October 16, 2013, 3:10 pm 27 Comments
Christie Flips on an Immigration Bill
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Mel Evans/Associated PressChris Christie answers during a debate with Barbara Buono on Oct. 15, 2013.That’s what he said in a speech on Saturday night to a Latino group in New Brunswick: “We need to get to work in the state Legislature on things like making sure that there’s tuition equality for everybody in New Jersey.”
He then confirmed his stance in a debate Tuesday night with his Democratic opponent in his race for re-election, State Senator Barbara Buono. He said he supported the Tuition Equality Act, a stalled bill in Trenton that would help make higher education affordable to students living here illegally.
This is a big reversal for Mr. Christie, who used to take the standard Republican line opposing such benefits, even for the young “Dreamers” who were brought here illegally as children. The shift is so striking that The Star-Ledger of Newark used the words “major” and “drastically” to describe it.
Mr. Christie insists that this was a practical decision that has nothing to do with wooing the Hispanic vote. He says an improving economy means that colleges can now afford to be more generous.
Whatever. Mr. Christie isn’t stupid, and surely knows the benefits of distancing himself from his party’s extremism on immigration and other issues. It may well have dawned on him that hostility to immigrants is a millstone around his party’s grand old neck. And that he is well-positioned to be a prominent member of a pretty small group: Republican non-zealots who are willing to govern and to find practical solutions to problems, even supposedly toxic ones like immigration.
Now, if only he could realize that the powerful arguments for tuition equality apply to marriage equality as well. But Mr. Christie’s evolution hasn’t reached that point yet.
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