Madden wants Texas immigration law like Arizona's; Driver declines to comment
11:43 PM CDT on Friday, October 29, 2010
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Two Dallas County lawmakers sat on a business-friendly conservative group's task force that drafted Arizona's controversial immigration law, but only one said unequivocally Friday that he wants a similar law passed in Texas.

Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, said he favors provisions of the Arizona law, which makes failing to carry immigration documents a misdemeanor and gives police broad powers to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

"I believe we ought to be enforcing the federal law, and that's primarily what Arizona does. So the answer to that is yes," Madden said, when asked whether he supports enactment of a Texas law similar to the one Arizona passed earlier this year.

Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, though, would not confirm an online National Public Radio report saying that if re-elected, he expects to support an Arizona-style bill next session.

"Well, it depends," he said. "I'm really not prepared to say anything. I think the Morning News has done enough damage," Driver said, apparently referring to newspaper editorials that criticized his double-dipping on travel expenses and endorsed his opponent, Democrat Jamie Dorris, in the race for Texas House District 113, which covers parts of Garland, Rowlett and Sachse.

Driver declined to comment further.

Madden, vice chairman of the House Corrections Committee, is unopposed in Tuesday's election.

NPR reported that both North Texas lawmakers are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council's Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which in December approved a model bill virtually identical to the immigration measure introduced in Arizona two months later.

NPR said that for-profit corrections companies helped draft the legislation with an eye to generating new demand for privately run detention facilities.

Although Madden said he didn't recall the December vote, he said, "I remember discussions of illegal immigration."

He noted that the Texas Senate passed a bill in May 2009 that would have required sheriffs and community probation departments to check the immigration status of people convicted of felonies. Madden said he had hoped to guide the bill through the House but ran out of time and it died.

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