Colorado immigration bill will die today

Colorado supporters of an Arizona-style immigration bill say they will pull the bill this morning before it comes to a vote.

As reported by The Durango Herald, even Republicans feared the bill was unconstitutional, and Democrats said it wasn’t needed in Colorado anyway.

From the Herald:

Rep. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs, said his Colorado House Bill 1107 had too many problems to continue.

“After many drafts and hours of deliberation and meetings with entities, we had come to some agreement with agencies out there,” Baumgardner said. “(But) we couldn’t seem to get away from some parts of it that could be possibly unconstitutional.”

Baumgardner’s bill was patterned closely on a controversial Arizona law. Some parts of the Colorado bill were taken word for word from Arizona’s, while other parts were unique.

Both bills told police to contact anyone they suspected of being an illegal immigrant, and they required lawful immigrants to carry their papers on them at all times.

A federal judge blocked major parts of the Arizona law last year after the U.S. Department of Justice and several advocacy groups sued the state. The ongoing lawsuit also played into Baumgardner’s decision to pull his bill, he said.

The bill had been scheduled for its first hearing in the House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee next Monday. But Tuesday morning, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, announced that the hearing would be today and legislators would quickly dispose of HB 1107.

Scot Kersgaard has been managing editor of a political newspaper, editor and co-owner of a ski town newspaper, executive editor of eight high-tech magazines (where he worked with current Apple CEO Tim Cook), deputy press secretary to a U.S. Senator, and an outdoors columnist at the Rocky Mountain News. He has an English degree from the University of Washington. He was awarded a fellowship to study internet journalism at the University of Maryland's Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. He was student body president in college. He spends his free time hiking and skiing.

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