The Scott Brown Effect is obviously still reverberating through the halls of the State House.  A largely Democratic senate has rushed through an immigration bill to the right of what even the few Republicans in the Massachusetts Senate had been agitating for.

My favorite provision is the toll free hot line to report suspected violations.  May I suggest, to save money on staffing, since we obviously can't use illegals, outsourcing to India?

Other provisions which target medical insurance will likely end up costing the state more (potentially much more) in the long run, too.  Those requiring companies doing business with the state to verify that their workers are in the country legally — are redundant and will likely have little impact on a process that is already almost incomprehensibly corrupt.

Perhaps the most reactionary measure in the bill is the one that denies in-state tuition to public colleges and universities to US-born children of illegal immigrants, who are US citizens.  The measure is not only mean-spirited, it is wrongheaded in every conceivable way.   

I'm not saying there aren't reasonable steps we could take to address illegal immigration.  But denying access to health care and education are not only unreasonable — and, again, will end up actually costing us more in the long run — they're inhumane.  Aside from that, we should all be concerned at the spirit of scapegoating sweeping the nation — and the Senate — today.  It's a harbinger.

Only one thing is for sure, as I've said:  the bill will pave the way for a host of new costs which taxpayers will have to bear — from implementation to enforcement, from the high cost of emergency health care to the social and political cost of cutting access to public education to a scapegoated class of US citizens. 

But like all right wing victories, this one comes with a price tag bigger than any liberal social program.  We should expect it.

And, we can also expect lawmakers' lawns and landscaping to look kinda ragged this summer.  Lord knows they can't afford to pay for certified legal lawn care.