It's not often we can put "sanity" and "Arizona" in the same title, but news just broke that a handful of Senate President Russell Pearce's most vitriolic anti-immigrant bills went down in flames this afternoon at the legislature. This is a huge slap in the face to Pearce, given that he has a 21-9 Republican advantage in the Senate.
The Arizona Senate on Thursday voted down five significant immigration measures. They included a package of birthright citizenship bills intended to spur the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider how the nation grants citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.
The four other bills would have banned illegal immigrants from state universities, made it a crime for illegal immigrants to drive a vehicle in Arizona, required school districts to check the legal status of students and required hospitals to check the legal status of patients. Arizona Republic
I loved the comment from one live blogger at the hearing, who said it looked like Pearce was going to blow a gasket when he realized every one of his Mexican-bashing pieces of crap would fail. Evidently he wasn't a happy camper. (Video update, Pearce not happy, protestors rejoice.)
All of the bills easily passed in February during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, but they ran into a buzz saw in the full Senate today. Evidently the more people learned what was in them, the less they supported them.
The defeated measures included Pearce's SB 1611 "omnibus bill," which was a cornucopia of failed legislation that he had tried to pass during the past six sessions. When SB 1611 was hastily introduced last month at the Committee level, Senators had less than 48 hours to digest the most sweeping immigration bill in Arizona history. Called "SB 1070 on steroids," the mean-spirited bundle of boob passed last month. Since then, however, Senators have had a chance to understand its full implications, they've heard from constituents, and even many R's did not support it today. The vote wasn't even close.
One of the more controversial measures, SB 1308-1309, was the assault on the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. It also failed 18-12. Evidently some conservatives weren't willing to undertake a multi-million-dollar court battle with the Feds. Nine or 10 Republicans joined all Dems on 1308-1309 and most other votes:
Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, said the state should be focused on the budget and not on such a divisive issue that would put Arizona in a bad light. He said he didn't believe these bills would result in a reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment.
SB 1405 would have required hospital staff to verify that patients are in the country legally before rendering service. At the Committee hearing last month, the head of the Mayo Clinic pleaded, "We are in the care business, not immigration enforcement." It failed today too.
Another bill that required school districts to check the immigration status of students also went down. Hey, maybe it's a good idea to educate kids, regardless of where they're from or who their parents are.
One wonders if the letter yesterday from more than 70 CEOs, which urged the legislature to forget about more divisive immigration laws and focus on the budget, had any effect. It certainly didn't hurt, it seems.
Don't get too complacent. Republican Senator Ron Gould has already said it's likely we'll see the bills in another form -- either as amendments or in future legislation. And, as alquien (h/t) points out in the thread below, the bills are not officially dead. TucsonCitizen.com, whose story also includes the vote count, reminds us:
The deadline to reconsider is one session day after the vote. Pearce now has 3 days to whip up his votes, which you can bet is already happening.
Angry wingers on the blogs tonight are already promising to unseat the Republican "traitors." So for now, yea Arizona! Have a green beer.