New Florida Governor Rick Scott owes a substantial debt to his victory over Bill McCollum in the GOP primary to his tough stance on illegal immigration – a stance that he believes in so strongly that any discussion of it virtually vanished once he vanquished McCollum and took on Alex Sink for the general election.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't a number of state legislators – including some with higher ambitions – from tackling an issue that showed in 2010 has a lot of staying power with Republicans.
On Monday state Senate President Mike Haridopolos announced that the Senate would hold its first hearing on immigration reform issues next week.
Senate Judiciary Chair Anitere Flores will host a January 10 hearing "designed to provide senators with a factual framework for evaluating and debating immigration policy proposals during the 2011 Regular Session."
There's been discussions about an "Arizona-style" form of a bill targeting illegal immigrants, but nothing on the whole birthright citizenship front, which is something a number of state legislatures across the country are talking about.
Yahoo News reports that some lawmakers in at least 14 states are talking about model legislation this week to encourage states to prevent children of illegal immigrants from being granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the now infamous AB 1070 Arizona law on illegal immigrants, heads to the nation's capital on Wednesday to unveil the bill. According to the Arizona Capital Times, legislators in Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas a nd Utah have said they want to introduce similar legislation this year. Pearce got into a spirited discussion about the legislation last week with CNN's Jessica Yellin (formerly of WTVT Fox-13 in Tampa)
14 states are working on this, but not anybody in the Sunshine State? Let's see if some GOP legislator decides to pick up the slack before the regular session begins in March.
This article appears in Dec 30, 2010 – Jan 5, 2011.