May 10, 2007

Technical Flaw Torpedoes Repeal of Tuition
Law that 65 Current Members Backed in 2001

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

State Rep. Rick Noriega had found a technical flaw in a bill designed to dismantle a law that has allowed some illegal immigrants to attend Texas colleagues at in-state tuition rates since he sponsored the legislation that authorized it six years ago. The Houston Democrat, however, had agreed to give conservatives the opportunity to cast a vote on one of the few illegal immigration bills that had made it to the House floor this year - and then he planned to kill it.

But State Rep. Tommy Merritt wasn't on that program - and he picked off House Bill 159 with his own point of order before House members got the chance to register their support or opposition for the measure in the wake of a heated debate on it.

Merritt, a Longview Republican who's had a special interest in issues such as this as a charter member of the Border & International Affairs Committee since its creation in 2003, pointed out that the bill analysis did not match the language in the actual legislation. House Speaker Tom Craddick sustained the technical objection, prompting the bill sponsor, Republican State Rep. Bill Zedler of Arlington, to pronounce the measure dead for all practical purposes for now.

While Zedler asserted that he would have had the votes to pass the bill, which would have prohibited illegal immigrants from getting the tuition break, he acknowledged that he'd run out of time in light of the Thursday midnight deadline for House bills to win tentative approval on second reading.

Zedler suggested that there'd been a move afoot to try to kill the measure before House members had to vote on it. That could be at least partly because a vote to end the program could draw attention to the fact that so many of the House's current members had supported the legislation that allowed Texas students to qualify as residents of the state when paying college tuition despite their federal immigration status.

When the House voted 130-2 six years ago to concur in Senate amendments to the in-state tuition bill, 37 of the lower chamber's current Republican members and 28 House Democrats who are still representatives today cast votes in favor of Noriega's measure. The list of current state House members who voted for the in-state tuition bill in 2001 included Speaker Tom Craddick and State Rep. Leo Berman, a Tyler Republican who's been one of the chamber's most outspoken members this year on the problem of illegal immigration. Berman sharply criticized a fellow Republican committee chairman this week in a speech on the House floor for single-handedly killing a significant number of more than two dozen bills that he and other conservative Republicans had filed in hopes of confronting the issue in the regular session.

Merritt voted for the in-state tuition bill in 2001 as well. So did State Rep. Mike Villarreal, a San Antonio Democrat who was also poised to knock the Zedler bill off the House calendar if someone like Noriega or Merritt didn't beat him to the punch. Republican State Reps. Will Hartnett of Dallas and Jerry Madden of Plano were the only two current House members who voted against the in-state tuition plan the year it was established.

But Zedler, who didn't enter the House until 2003, contended that the tuition bill gave immigrants who aren't in the country legally an incentive to keep breaking the law. Ever since Texas became the first state to give illegal immigrants the tuition break, Zedler said higher education officials here and in other states that have followed suit have essentially been looking the other way instead of enforcing a federal law that bars students from qualifying for higher education benefits on the basis of residency if they're not here legally.

The point of order that torpedoed the in-state tuition legislation was the second part of a one-two punch on Zedler bills that he'd hope to pass on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat, raised a point of order against further consideration of HB 1462 - a Zedler bill that would have made it easier for the Texas attorney general's office and local prosecutors to investigate election fraud.

Despite the apparently fatal setback, Zedler predicted that the bill to put an end to tuition breaks for illegal immigrants would be back before the House at some point in time - even though that apparently won't be anytime soon.