Immigration legislation; Public education governance

KSL.com
February 13th, 2011

In this Sunday Edition, lawmakers explain their proposals to change who's in charge of public schools and two Utah senators talk about bills addressing illegal immigration.

Segment 1: Immigration legislation

The Utah Legislature enters the fourth week of its annual session on Feb. 14th and still has before it at least seven more bills that address the emotional issue of illegal immigration.

Divisions over immigration policy have sparked protests on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the state for a number of months, even the past few years.

There are competing schools of thought on how to approach the issue, whether from the standpoint of enforcement only or with some accommodation that might include state-issued work permits. Those positions lie along one spectrum.

On another axis is the question of whether states should be involved at all, or leave enforcement and solutions to the federal government.

A few of these perspectives are discussed in this program.

Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City, and Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden, explain their proposals.

Robles explains her worker permit bill, SB60.

The bill, if passed, will require all adult illegal immigrants to get a permit to work in the state.

"SB60 is a comprehensive approach to accountability, to public safety and to a mechanism to understanding and recognizing that we do have a population here that are out of immigration status -- 110,000 we believe, that's the estimate," Robles explains.

"We want to know who they are, where they live, take them all through criminal background checks and have them continue to be part of our community if they wish but be able to quantify their contributions and also have them integrate into America through English classes and American civics classes."

The only privilege it gives them is the ability to work legally.

"They will not have access to any programs or benefits, not even unemployment insurance," says Robles.

"They may pay into those programs and benefits, but will have no access to any of them."

Robles says the plan highly benefits law enforcement.

"It reduces the universe of potential criminal element within that community, because right now that potential criminal element could be any of those 110,000 people," she explains. "With this piece of legislation because we will have people go through criminal background checks and with that card permanently being with them, that means they already went through that process so law enforcement doesn't have to worry about that individual being a potential criminal."

Reid is sponsoring a resolution calling on Congress to act -- SJR9.

"My resolution acknowledges that the state government is very, very limited in what they can do in terms of immigration management," Reid describes. "And the reason I am doing it is because I want the electorate to know that while we are going to make every effort to try to put a comprehensive bill together, we have limited, limited authority, limited powers to do that. So the onus really belongs with Congress and in our case with our Congressional delegation. The electorate should be aware of that and should know that that's who they should be contacting and, frankly, putting pressure on, to come up with some legislation and move it through Congress so that these issues can be resolved."

"So my bill does something really simple, it acknowledges that we have limited authority, it identifies that Congress to date has failed in their authority to do something about immigration, it calls on Congress to correct their behavior and do something," Reid says. "Short of that, it then calls upon our congressional delegation to forward and advance legislation giving states the authority to manage immigration issues within their borders. So once the immigrant has crossed the national border, ends up within a state, then the states at that point can have the authority to manage an immigration issues that they are facing."

Reid is part of a coalition to move legislation through the Utah Senate and House regarding legislation, but he knows the federal government currently holds the authority to deal with immigration.

Segment 2: Public education governance

There are three proposals to change the governance of Utah's public schools.

Sen. Reid is sponsoring SJR9 which would amend the constitution to give the governor nearly exclusive executive control over the education system, virtually eliminating the State Board of Education.

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, is the sponsor of SJR1. This resolution would give the legislature statutory control over the school system, so lawmakers could essentially bypass the Board of Education by enacting specific laws.

And HB 264, sponsored by Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, R-Holladay, would allow for direct election of education board members in non-partisan elections.

Sen. Reid and Rep. Moss explain their proposals. Sen. Buttars declined our request for an interview.

Reid explains what power his resolution gives to the governor.

"It would give him authority under statute so there would be the balance of power between the governor and the Legislature, just like any other department in state government," describes Reid. "What my bill does is it allows the governor to do something that no single organization in education can do. We are siloed [sic] in education, we have the public ed, we have the ATCs and we have higher ed. And there is no authority that coordinates and brings those efforts together. It does a second thing -- it allows the governor to align those educational efforts with his economic development efforts, to create more prosperity for Utah. And the governor said that his cornerstone issue is education, in support of economic development. He has no way of doing that, he has no authority, do to anything with education at this point. Education is 60 percent of the budget and the CEO of the state, that we've elected to run the state, has no constitutional authority over 60 percent of the state budget. That doesn't make sense."

Moss believes giving the governor power takes away the will of the people.

"I think the direct election of school board members would reflect the public's keen interest in education and by putting the governor over that you take away the will of the people," she explains. "More than ever today there is more interest in public education, as resources have diminished, as times change and challenges increase, more and more people have a stake and an interest in public education."

She says the state school board has a significant impact on day-to-day operations of a classroom.

"They have a huge impact. They have to implement decisions, many of them enacted by the state legislature," describes Moss. "The public has found out in some controversial issues, the school voucher issue being one, the state school board does have a big voice in policy and governance."

"There is much more accountability if it is their local community member and they have a chance to know what they want education to look like in their own community and they can enlarge that to the greater-education community," Moss says. "There is more accountability when people in your own community can inform others of what the issues are and get feedback."

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