Bipartisanship reigned for at least a day in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as the committee voted unanimously to forward two out of three Republican-sponsored immigration reform measures. Last week, a similar House panel rejected 6 out 9 immigration bills put forth by the GOP.

Wednesday’s lone reject, SB 146, sponsored by Senator Andy McElhany R-El Paso, died 4-3 along a party line vote. SB 146, touted to prevent voter fraud, would have required voters to show proof of citizenship in order to vote.

“I am concerned that only citizens should be able to vote,” said Glen Colton from the group Northern Coloradans for Immigration Reduction while noting that voters registered prior to 2006 would be exempt from the provisions of the bill.

Critics cited a number of problems with the bill, however.

“This is trying to fix a problem that doesn’t even exist,” testified Dante James, Project Director for the African-American Voter Registration and Information Project on the bill.

And while Senator Shawn Mitchell R-Adams acknowledged a lack of data to show that immigrant-related voter fraud is a wide-spread problem, he reminded the committee that, in his opinion, the bill did nothing more than ask voters to comply with current law that requires voters to be citizens in order to vote. Just because the problem of immigrant-related voter fraud wasn’t obvious didn’t mean it didn’t exist, he noted.

Senator Dan Grossman D-Denver, chair of the Judiciary Committee, for one, didn’t buy the argument and said: “We don’t see any even anecdotal evidence that there is a problem [with voter fraud].”

Some Democrats on the committee, including Senator Brandon Schaffer D-Boulder, were skeptical of the constitutionality of the bill. Said Schaffer: “I don’t know that this is constitutional. I’ll vote no,” after testimony by several witnesses that said that the financial burden of complying with the identification requirements could be construed as a type of poll tax. Poll taxes, fees collected in return for the right to vote, were outlawed in 1964 by the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the constitution.

“I think we got it wrong in defeating Senator McElhany’s voter registration bill, but I appreciated the reasonable cooperation [the Democrats gave] on the other two bills,” said Mitchell after the committee adjourned.

The “other two” bills, sponsored by Senator Tom Wiens R-Douglas, SB 90 and SB 110 had a more favorable reception by the committee than SB 146.

SB 110 seeks to impose a $50,000 civil fine for manufacturing forged identity documents. It strengthens an existing law that makes producing counterfeit documents a class 5 felony in Colorado. No parties testified against the bill and it was forwarded to the appropriations committee unanimously.

SB 90, popularly known as the “Anti-Sanctuary” bill,  instructs peace officers at the county and municipal level to notify immigration authorities if they arrest any subject and have the “reasonable belief” that the subject has an immigration status violation. It also contains punitive measures against municipalities that adopt “sanctuary” provisions by instructing local officials not to enforce or cooperate with federal immigration laws. It allows the state to withhold grant monies from the municipalities in such an event.

While the measure passed 7-0 with a favorable recommendation by the committee, there was opposition to the bill.

“Sanctuary policy is a myth,” said Mark O’Brien of Coloradans for Immigrant Rights, who had testified previously against SB 146 as discouraging participation in elections. “We need immigration reform [at the federal level],” he continued, “piece-meal legislation is not a solution.”

Other witnesses testified that the illegal immigrant community is vulnerable to exploitation and crime because going to law enforcement authorities could get them deported. They feared SB 90 could exacerbate the problem, driving illegal aliens further underground making them more vulnerable to crime.

Passions sometimes ran high during testimony with concerns of prejudice making an appearance often.

‘I get the feeling that these bills are full of hate and xenophobia,” said Harold Lasso, of El Centro Humanitario, a day-labor organization in Denver.

Still other witnesses testified that prejudice had nothing to do with wanting to force municipalities to enforce existing federal immigration laws.

“Only tradition and attitude stand in the way [of enforcing immigration law],” said Don McKee, a self described physicist and engineer from Boulder. McKee testified on behalf of the bill noting that he had two granddaughters, one from Mexico and the other from Guatemala.

The bill’s sponsor believes that most important effect of the bill will be to create an atmosphere in which city, state and the federal government with have to start talking about coordinating immigration policy.

“The bill will force people at all levels of government to start finding real solutions, to the real problems faced by citizens because of illegal immigration, not just in Colorado, but in the US as well,” concluded Wiens.