Schwarzenegger Oppposes Point System

Carolyn Lochhead, of the San Francisco Chronicle, reports that California’s Governor is lobbying against the point system contained in the Senate compromise bill being debated this week:

The point system is a key element of the “grand bargain” on immigration reached between the White House and a bipartisan group of senators after months of negotiations. Moving to a merit-based system for future immigration was the pivotal trade-off for Republicans who agreed to grant legalization to the estimated 12 million mainly low-skilled illegal immigrants now in the country.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped in Monday with a letter to Senate leaders raising “some urgent concerns for California, especially the needs of innovation-based industries that are the backbone of our economic competitiveness.”

The Schwarzenegger letter “was a punch in the gut of a lot of Republicans who were part of the grand bargain,” said Ralph Hellman, a lobbyist with the Information Technology Industry Council and former GOP aide. “As a leading Republican in a leading high-tech state, it was taken very seriously.” Click here for the full story.

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