Colorado Senate Passes DREAM Act

I fully expected this to happen.

The Democratic controlled Colorado Senate has killed the two restrictionist bills that passed the Republican controlled Colorado House: the Secure Communities bill and the Voter ID bill which were approved earlier in the legislative session.

The Colorado Senate State Affairs Committee killed the bills on a 2-3 party line vote. The culprits were our old friends Sens. Rollie Heath, Bob Bacon, and Betty Boyd.

I say “old friends” because it was the same Bacon, Boyd and Heath tag team in the Colorado Senate that killed E-Verify and the Arizona-style immigration law back in February. It was also Bacon and Health who approved the Colorado DREAM Act in the Senate Education Committee.

The Colorado Senate has now passed the Colorado DREAM Act. It was approved on a party line vote with all 20 Democrats voting in favor of the bill (including Bacon, Boyd, and Heath) and all 15 Republican voting against it.

The unanimous Republican opposition to the bill can be attributed to grandstanding. They can now go back to their districts and blame Democrats for the failure to pass the restrictionist immigration laws that conservatives support.

Fortunately, the Republican controlled Colorado House will likely kill the Colorado DREAM Act. This will give the Democrats the opportunity to return to their districts and blame the Republicans for blocking their amnesty.

That way all these Colorado politicians can run in 2012 and exploit the immigration issue in order to advance their own careers.

If the Democrats had full control of the Colorado state legislature, they probably would have passed the Colorado DREAM Act like they have already done in Maryland.

If Republicans had full control of the Colorado state legislature, they would have shot down all our bills like their counterparts in Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.

The strategy is to keep stringing us along: do the absolute minimum to retain our support while doing nothing really substantial to advance our agenda.

I don’t see this changing until a third force emerges in Colorado state politics.