented, but mostly to fund child protective services, mental health and youth corrections.

Contrary to popular belief, they noted, illegal immigrants do not qualify for, or receive, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps or public housing.

Yet under Initiative 55, the ballot question tossed out by the state Supreme Court last month that Owens and the Republicans want placed back on the ballot, Human Services would be required to cut funding to protect and assist abused, abandoned and mentally challenged children of undocumented immigrants.

Perhaps this is what we have finally become.

It will be very interesting and, in some ways, very educational, to see over the next week what our elected leaders get done on the question of illegal immigration.

I'm guessing little, if anything, gets accomplished. Do what I did Thursday: Walk into the Capitol. It is all dog-and-pony show, just elected officials jockeying and scheming, trying to get elected again.

Ron Lemons pulled his punch. Will the legislature do the same?

Mind you, it is, after all, an election year.



Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-892-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

it spends $3.5 million annually

Bill Johnson considers this chump change I guess. We just have to cut off the access to Other Peoples Money.