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Rocky Mountain Low
The battle over illegal immigration moves to the states.

BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, July 11, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

The spotlight in the illegal immigration debate has been on Congress's field hearings. But the action has been in Colorado, where the state legislature spent the weekend haggling over whether to cut government services to illegal aliens. Republican supporters want the issue to turn out their base in November. Democrats, meanwhile, are scrambling for the nearest political cover. Bill Ritter, the party's gubernatorial candidate, has even told reporters that "the person I'm closest to" on immigration is President Bush.

With Washington deadlocked, the battle over illegal immigration is moving to the states. And if the fight on Capitol Hill has been ugly, just wait until state lawmakers who don't have the power to do much, feel compelled to do something about the 12 million or so illegal aliens in this country. Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who did so much to bring this issue to a boil in the U.S. Congress, may yet see his nativist ideas enacted into law, albeit piecemeal and state by state.

In Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, illegal immigration has become a hot issue not just in congressional races but in races for governor, attorney general and the state legislature. In Oklahoma a handful of lawmakers are pushing for a study to determine the "cost" of illegal immigration--a forerunner to legislation. In Pennsylvania, State House Republicans passed a bill making English the state's official language and Rep. Mario J. Civera is holding field hearings on illegal immigration. In Arkansas the GOP's candidate for attorney general, Gunner DeLay, is blasting his Democratic opponent for supporting a bill as a state legislator that would allow children of illegal immigrants to take advantage of a state scholarship program. Democrat Dustin McDaniel calls the attacks against him "inflammatory and inaccurate."

In Colorado the fight is becoming particularly raucous because there is a lot at stake. Republicans hope to win control of the state legislature on a tide of anti-immigrant fervor. Term-limited GOP Gov. Bill Owens--who was once a darling of the national party, but fell out of favor two years ago when he helped suspend the state's constitutional spending caps--also senses an opportunity to return to the right's good graces. If Rep. Tancredo doesn't run for president in 2008, it will be because Mr. Owens is carrying the anti-illegal immigrant mantle into the primaries.
For now, Gov. Owens is left with just a few months in office to earn his nativist bonafides. So he called the legislature into special session late last week and proposed using the tax code to go after businesses that hire illegal aliens. He wants employers to lose tax deductions if they are found to have illegal aliens on the payroll. A similar law is now on the books in Georgia, leaving employers in the Peach State the choice of risking higher tax bills or spending more on verifying the legal status of their workers. Gov. Owens also supports putting a referendum on the ballot this fall to deny illegal aliens government services that aren't mandated by the federal government.

But that referendum was ruled invalid in May by the State Supreme Court, which found that it dealt with more than one issue. Gov. Owens called the special session to achieve legislatively what he is now unable to win at the ballot box. What he is likely to get instead from the Democratic legislature is largely symbolic reforms. But the court probably did the governor a political favor. Republicans can now run against the State Supreme Court as well as the legislature this fall.

The one good thing to come out of the political wrangling in Colorado is that voters have been treated to a state-wide debate over how much illegal aliens actually cost in government services. Estimates range from as high as $1 billion a year to as low as $31 million. The Denver-based Bell Policy Center issued the latter estimate after finding that illegal aliens receive about $225 million a year in non-mandated state services, but pay between $159 million and $194 million in property, sales and other taxes. The issue is too hot for anyone to point out that illegal immigrants working as day laborers cost the state what the working poor as a whole cost the state--a bit more than they pay in.

For Republicans on the state level, pushing anti-illegal immigration policies is dangerous political strategy that rarely delivers much more than short-lived gains. California Republicans went down the anti-illegal alien road and the party hasn't recovered since. Not long after Gov. Pete Wilson pushed through an initiative in 1994 to deny illegal aliens government benefits, the GOP lost control of the state legislature and the governor's mansion. By the end of the 1990s, not a single state-wide elected office was held by a Republican. The party's fortunes turned around only when Democrat Gov. Gray Davis steered the state into near fiscal ruin and was recalled from office.
In Virginia, Jerry Kilgore, who stepped down to run for governor last year, wasn't even fortunate enough to win a Pyrrhic victory. The Republican ran on an anti-illegal immigrant platform and was trounced by a liberal Democrat in a state that George W. Bush won by eight points in 2004.

Immigration is fast becoming the new third rail in politics. Republicans in Colorado are hoping it pushes them to new heights. But what they might find is that it the party to a new Rocky Mountain low.

Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays