Hours after the latest twist questioning Brian Birdwell’s legal residency and the Texas Senate seat that he already occupies, a friend of mine expressed exasperation at this tortuous senatorial saga and said, “Why don’t we just give Birdwell amnesty and be done with it?”

Why, indeed.

If I was slack-jawed at the suggestion, it was because Birdwell has declared illegal immigration one of his priorities when the Texas Legislature convenes in 2011. The word “amnesty” is political dynamite in any discussion of this volatile topic.

And yet the parallel is ironically undeniable. Birdwell, battling festering concerns over his own legal residency despite winning the Senate seat representing Waco and much of Central Texas in June, could himself make legal residency a hot issue for multitudes of immigrants in our state.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell has faced a struggle in his bid to win the Texas Senate. Biggest problem: retaining some legitimacy amid nagging questions and now a suit over whether he actually qualifies to hold the seat under the Texas Constitution. The residency dilemma is interesting, too, because it raises probing questions about what truly defines us as Texans.

Interestingly, Birdwell defenders faced with this constitutional skepticism are quick to note he won overwhelmingly in the June special runoff election, as if that should settle the matter, law or no law.

Yet there’s a requirement in the Texas Constitution that a candidate be a legal resident of the state five years before election to the Texas Senate. Records not only confirm Birdwell voted in the November 2006 election in Virginia but that he registered as a new voter in Texas on June 13, 2007 — about three years ago, not five.

If he wasn’t then a Virginia resident, why did he vote on Virginia ballots for two years? If he was a Texas resident, why not vote absentee? Weirdest part: Birdwell acknowledges voting by absentee Texas ballot earlier in his far-flung military career, so why the switch in 2004, 2005 and 2006?

All this conjures up Grecia Cantu, 19, one of Birdwell’s constituents. Or is she? The pretty University High valedictorian came to the United States from Mexico at age 7, excelled academically, speaks fluent English, is a whiz at math, prides herself as an American (and not a Mexican) and is the type of immigrant Republicans and Democrats once said we need as citizens, if only to bolster our nation in an economically competitive and unforgiving world.

Some would say, sure, Grecia Cantu is all that and more, but she’s still in conflict with the laws of our land, however casually those laws have been enforced. As it stands, her dubious citizenship status now effectively blocks her from an education at Baylor University. She lives a life of hope, faith and some anxiety here in Waco.

Birdwell served our nation overseas and was a victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon. His injuries were horrific. To my mind, his legal filings make a convincing case that he always intended to return to his native Texas to live and work.

Shouldn’t this be enough?

As with Cantu, it may well depend on whether we’re a nation of laws or a nation of whims. Are Birdwell and Cantu not both in apparent conflict with the law? Should their fates be decided differently or equally? If it’s OK to look the other way when it’s politically convenient, what then is the purpose of our preponderance of laws?

The Birdwell matter is now being hastily studied by Dallas’ Fifth Court of Appeals, which means weighing legal precedence, fishing licenses, voting records, best intentions and, if Birdwell dares, Virginia tax returns. If it makes a ruling on the merits of the case, whatever the outcome, it ought to shame state lawmakers into adding far more specificity to our laws to prevent this nonsense. Ambiguity in residency requirements has dogged more than one lawmaker, among them Chet Edwards in 1982.

But if the decision hinges on a mere legal technicality, as is possible, it will do little service to the state and will cast a stigma on a rookie lawmaker who himself may not have lived up to the very letter of the law.

One wishes the plight of Grecia Cantu and those like her was being addressed with similar urgency and insight.