Congressional candidate and current Houston City Councilmember Shelley Sekula Gibbs came out strongly against HPD’s “sanctuary city” policy on illegal immigrants in an op-ed in the Chronicle today:
Houston’s “sanctuary city” status is only making a bad situation worse. This is a Houston Police Department policy that City Council members have no control over, and it should be abolished. The policy, forbidding Houston police from inquiring into anyone’s immigration status, was established years ago under a previous city administration, has been reauthorized periodically and can only be rescinded by Mayor Bill White.
The op-ed takes an interesting turn in the next paragraph:
Council could try to bypass the mayor with a resolution opposing the “sanctuary city” policy, but that is unlikely to occur in our strong mayor form of government in which the mayor sets the council agenda. Even if such a resolution were passed, the mayor would be under no obligation to do away with the policy.
In addition, such a resolution would potentially open Pandora’s box, encouraging the consideration of other resolutions dealing with federal matters, such as the war in Iraq. These resolutions would be merely symbolic and would not have a direct impact on federal legislation.
If Councilmember Sekula-Gibbs’ reasoning about Council seems somewhat (or very) convoluted, perhaps a little context is in order. Several months ago, before the doctor-councilwoman was thinking of running for Congress, she actually criticized then-Councilmember Mark Ellis for his (bungled) campaign email pressuring recalcitrant members of Council to back his move to raise the “sanctuary city” issue at Council, calling it “political gamesmanship” and a “political stunt” related to his State Senate race. Further, Matt Stiles reported the following:
Sekula-Gibbs, who said she doesn’t have a “strong opinion” about changing the Police Department’s policy, believed Ellis was trying to utilize a little-used rule allowing council members to force a special meeting to vote on placing an item on the agenda.
Funny that Doctor-Councilwoman Sekula-Gibbs has developed such a strong opinion in just a few months’ time! Of course, it does help explain her effort to spin her previous political history and comments in those convoluted two paragraphs in today’s op-ed.
