LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
When Joyce Elliott pushed for extending in-state tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants four years ago, she had a lot of factors on her side.
No House members spoke against the proposal that she sponsored as a state representative, and she had the strident backing of a governor who pushed for it to include a scholarship portion.
Now the Democrats' leader in the Senate, Elliott is ready to revive the fight that she lost over the tuition bill in 2005. The senator from Little Rock has again proposed allowing any student who has attended high school in the state for at least three years and has a diploma from an Arkansas school to pay in-state tuition.
Elliott acknowledges that getting the measure through the Legislature won’t be easy. A number of factors show it's probably impossible.
But she doesn’t seem to care.
“I think we’re in the Legislature to lead as well as represent, and to me to lead doesn't mean you wait for a favorable climate,” Elliott said. “If we do, I think the sacrifice could be too great.”
Offering undocumented immigrants in-state tuition rates is an idea that the governor has said could violate federal law. Elliott said she’s not trying to openly disregard the law, but also said there are times when “bumping against” the law has been necessary.
“Just as when this country was founded, we should remember, we were bumping right up against the British law that said we didn’t have a right to form a country. But we did it anyway because it was the right thing to do at the time,” Elliott said. “So we’re going to have to decide: Are we going to take definitive steps to challenge what is out there in the interest of these kids and our state, or are we just going to acquiesce?”
It’s an argument that Elliott has made before, but this time she’ll probably have an even harder time persuading her colleagues to go along with it.
House members passed similar legislation in 2005 after Elliott talked emotionally about her own fight for educational attainment in segregated south Arkansas. She was also joined by numerous other representatives who backed her on the proposal.
