Sen. Kirk Watson: Austin-bashing at the Capitol could be worse
Despite fears that the conservative Legislature this year would be especially vindictive in its treatment of the liberal capital city, state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said Monday that, so far, things could be worse for Austin.
“It has not been as harsh as what I anticipated it could be,” Watson, a former Austin mayor, said at an event organized by the Texas Tribune. “We’ve still got a ways to go, and it could get a lot worse.”
Watson noted one significant exception: Senate Bill 4, which seeks to eliminate so-called sanctuary cities, the common term for local jurisdictions that decline in some way to assist federal immigration enforcement.
The debate over that legislation, which has passed the Senate and is being considered in a House committee, has been focused on Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez’s new policy declining to cooperate with some U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to extend the detention of county jail inmates suspected of being unauthorized immigrants and facilitate deportation proceedings.
Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/sen-kirk-watson-austin-bashing-the-capitol-could-worse/KmZf7XRwPnTbZSTFgaHZaL/