http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3223
An effort to force a hearing on a controversial immigration bill led to an outburst of emotion Thursday on the floor of the Minnesota House. At one point Minority Leader Marty Seifert, a Marshall Republican, called the mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul “political hacks.”
The remarks came after Representative Paul Kohls, a Republican from Victoria, asked lawmakers to support a bill outlawing so-called “immigrant http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1801.
Kohls complained he hadn’t been able to get a hearing on the bill, and the deadline for first hearings on new measures is approaching. At the time of Seifert’s comments, Kohls was attempting to force the bill directly to the floor. It’s a maneuver that allows a lawmaker to bypass the committee process.Seifert accused DFL lawmakers of stifling debate on the issue, and then attacked the notion that big city police chiefs oppose the idea.
“We’ve read in the papers about how the police chiefs don’t like this,” Seifert told his colleagues, “Never mind their political bosses, the mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the liberal Democrats who run the cities control their job.”
The term “sanctuary city” is used to describe towns, such as Minneapolis and Saint Paul, with separation ordinances which prevent local police officers from arresting undocumented immigrants solely for entering the country illegally.
It’s long been a sore spot for Republicans, who believe that local http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3475 should be an extension of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. They’ve offered several bills that would cut off state aid to cities with such rules on the books.
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