Pay attention now: Or don't ask later why you're paying $85 for a salad

I'm puzzled this month, recently an all-too-common state of being for me, about how what appears to be an organized effort in California to corner the anti-illegal immigration argument again has flown pretty much under the news radar.

Citing constituent frustration over federal inaction on immigration, 23 pieces of legislation are being "sponsored" by Republican members of the state assembly. These proposals could set new standards in challenging federal authority over foreign visitors to our country. Maybe they're just new campaign platforms since the deadline for submitting many of these bills has passed and it's widely agreed that they're all pretty much DOA for other reasons.

Suffice to say that on their face these bills are not particularly inviting to undocumented, or "illegal," immigrants or the people with whom they cavort in California. More significantly for our purposes here, they reveal a belief among Republican politicians in the state that political hay can continue to be made, that immigration can be used to win votes among people who vote. Those people are otherwise known as citizens, or, in many cases, legal immigrants. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a naturalized, legal immigrant.)

Here, in short and in alphabetical order by sponsor, are some of the more interesting ideas being bandied about by the proposals:

• Anthony Adams (59th; Claremont) has proposed AB 648, which, the bill's summary says, "Creates a new ten-year sentencing enhancement for any felony conviction of a person who was previously convicted of a felony in California for which he or she was deported from the United States."
• John J. Benoit's (64th; Palm Desert; Riverside) AB 39 would require, the summary at the top of the bill says, "the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to annually bill the federal government, in writing, for the full cost of incarcerating any undocumented criminal alien incarcerated in California's correctional system."
• Martin Garrick (74th; Carlsbad) wants to make it a requirement, through AB 1468, that hospitals report on whether their patients are citizens. (Makes me wonder if he's read the HIPAA forms.)
• Garrick, in AB 1882, also wants police, who already do this for drug violations, to get in touch with the immigration authorities when the cops arrest a person for DUI who is suspected of being in the country illegally.
• Bob Huff (60th; Diamond Bar) has penned AB 2420. "This bill," explains Huff's website, "would prohibit local entities and authorities from establishing themselves as ‘sanctuary cities' that disallow cooperation with state and federal authorities on illegal immigration.
• Huff also has birthed AB 2421 which "outlines a business license revocation process for those employers who hire illegal immigrants."
• Huff's AB 2422 would "require local authorities to report juveniles to Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they have been charged with a violent felony."
• Jim Silva (67th; Huntington Beach) would have his AB 2812 add '''illegal immigration' to the list of events that the governor can use to declare a state of emergency at the state or local level."
• Mimi Walters (73rd; Laguna Hills; Oceanside) proposed AB 2102, which, according to her website, "will require all State agencies to verify new employees' eligibility via the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify database. The program will also have the added benefit of identifying those who have applied with stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers."

The only real reporting on this stratagem by assembly Republicans came from Kathy Robertson at The Sacramento Business Journal. Robertson's headline read, "Assembly bill package prompts state immigration discussions." The subhead: "Both sides agree the divisive package won't make it out of committee." Maybe editors around the state decided that since the proposals had no chance of becoming law, they wouldn't bother to report on them. Not even AB 2421, the bill by Bob Huff, an all-star on this issue, which would aim to make California another Arizona by revoking the business licenses of employers who hire "illegal immigrants."

Think what you will about the wisdom or lack thereof of these policies, but don't be lulled into believing that just because there are distractions like the presidential race and whether California's governor will run for the U.S. Senate that the immigration issue has gone away.

The news media -- perhaps with the exception of CNN's Lou Dobbs, who used to be a journalist and has now taken to bloviating about immigration -- have also been distracted and happily so, I would offer. Still, the example of California's neighbor shows that movement on immigration and staying on top of early developments is valuable and newsworthy even if the California proposals are not given much of a chance right now of becoming law.

I was in Phoenix as the Arizona version of the law revoking business licenses was about to go into effect at the end of 2007. Business owners had lobbied hard against the law and were worried about having to raise prices to pay for more expensive employees, presumably ones in the country legally who would command a higher wage.

"We sit around wondering how we're going to afford it all," the owner of a Phoenix steak house told me. "We sit around joking that we'll have to sell a Caesar salad for $85.00, but nobody laughs."

In late December, you could see pickup trucks with refrigerators and other household goods headed for the border. There were reports of "illegal immigrants" who owned houses in Arizona taking out home equity loans and skipping town for Mexico with the cash. Restaurateurs in Arizona now report that about 30 percent of the time that they confront an employee about with their immigration status on the federal database, the employee simply doesn't show up for work the next day. The law is having its desired impact.

Now, restaurants in the state are trying to persuade authorities to implement a guest-worker program to get back enough low-wage workers to avoid having to charge $85 for a salad.

Could it happen here? Could we get a little coverage?