April 13, 2012 11:38 PM UTC

Will Republicans Let ASSET Pass?

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Durango Herald’s Joe Hanel reported earlier this week:

The bill would allow colleges to offer in-state tuition rates to high school graduates, even if they are in the country illegally. Students must have attended a Colorado high school for at least three years to qualify.

However, illegal immigrant students would not get the stipend of about $1,800 that the state gives to every full-time, in-state student…

A similar bill failed in the House Education Committee last year, but since then, the panel’s chairman – Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs – has publicly voiced his support for the bill. Supporters are hoping that if Democrats stick together in favor of the bill, Massey will give them the one Republican vote they need, both in committee and on the House floor.

It was announced yesterday that House Speaker Frank McNulty has set the bill for debate in the House Education Committee–raising hopes that the bill might actually pass to the floor, where Rep. Tom Massey and perhaps other Republicans would join it support.

In our 33-32 House, only one Republican is needed.

Assuming the bill makes it through the Education Committee it’s the second stop in the House Appropriations Committee where the bill could very well die–if we were McNulty, who it’s still believed has no desire to see this legislation pass, that’s where we’d take it out.

As an epilogue, Tim Hoover of the Denver paper reported yesterday on GOP-aligned business groups and elder statesmen swinging into action in support of this bill. If Republicans won’t listen to their Democratic colleagues on this legislation, perhaps they’ll listen to Pete Coors, Alex Cranberg, or Dick Monfort. With the growing Hispanic vote looming as a grave long-term threat to Republican political power in Colroado and across the nation, it should be easy to understand why these kingpins are suddenly urgent to pass this modest gesture to them.

A poll follows–do Colorado Republicans have it in them to defy presumptions here?

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