Thread: TX: New rules, new outcome as Senate OKs sanctuary cities bi

New rules, new outcome as Senate OKs sanctuary cities bill

ByTim Eaton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 12:04 a.m. Wednesday, June 15, 2011

State senators approved a so-called sanctuary cities bill Tuesday night, vaulting the measure over a major legislative hurdle that it couldn't clear during the regular session.

The immigration-related measure, deemed a priority by Gov. Rick Perry, passed 19-12. The vote fell along party lines in the Republican-controlled chamber.

Senate Democrats held off the divisive measure in the regular session, but because different procedural rules apply in the special session, they couldn't do anything to slow its momentum toward Perry's desk Tuesday night.

Senate Bill 9, by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, would outlaw "sanctuary cities" by forbidding local governments to have policies in place to prevent police officers from enforcing immigration laws.

Proponents say the bill is needed to provide statewide uniformity and help identify undocumented immigrants who engage in criminal or terroristic activity.

"The goal of this legislation is to be proactive" in helping prevent human trafficking, drug running and violence that might spill over into the U.S. from drug cartels in Mexico, Williams said at the beginning of the debate, which lasted more than five hours.

Democrats and other critics say that the bill is not necessary because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility and that Senate Bill 9 would be used to harass Latinos. Many police departments also oppose the bill, saying it would pack jails, overburden officers and hamper crimefighting by discouraging people from reporting crimes and working with police.

The bill, with Perry's blessing, includes two components of another bill that did not pass during the regular session, which ended May 30. Those provisions require that the name of every arrested person be run through federal immigration databases by using a program called Secure Communities and authorize the Department of Public Safety to make sure someone is legally in the U.S. before issuing a driver's license.

Sen. José RodrÃ*guez, D-El Paso, said the bill's provisions are meant to keep the growing Latino population from taking its rightful place in the nation.

"All three provisions are clearly anti-immigrant and anti-Latino," RodrÃ*guez said. "All three would make it much more difficult for Latinos and immigrants to live in this country for fear of being racially profiled and being denied the benefits of living in this country."

Although sanctuary cities legislation was proposed during the 2009 session, it gained little traction until Perry made it an issue in his 2010 re-election campaign. While campaigning, Perry charged that Houston was a sanctuary city under his Democratic challenger, former Mayor Bill White. Then in January, Perry designated sanctuary cities a legislative emergency item, allowing it to be put on the fast track.

During the regular session, the House passed its own version of a sanctuary cities bill by Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton .

The party-line vote came after days of contentious testimony and emotional debate that ultimately left some lawmakers in tears. Those lawmakers said they took the legislation personally because they or their families were immigrants.

But Solomons' bill died in the Senate, where Democrats took advantage of the chamber's two-thirds rule in the final days of the regular session to prevent the measure from coming up for debate. Under the rule, two-thirds of the senators present must agree to debate a bill, a threshold the Republican majority was unable to muster without some Democrats' support.

Perry, who has said he is thinking about a possible run for president, responded by adding sanctuary cities legislation to the scope of work for lawmakers in the 30-day special session.

And because the two-thirds rule doesn't apply in a special session, Democrats weren't able to block Williams' bill from being debated and ultimately passed late Tuesday.

The Senate gave preliminary approval to the bill Tuesday night and was working late to give final approval to the measure. After that, the bill will head to the House.

There, the Republican supermajority is expected to slam the measure past House Democrats, just as it did in May.

In all likelihood, the bill will end up on Perry's desk, where it could help him cement his conservative pedigree should he decide to seek the Republican nomination for president.

The sanctuary cities bill would be the last of Perry's designated legislative emergencies to pass the Legislature. His other approved emergency items include bills requiring pre-abortion sonograms, strengthening private property rights in eminent domain cases, supporting a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, requiring voters to present a photo ID before casting a ballot and enacting a "loser pays" civil justice reform measure.

www.statesman.com

Trader... Hypocrite!!!!!

Sanctuary Cities Bill Clears Texas Senate

by Julian Aguilar
41 minutes ago
5 Comments


Texas peace officers will be allowed to inquire about the immigration status of any person arrested or legally detained under legislation passed by the Texas Senate early Wednesday morning.

The body voted to pass the special session version of the sanctuary cities bill out of the upper chamber along a party line vote, 19 to 12, after roughly six hours of debate.

The bill, SB9 by state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, would deny state funds to entities that prohibit peace officers and employees of special districts from inquiring into the status of a person arrested or detained for the investigation of crime. It also expands the federal government’s Secure Communities initiative to all detention facilities, and codifies tighter regulations for applicants for driver’s licenses and state-issued IDs. Gov. Rick Perry added the measure to the special session agenda last week.

Williams fought off repeated accusations that his bill is a blatant attempt to empower local law enforcement to act as immigration officers and deport illegal immigrants. He says there is no provision in the law that requires or allows them to do so. Instead, he said it was a necessary measure to identify criminal aliens intent on harming Texans, especially as the violence in Mexico continues unabated.

“If during the course of whatever criminal or traffic [offense], whatever they are investigating, they come to the belief that that person is in the country illegally, this bill gives them the discretion [to determine what to do],â€