UPDATE: Rudy’s campaign is announcing the endorsement of Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson, among several other state and local lawmakers. Richardson will be his Georgia state chairman.

The full list of Rudy endorsers: State Senator Ronnie Chance, Representative Barry Fleming; Representative Jeff May; Representative David Ralston; Representative Jay Roberts; former GA Republican Party Chairman Rusty Paul; former GA Republican Party Chairman Bob Shaw; and former Mayor of Augusta, Bob Young.

I asked whether Rudy’s opposition to the immigration bill played any role in the legislators’ decision to endorse him.

Elliot Bundy, the Rudy campaign’s coordinator for the south, referred me to the former mayor’s earlier comments that he ”cannot support the bill in this form.” He said the mayor was not satisfied with the border security provisions, that he wants a biometric security ID and a databse, and that “until we have those provisions, he can’t support it. the bill does not have those guiding principles as part of it.”

(Here’s the thing: Bill supporters say the deal does include those provisions:

An Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS) Must Be Ready To Process New Hires Before The Z Visa And Temporary Worker Programs Go Into Effect. Employers will be required to verify the work eligibility of all employees using the EEVS, and all workers will be required to present stronger and more readily verifiable identification documents.
The EEVS Will Require Presentation Of A Limited Range Of Highly Secure Government IDs, Which Will Be Checked Electronically Against Federal And State Databases. When a worker presents an identification document to obtain employment, the EEVS will perform an electronic check against Federal and State databases. The Social Security Administration will be asked to confirm whether the name and Social Security number presented by the worker are a “match” in its files. Furthermore, the EEVS will use links to the U.S. State Department and individual State Departments of Motor Vehicles to provide employers with the digital photograph associated in government databases with the ID presented. Once employers have direct access to the original photograph associated with an ID, it will be much harder for illegal immigrants to fool them with fake documents. The 1986 Act Relied On A Verification System That Did Not Have The Capacity To Detect ID Fraud. More than two dozen documents are acceptable under the 1986 system, and employers are not legally required to verify the documents’ authenticity.

You read this and think, why can’t they pass just this provision? An electronic check system against federal and state databases, as well as photo matching, coupled with an actual crackdown on the underground economy, might actually reduce the use of illegal immigrants as labor. Try that approach for a few years, see if it works, and then maybe the public would be more interested in talking about a slow, steady path to citizenship for the most deserving.)

The endorsees chose not to get into the immigration debate.