Wall Street Journal
By Mike Vilensky
March 17, 2014
ALBANY—A
bill that would allow some undocumented immigrants to get state college
financial aid was voted down by a narrow margin in the New York state
Senate on Monday,
a setback for its Democratic advocates.
The
bill failed 30-29, with supporters falling two votes short of a
necessary 32-vote majority in the 63-member chamber. Two Senate seats
are vacant and two Republicans
didn't show up for the vote. All Republicans present voted no, along
with two Democrats, Ted O'Brien of Rochester and Simcha Felder of
Brooklyn.
The
Senate's rejection of the so-called Dream Act makes it unlikely that
the bill will become law this session. The Democratic-controlled
Assembly approved the act this
month and included support for it in a resolution on spending measures.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he would sign the bill if passed by both
houses.
Supporters
held out hope that the governor and the Legislature would include the
Dream Act in legislation authorizing the state budget, which must be
passed by April 1.
"We
will continue to press for its inclusion in the final budget," said
Michael Whyland, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a
Manhattan Democrat. "It is
the right thing to do."
Mr.
Cuomo said he would work to build support for the legislation but
didn't mention passing it in the state budget in an email sent to
reporters Monday night. The Senate,
Mr. Cuomo said, "denied thousand of hardworking and high-achieving
students equal access to higher education and the opportunity that comes
with it.
Republicans
argued the bill would give undocumented immigrants a way to bypass
citizenship laws and would be a misuse of taxpayer money. "I simply
cannot justify spending
tens of millions of taxpayer dollars annually to pay for tuition for
illegal immigrants when so many law-abiding families are struggling to
meet the ever-increasing costs of higher education for their own
children," Sen. Mark Grisanti, a Buffalo-area Republican,
said.
The
legislation would have extended the state's main financial aid tool,
the Tuition Assistance Program, to undocumented immigrants at a cost of
about $25 million a year,
according to Assembly bill. The state already offers in-state tuition
rates to the undocumented at State University of New York and City
University of New York campuses.
The
New Jersey Legislature passed its version of the Dream Act in 2013, and
Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed it into law. The legislation was
distinct from a stalled
federal bill also called the Dream Act, which seeks to grant permanent residency to some children of undocumented immigrants who entered the military or attended college.
Monday's
vote was a rare instance of Albany lawmakers considering a bill that
didn't already have the support of a majority of members. Most bills
without support from
legislative leaders don't get a vote. Only two bills lost in floor
votes in the Senate in 2011 and 2012, according to an analysis by the
New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit watchdog. A bill
hasn't lost a floor vote in the Assembly since 2004.
In
a spirited floor debate, Senate Democrats hailed the bill in their
floor remarks as a potential watershed moment for immigration. Later its
failure led to finger pointing
over the Senate's leadership, which is divided between 30 Republicans
and a breakaway faction of five Democrats led by Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein
of the Bronx.
Senate
Democrats said the vote's failure was an indictment of Mr. Klein's
coalition with Republicans. Mr. Klein said: "I wish the outcome had been
different."
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