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In the News From the Halls of The Suffolk Legislature

By Patrick Young CARECEN May 13, 2008 8:10 PM

Pro- and anti-immigrant groups began arriving at the Suffolk Legislature at 8AM, a full hour and a half before the legislature began its meeting on the most anti-immigrant bill ever proposed in that body's history. What took place there was among the most disturbing series of incidents most of us have experienced. A supporter of the bill was forced to leave the hall when he started muttering anti-semitic remarks at a pro-immigrant speaker from the American Jewish Committee. An Irish-born legislator was told by another anti-immigrant activist that she should "go back where she came from". And all the while the legislators speaking for the neo-Know Nothings claimed that the bill wasn't about immigration at all.

IR-1105 was hatched by Steve Levy, a politician who has built his career on the suffering of Suffolk's Latino population. He has exploited the gap between the immigrant and native born communities and opened it with an electoral wedge which has torn the very fabric of Suffolk's racial harmony, always tenuous, apart.

Levy's egg was sat upon by his protege Brian Beedenbender. Brian is a 27 year old freshman lawmaker who swore to groups that he sought the endorsement of that he did not share the divisive approach of his avatar. Four weeks after stepping into the legislature, he proposed IR-1105.

Talk to individual legislators in private and they disapproved of his grandstanding approach. Some said they first got wind of his bill when they saw his press conference on News 12. Yet these men of experience allowed him to whipsaw them and punch their ticket on the "We Hate Latinos Express".

Other legislators found the bill a congenial place to rest their bigotry. At a hearing on the bill in committee, one legislator, Jack Eddington, asked Latinos testifying about their legal status. He did not ask the same question of the Whites who testified. But, hey, it ain't about race.

This bit from Newsday should give you an insight into the vitriol of the immigrant haters: "The morning's tension peaked when James Duffy, the Suffolk Conservative Party's vice chairman, said people who oppose the bill are allying themselves with foreign powers. "For those of you who support the cause of the illegal interlopers," he said, "we have no doubt where your national allegiances lie.""

In many ways the hearing today went well. Speakers opposing the bill outnumbered those in support by more than two to one. In fact some of the union leaders supporting the bill panicked when they realized that they had run out of speakers while a long line of pro-immigrant speakers still remained to be heard.

Each of the pro-immigrant speakers got treated to curses and heckling while at the podium. We got a taste of the treatment doled out to the legislature's two Latino members who have repeatedly been cursed and abused. One pro-immigrant activist was told she should "go back to Russia", a country not known for its pro-immigrant policies.

I had a great deal of pride when my son Brian, who is statewide legislative coordinator for the College Democrats got up and told the legislators, with catcalls at his back, that incorporation of Latinos into full civic participation in Suffolk County would do more to protect the rights of labor than a thousand Beedenbender bills.

Presiding Officer Bill Lindsay, who seemed to have either lost all control of the hearing, or who might have been tacitly appreciative of the intimidation tactics of the unions, did nothing to stop the abuse until the hatred against immigrants of one bill supporter poured over into an equally rancid expression of hatred against Jews. Then he had someone expelled.

Grace Heyman from the New York Immigration coalition warned the legislators that Suffolk was increasingly gaining a reputation around the state for intolerance. Jim Claffey talked about the danger of the legislature's poorly considered action. Many speakers noted that the legislature was moving forward on the bill without any assessment of its possible economic or social impact.

Then Mario Mattera rose to speak. The leader of the anti-immigrant movement who depicts himself as the spokesman for labor on immigration heads a union with only 1,200 members. He likes to depict himself as everyman figthing against the elites. Of course he makes 126,000 dollars per year heading a union which has actively shut itself off from expansion by strategizing with anti-immigrant forces. You can't organize the fastest growing demographic in Suffolk if you trash their brothers and sisters.

He repeatedly expressed puzzlement at why we thought this bill was about immigration. Could it be because it is about immigration? Or could it be that when he told the legislators that they had to pass the bill so that "we keep the money here" we understood that he was talking about stopping immigrants from sending money home by pushing them out of jobs?

After the close of public testimony, Legislator Rick Montano tried to have the bill sent back to committee. He convincingly argued that Presiding Officer Bill Lindsay's behavior violated the most basic rules of procedure. Ed Romaine, who would later vote for the bill, said that Lindsay's actions were unprecedented. He said that there was a "rape of the rules" of the legislature. Others criticized the hiring of a $700 per hour law firm by Lindsay using taxpayer money to fight Rick Montano.

But all procedural efforts to defeat the bill were unsuccessful.

Then the debate turned to the substance of the bill. The bill's supporters said the bill was not about immigration, while also saying it was designed to enforce federal immigration laws.

Legislator Vivian Vilora Fischer said that the bill exploited the fears of Suffolk residents faced with a credit crunch and an economic decline and told them that the solution to their problems was going after the immigrants. Legislator Barraga was even more direct. He remind the legislators that Lincoln, facing the greatest crisis in American history, had appealed to the better angels of our nature. " This bill", he said, "appeals to the darkest side of our nature."

And that dark side triumphed tonight at 7:24pm in the halls of the Suffolk legislature..

Courage.

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