{"id":114252,"date":"2015-03-02T18:39:21","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T01:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/parties-divided-over-drivers-licenses\/"},"modified":"2015-03-02T18:39:21","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T01:39:21","slug":"parties-divided-over-drivers-licenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/parties-divided-over-drivers-licenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Parties divided over driver\u2019s licenses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Immigrant
Immigrant and longtime resident in the United States Rosalva Mireles is photographed by Jesus Sanchez of Spanish language newspaper El Commercio after Mireles was processed for her permanent driver\u2019s license, and received a temporary license, at a Department of Motor Vehicles office last year in Denver. Lawmakers are debating whether to provide additional funding for program that grants driver\u2019s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally.<\/span>Brennan Linsley\/Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 A second state spending bill has been hijacked by politics, this time in the name of immigrants in the country illegally.<\/p>\n

The Colorado House last weeky gave initial approval to a Department of Revenue spending bill that was amended to include funding for a driver\u2019s license program for immigrants living in the country illegally.<\/p>\n

The $166,000 needed to keep the program fully operational \u2013 already available through a $50.50 fee charged to applicants \u2013 was rejected earlier in the legislative session by Republicans on the Joint Budget Committee.<\/p>\n

An attempt to restore funding through an amendment in the Senate to a Department of Revenue spending bill also failed.<\/p>\n

House Democrats, however, appear poised to send the bill back to the Senate with the money for the program, though it is unlikely that Republicans who control the Senate would agree to the driver\u2019s license funding. The House could take a final vote as early as Wednesday.<\/p>\n

If the Senate sends the bill back to the House without the funding, Democrats would need to make a tough decision to let the spending bill pass without the driver\u2019s license supplemental, or kill the entire bill, which would cost the department $2.3 million in supplemental funding for the current budget year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe supplementals are needed, because you need to provide additional services for expanded need in the state,\u201d House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder said Tuesday, suggesting the bill is too important to die over politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all kinds of important things in that supplemental bill. It\u2019s important that we pass it,\u201d the Democrat said.<\/p>\n

Services lost would include additional staff for looming budget refunds; marijuana-enforcement needs; and dollars for driver\u2019s license hearings, including revocations related to DUIs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

debate over immigrants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,1373,135,1610],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-litigation","tag-marijuana","tag-recreational-marijuana"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114252"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}