Perry agenda picks up where campaign left off

Gov. Rick Perry surprised many Capitol observers when he declared that eliminating so-called sanctuary cities in Texas is an emergency item for the newly seated Legislature to tackle. We shouldn't have been so surprised.

Perry talked repeatedly in his re-election campaign about sanctuary cities, which are cities where local law enforcement officers do not ask people about their immigration status. One of his closing television ads against Democratic challenger Bill White was a tough spot that suggested White's immigration policies as mayor of Houston led to the murder of a police officer by an undocumented immigrant.

Perhaps Perry senses the need to deliver on an issue he made so prominent in the campaign. Let's not forget that immigration polls very high as a concern among the conservative base that Perry has always courted.

Having said that Texas does not need an Arizona-style immigration policy that requires police to question the immigration status of suspects if they have "reasonable suspicion" that they are in the country illegally, Perry may sense the need to prove that he's not soft on immigration.

(Of course, any speculation about Perry trying to please voters raises the question of what he's running for, but let's set that aside for now.)

But how Perry wants the Legislature to solve the problem isn't exactly clear.

For one, the charge that White allowed Houston to be a sanctuary city is, at best, highly debatable. And when reporters asked him Wednesday to name sanctuary cities in Texas, Perry chose not to.

He also passed on a chance to explain how the state Department of Public Safety's policy toward inquiring about immigration status differs from the Houston policy for which he criticized White.

"We'll have a good and open discussion about what we're going to prohibit," Perry said during a news conference with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus. "If the shoe is fitting you, you might not want to be wearing it."

Democrats were quick to charge that Perry was using the issue of sanctuary cities to distract from the fact that lawmakers begin the session about $27 billion short of the money they would need to keep providing the services the state now provides.

"Law enforcement officers across the state understand that crime victims and witnesses are their most important resources for solving crimes," said Rep. Armando L. Walle, D-Houston. "We cannot afford to alienate anyone who could be of assistance."

A ban on sanctuary cities is the kind of issue that might have gone away quietly in previous legislative sessions, when the gap between Republicans and Democrats was relatively narrow.

That gap has widened considerably this year, and Republican activists — the ones who talked about immigration more than any other issue at last summer's Texas GOP convention — will expect real results.

A case can be made that immigration fights distract from the pre-eminent issue of tackling the budget shortfall. But some in Perry's base would say it's the other way around.

jembry@statesman.com