A notoriously restrictive voter registration law was struck down in Arizona today after the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in Gonzales v. Arizona. And it was worth the wait.
By a 2-1 vote (the majority included retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor), the court struck down Arizona's documentary proof of citizenship requirement for all new voter registrants because it is superseded by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Project Vote is a plaintiff in this case.
Earlier this year, the League of Women Voters and Project Vote teamed up to find that, despite intervention from the Justice Department in 2008, the state Department of Economic Security (DES) was still not doing everything it should to follow the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). In response to our findings, we gathered a coalition of support in hopes of urging the state to continue taking the necessary steps to increase their levels of compliance with a law that has helped many underrepresented, low-income Arizonan communities cast their vote of Election Day.
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
It's no secret that anti-immigrant activists have a penchant for targeting youth, the most vulnerable of the undocumented set. But the Senate defeat of the popular DREAM Act confirmed the obvious. The war on immigrants is being waged not only along our borders, but within our classrooms as well.
This is the eighteenth article in a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country.
Tucson, Arizona has quite an environmental legacy. For 40 years it was the political base of the Udall brothers -- Stewart, a U.S. Representative in the 1950s and Interior Secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and Morris, a U.S. Representative for 30 years and a pioneering environmentalist. Most of Tucson, along with Arizona's southeastern desert, make up the state's 8th Congressional District. Politically this district leans Republican, but only slightly. John McCain carried the district in the 2008 election, and for more than 20 years moderate Republican Jim Kolbe represented the district in the U.S. House. Since Kolbe's retirement in 2007, the 8th district has been represented by Tucson native and former state Senator Gabrielle Giffords (D). This November, Giffords is being challenged by Republican Jesse Kelly, an Iraq War veteran and "Tea Party" favorite, who won the August 24 primary in an upset victory over former State Senator Jonathan Paton.
Giffords has built on the Udall brothers' environmental legacy, making solar energy one of her top legislative priorities, saying that she wants Arizona to be "the Silicon Valley of solar energy." During her first three years in Congress, Giffords has voted the right way on just about every environmental issue, earning a career rating of over 90% from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). Last June, she supported the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), our nation's first climate bill and an important step forward in creating green jobs. Her vote for ACES was supported by many Arizona community and business leaders. In a statement following the vote, Giffords said that ACES will "help jumpstart our economy. We've seen that right here in Arizona, where a small but vibrant solar energy industry is taking root. Arizona can be a world leader in solar energy production and use. The American Clean Energy and Security Act will help us achieve this goal."
Kelly's position on clean energy and climate couldn't be further from Giffords. He believes we should "toss cap and trade," which he calls a "massive tax increase & jobs killer." The truth, according to according to collaborative research by the University of Illinois, Yale University and the University of California, is that ACES could lead to as many as 1.9 new jobs nationally; 24,000 in Arizona alone. And according to experts at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill would cost the average household $175 a year, or less than 50 cents a day.
Kelly doesn't just stop at attacking ACES, he also takes issue with the overwhelming evidence of global warming, calling it "junk-science." The experts at the National Academy of Sciences, our most authoritative scientific body, strongly disagree with Kelly's claims, saying, "Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities."
Kelly's stance on climate is unsurprising given that he has signed Americans for Prosperity's "No Climate Tax Pledge." Americans for Prosperity is the big oil funded think tank behind the tea party movementwhose campaign is being supported by ultra-conservative Koch Industries.
The NRDC Action Fund believes that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
Please welcome Brian Tashman at People For the American Way Action Fund. PFAW Action Fund is sponsoring OpenLeft and will be doing a series highlighting young progressive candidates through the November election.
While young people in this country are far more likely to hold progressive ideals and vote for progressive candidates, right-wing organizations have led the way in training students and young politicians to promote conservative beliefs and policies. Groups like Young Americans for Freedom, the Young America Foundation, the Collegiate Network, the Leadership Institute, and Eagle Forum Collegians, created an infrastructure based on educating, motivating, and guiding conservative campus leaders and elected officials around the country. Even Tea Party groups have launched schools to instruct activists on their distorted views of the Constitution and political organizing strategies. As Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition said, the Religious Right’s main battles were fought in “neighborhoods, school boards, city councils and state legislatures” before coming to the national stage.
Young progressives across the country are leading the fights for reproductive justice, immigrant rights, marriage equality, and serious campaign finance reform. The state and local leaders of today are the national leaders of tomorrow, and progressive champions like Russ Feingold, Sherrod Brown, Steve Cohen, and Tammy Baldwin were all first elected to state and local offices at a young age before coming to Congress.
That’s why the People For the American Way Action Fund is working to identify, promote and assist young progressive leaders and we want your help. Between now and Election Day, we’ll be highlighting some of the extraordinary young people running for office. We hope you’ll visit their websites, chip in a few dollars, and volunteer for progressive candidates in your area.
Many of the Action Fund’s candidates are running in states such as Arizona, Oklahoma, and Georgia, where state legislatures have endorsed some of the most stringent, anti-women, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBT laws in the country. Others are running in places such as New York, Illinois, and Maryland, where progressive legislation such as marriage equality has a real chance of passing in the next few years.
The PFAW Action Fund will be launching a new site featuring our candidates and ways to help them win elections, promote progressive principles and combat the Far-Right.
Please join me in the extended entry to meet the first of the progressive candidates we’re featuring.
Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is known for housing inmates in tent cities in the desert and making them wear pink clothes as humiliation, but also for allegations of racial profiling and abusive treatment of Latinos, inside and outside of his jailhouse.
On September 2, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office, challenging Arpaio’s refusal to demonstrate that his office is complying with federal civil rights laws. Specifically, the suit alleges that the Sheriff’s Office has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity by institutions, like the Sheriff’s Office, that receive federal funds, and requires them to document their compliance.
The recent signing of Arizona's harsh anti-immigrant bill reminded me of another law passed a while ago. Commonly called the Bennett law, it aimed to make the teaching of English mandatory in all public and private schools. Like Arizona's law, it constituted a response to large immigration, ignited by nativist sentiment.
The Bennett law reacted to similar anti-immigration feelings as those present in Arizona today. To many Americans, immigrants were unwanted foreigners taking away American jobs. They spoke a foreign language and came from a foreign land. They did not speak English and were accused of refusing to do so. They had a different culture and stayed together amongst themselves; assimilation did not seem to work with them. They seemed less loyal to the United States and more loyal to their homeland. At core, they seemed "un-American."
I am speaking, of course, about German immigrants in Wisconsin.
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Anti-immigrant forces have adeptly shaped the ongoing immigration debate into an issue of crime and punishment. Now, the pending passage of a $600 million border security bill could breathe new life into the narrative of the criminal immigrant - despite the increasing safety of our border communities.
Now that the focus has shifted to the legal struggle over SB 1070, it is the time to review the law's non-legal context. (My longer post, Madness and Arizona, set out the chronology of 1070 here in Arizona. It's below.) Much of the politics of SB1070 is being lost by the media's formulaic description of the law, an unwillingness to be frank, and lazy reporting (a recent AP article a couple of weeks on the Huffington Post is good example *). Who supported and promoted 1070? Why? How did the original law read before modification by HB 2162? What does that tell us about its proponents and supporters?
Every state senator and representative who voted for SB 1070 voted for and supported racial profiling. No ifs, ands,or buts -- they voted to legitimize racial profiling. 1070 basically says racial profiling can't be the sole reason for checking legal status, so it's racial profiling plus your shoes or your hair style, nervousness, or the lack of good English. Who can't invent one of the latter reasons? And if turns out the person is here illegally,there is no way to challenge an arrest.
Here is a section of the modifying legislation 2162 that was passed the week after 1070.
A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY NOT CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF THIS SECTION EXCEPT TO
THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE UNITED STATES OR ARIZONA CONSTITUTION.
2162 Removes the word "solely" from the provision relating the prohibition on discriminatory enforcement. So in the original bill, racial profiling could be used, just not as the sole reason. As Professor Jack Chin has pointed out, the retention of the phrase' EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE UNITED STATES OR ARIZONA CONSTITUTION' is deceptive because for purposes of immigration enforcement, race, color and national origin can be taken into account. (There may be an emerging exception from a decision in California.) As he says, nothing in the law prohibits racial profiling.
"I am deeply surprised that anyone construes this law to prohibit racial profiling. If it did, the legislature would have provided that the police "may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution." The fact that the last clause is part of the law invites profiling followed by legal tests of whether it is appropriate in particular cases. If the legislative and Governor in fact intended to forbid the use of race, color or national origin, they should delete the last clause. This would take race out of the law, and be a significant improvement-but given the vast discretion exercised under the reasonable suspicion standard race would remain in the air."
So all the talk that the law doesn't racially profile or prohibits racial profiling is nonsense. Supporters voted for and affirmed a law that included racial profiling -- before they voted for a modification that apparently does, but actually does not, prohibit it. Supporters of 1070 got worried after passage about the political and legal consequences.
If you listen to the far right discussions here in Arizona, they make a distinction between racism and racial profiling. The first is admittedly bad, but racial profiling just makes sense. "What's the problem? 99% of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico and Central America. What are you going to do, stop a bunch of German and Norwegian tourists in Tour America RV's? That just wastes time and hurts the tourist business." In Arizona we already joke about traffic stops, the chief violations being,'Driving while Mexican' or 'Being under 25'.
Before the new laws there were already problems. Most people feel anonymous driving. Next time you are riding (not driving) look at the people in other cars. Race and age are apparent. The courts have authorized the wide use of minor traffic or equipment infractions as fishing expeditions. So poor folks, with less than perfect vehicles, Latinos and young people get stopped. Most everyone who's paying attention knows this going on. Proving it is something else.
1070: FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE...
2162 changes a second very important phrase from "lawful contact" to "lawful stop, detention or arrest." The same representatives, who posture about being strict constitutionalists and libertarians, voted for one of the most potentially intrusive laws ever written. You can write the scenarios yourself. Your dog is barking, neighbors complain, the police come. They ask you for your papers. You're here legally. Your Uncle who is out working in the yard doesn't have the right kind of shoes. When they say hello he doesn't appear to speak English. Papers please. This change in 2162 is actually an improvement. The point, though, is that almost the entire Republican State House and Senate voted for 1070 and Tea Partiers thought the original 1070 version was just great. Russell Pearce has said he doesn't think the 2162 makes any important changes to the impact of the law. He's right, of course, because beyond its stated purpose the law is designed to intimidate and to hide the racial profiling involved in the process.
One phrase is repeated consistently by 1070 supporters -- "What part of illegal don't you understand?" Why the easy absolutism? It's easy to be for a law that you cannot violate, a law that will only apply to somebody else and their family. To "them". The same people who passed 1070 got rid of speed cameras on the highways. Their argument and our Governor's is that the cameras were intrusive. Intrusive to whom?
1070 has other elements, such as a prohibition against hiring illegal immigrants, which the native born can be prosecuted for violating. But if I remember correctly only a single firm has been prosecuted under an earlier law banning hiring of undocumented workers. There is lot of protection for employers built into the new statute. It's law bent to raw political input.
Setting constitutionality aside for a moment, there are good laws and bad laws, important laws and unimportant laws, laws which are enforceable and those that are not. Intelligent laws and stupid laws. The enforcement of some laws cause more problems than letting enforcement fade. Making the law less obvious and less honest is not an improvement. Not a single Democrat in the Arizona Senate or House voted for the law for good reason. Much of this law is aimed at intimidation and encourages dishonest and disingenuous enforcement.
Remember, the law was originally drafted by a lawyer for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has monitored hate groups for decades, has listed FAIR as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007. FAIR has accepted $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation established to promote the genes of white folks and fund studies of race, intelligence and genetics. It is sponsored by Representative Russell Pearce who was recently caught forwarding a white supremacist email to his followers. Pearce has repudiated his white supremacist associations. But other supporters of 1070 like the sheriff of Pinal county are still at it, still appearing on white supremacist radio programs. These connections and associations could be accidents but aren't. What possible motive would a eugenics foundation have to give money to an anti-immigrant group? It's easier to understand and assert than prove. You have to have a wider gaze than just the law itself.
Beneath the rectitude and the self righteousness, the 'what don't you understand about illegal', a sleeping cruelty is awakening.
--------------------------
1070's passage and response has come in stages. You've seen them in the news, but let me recap the situation from the AZ prospective.
(1) 'Oh my God' it's going just as bad as we thought it would be with Napolitano gone! ' SB 1070 passes without a single Democratic vote in State House or Senate.
(2) Will she or won't she? She does. Brewer had conversations with officials in which they got the impression she knew 1070 was bad law and might not sign it. But she's running for election in November and not signing 1070 would have led to a primary defeat.
(3) Passionate opposition to 1070. The AZ Democratic party condemned the bill in no uncertain terms. So did our local Democratic club. National boycotts are declared. AZ Towns like Flagstaff oppose the bill and plan to join the lawsuit against it . More importantly, none of us had seen the Latino community so uniformly outraged. Illegal immigration has had its Latino opponents, but even so 1070 struck very deeply and very broadly.
(4) The counter attack on critics of the bill. The dominant meme cluster that was recirculated again and again through through AZ MSM. 'It's not as bad as they say. Critics of the bill are enemies of AZ. It's just like the Federal law. Everybody has to carry identification to drive a car anyway.'
(5) The Triumphal March of the SB 1070 supporters. Polls show tremendous support for the bill both in AZ and beyond. The latest Rasmussen poll in AZ: 65% in favor, 27% opposed. Word goes out to Democrats and Democratic candidates to be very very careful. Obvious attempts are made to slap down those of us vocally opposed to 1070. I'm not ranting against the Democratic establishment. They are not wrong (as far as it goes) about the level of support for 1070 or the damage it can do to Democrats in the upcoming election.
(6) The Triumphal March of the SB 1070 supporters continues but the lawyers begin to take over.
For activists in Arizona the fight over SB 1070 has been something between riding a roller coaster and watching a train wreck. If you are wondering what happened to Arizona, the crazy has always been with us. But two years ago we had a Democratic Governor, Janet Napolitano, to veto the worst bills passed by Republican dominated legislature.
AZ Republican elected officials have long been extreme. Russell Pearce and his supporters would like to deport every undocumented person, all 11 million, from the US. They neither see nor fear unintended consequences. Will it split up families? Too bad! Arguments based on compassion or moderation do not give them pause. Republican candidates are selected in a primary by about 25% of the voters-- the hard right. Pearce is now the AZ Republican mainstream. The Tea Party has gone after conservatives who are not conservative enough, and moderate Republicans office holders were largely purged from the party by 2006.
When Napolitano was governor and used her veto power, anti-immigration bills had to become propositions and be put to a vote. Anti-immigrant props have won in past years by high margins. Even here in Sedona, considered a Democratic town (registration is very slightly Republican but both Kerry and Obama pulled in about 55% of the vote) past anti-immigration bills got about 70% of the vote.
1070's passage and response has come in stages. You've seen them in the news, but let me recap the situation from the AZ prospective.
(1) 'Oh my God' it's going just as bad as we thought it would be with Napolitano gone! ' SB 1070 passes without a single Democratic vote in State House or Senate.
(2) Will she or won't she? She does. Brewer had conversations with officials in which they got the impression she knew 1070 was bad law and might not sign it. But she's running for election in November and not signing 1070 would have led to a primary defeat.
(3) Passionate opposition to 1070. The AZ Democratic party condemned the bill in no uncertain terms. So did our local Democratic club. National boycotts are declared. AZ Towns like Flagstaff oppose the bill and plan to join the lawsuit against it . More importantly, none of us had seen the Latino community so uniformly outraged. Illegal immigration has had its Latino opponents, but even so 1070 struck very deeply and very broadly.
(4) The counter attack on critics of the bill. The dominant meme cluster that was recirculated again and again through through AZ MSM. 'It's not as bad as they say. Critics of the bill are enemies of AZ. It's just like the Federal law. Everybody has to carry identification to drive a car anyway.'
(5) The Triumphal March of the SB 1070 supporters. Polls show tremendous support for the bill both in AZ and beyond. The latest Rasmussen poll in AZ: 65% in favor, 27% opposed. Word goes out to Democrats and Democratic candidates to be very very careful. Obvious attempts are made to slap down those of us vocally opposed to 1070. I'm not ranting against the Democratic establishment. They are not wrong (as far as it goes) about the level of support for 1070 or the damage it can do to Democrats in the upcoming election.
(6) The Triumphal March of the SB 1070 supporters continues but the lawyers take over.
Recently there has been a huge if uneven improvement in reporting about AZ and 1070. Both bloggers and MSM have gotten a better handle on what's happening here. Knowledge of AZ developments goes national much quicker. We find out about Pearce's plans next year to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in US and the news goes national within the week, not a month or two months later. You are getting good reporting on what's happening here. But I want to bring up some points that I haven't seen mentioned or emphasized elsewhere.
SB1070
(1) The bill is an attack on the whole Latino community. Latino kids and their parents were out with signs the next day. The main reason for their outrage, which extended to the most conservative elements of the community, was the idea of being singled out for racial profiling. But there are other reasons that haven't been talked about as much. (1) Legal immigrants, illegal immigrants and citizens are very often interconnected in the same family, extended family, and social groups. An attack on illegal immigrants hits your uncle or your dad but not your mom or the guy who cuts your hair. (2) It's an attack on collective Latino institutions -- the newspapers, beauty shops, markets, thrift shops, clothes stores, churches, bakeries, car dealers. Some estimate that up to a third of the illegal immigrants have left already, and Latino institutions have been hard hit. The aim is to weaken the Latino community politically, not just deport the undocumented. The fears are deep. We are being overrun! The white town has too many new brown faces. Mexicans want Arizona back. They contribute nothing and are sucking our economy dry.
(2) Self deportation. In AZ we suspect much of 1070's intended impact is what 1070 supporters gleefully call self-deportation. It's never been clear to us though exactly how much Pearce and crew were counting on self-deportation. The people actually writing the bill are from a professional anti-immigrant foundation. They have been around the track few times and have fashioned a bill they hope is bullet proof in its constitutionally.They built in a massive amount of preemptive defense, still they knew the bill would be challenged. 1070 was still so far from the mark that they had to immediately amend it after passage. It's a very odd sounding bill if you read the details. It's a thug's law, written and passed by thugs, using intimidation and inviting selective and dishonest enforcement. Look at the section making it illegal to block traffic to hire workers who might be illegal. How many times does someone actually block traffic hiring somebody to do lawn work at an informal labor exchange? The aim is to intimidate and provide a legal cover to arrest people. It's AZ, and for us there's no question who a jury is going to believe -- you or the cop. Pearce himself may sincerely simply want expel all undocumented folks now in the US. But some 1070 supporters are gleeful at the amount of damage it has inflicted on Democrats, the Obama administration, and the even the Federal government by forcing them on the opposite side of a popular bill ginned up by social hysteria. It's wedge issue time. For many supporters it's a win win situation, even if the bill is unconstitutional. Anti- administration anti-government side effects of the bill are a big dessert more delicious than the main course.
(3) State Enforcement of Federal law. 1070 relies on a federal law written 70 years ago that is seldom enforced. And what was happening in 1940? Germany was invading Norway and Poland, occupying Paris. The Nazis were bombing England. It's in response to all this -- the fear of German and Japanese agents, spies and propagandists -- that the law was passed. Two years later the US interned 150,000 Japanese residents -- talk about ethic or racial profiling. And the Supreme Court said that was just fine. The law passed in a fearful period and was modified not by being rewritten, but by practice, an evolving interpretation of when and how to enforce it. State enforcement ignores 70 years of legal precedent. Will the police use racial profiling? Of course, they could barely stop if they wanted to. But they are being taught how to frame their arrests so they can't be attacked for profiling.
(4) Arizonians, like the rest of the population, have had it with illegal immigration. The situation with illegal immigration reminds me of the welfare debate years ago, where Americans had simply not signed off on permanent welfare for the able bodied. If the problems with illegal immigration are not fixed humanely, they will be fixed inhumanely. At the time outrageous lies and exaggerations about welfare queens and benefit theft flooded the media, and trying to clear the air didn't have much impact because the American people were fed up with the welfare system. They are fed up now with illegal immigration.
And so the current nonsense and lies. Brewer's citing headless bodies. The non-existent Southern Arizona crime wave. Claims that illegals are hardened criminals. The conviction that we're being overrun, even as the undocumented population has dropped precipitously. Facts don't get through. At some level they don't matter. So what if ninety-six of those arrested for being here illegally have no prior record. Doesn't matter. A widespread complaint is that they are not paying taxes. Of course they are, although most don't earn enough to pay federal or state income taxes because the least good jobs in the country don't pay very well. Arizona relies almost entirely on sales tax anyway, and immigrants are paying the same taxes as everybody else.
Will they racially profile? Of course they will, they could hardly avoid it. The law as originally passed authorized racial profiling -- it just couldn't be the only reason. Consider that Sheriff Joe is most popular voter-getter in the state. Are the supporters racist? My sense it that they are largely people who can't identify with folks who are not like them. It's nationalism or tribalism as politics. There is a vast ocean of resentment and fear among white Arizonans about perhaps no longer being the majority or the clear "winners". There are rivers of resentment flowing through generations, among family and social groups. One far right friend told me his father had been unfairly replaced by an incompetent Black woman from his job as an accounting teacher because of federal law. The resentment is passed down from one generation to the next. His whole family moved to the far right largely because the government is for "them" not us. As Rachel Maddow put it, they see it as a zero sum game.
Illegals are the problem? They are mostly rural folks leaving dire poverty and the dimmest prospects and coming to the US without permission to take the least good jobs at the lowest wages. That's the illegal part of 'what part of illegal don't you understand'. These folks are being combined emotionally and politically with violent drug and people smugglers and the vast carnage going on right on the other side of the border.
(5) Az opposition to 1070. It's primarily liberals, progressives, most Democrats, civil rights groups. The usual suspects. I'm deeply embedded in Democratic and liberal circles, but what I actually hear most, outside those circles, is objections to 1070 from people who have a relationship with undocumented immigrants or their families, sometimes going back decades. Employers, co-workers, friends, fellow church members. Sometimes years have passed and they have never asked people whether they are here legally or not. And they are not about to. It would be a personal betrayal. What I'm seeing is some version of Harvey Milk's insight that anti-gay measures would meet opposition from the friends and families of people who were gay. There is not as often a family connection, but still that is where the non political opposition to 1070 rests. It's personal loyalty. The other thing that's very odd is lack of ethnic tension. I've seen a lot of different interethnic situations, but here the Mexican and Anglos get along well. Again, they are mostly undocumented, rural people keeping their heads down and working their butts off. The odd thing is they have a good reputation; even the stereotyping is positive. And yet we have the social hysteria that is overriding everything else. The other opposition to 1070 comes from compassionate people who just don't like persecuting people who have basically done no wrong.
(6) Far right extremists. The Tea Party is strong here. It may have astroturf money, but it's a mass movement. (I'm glad we are done with the MSM nonsense about who they are-- they are far right wing Republican conservatives. ) They are not stupid, they have picked up new issues before, as they once did abortion, that weren't part of their original tool box. They have found what they think is new branding and a new tool box, and are convinced they can ride the free floating anger and skepticism about the federal government to power. If you look at page after page of tea party portraits on the Phoenix-based Tea Party web site what do you see? White folks, mostly older. But what you see beyond that is attitudinizing-- adopting hats, posture, clothes that would lead you, and them, to believe they've always been here in Arizona. That this is their land, whereas in fact most people in Arizona is a relative newcomers with roots elsewhere. As I understand it, many undocumented immigrants have been in the state longer. Far right extremists need to make it clear that they are the legitimate residents of Arizona, not latinos. The Tea Party and the Republican right collects them together and validates that emotion.
(7) What next? There is currently a race for governor in Arizona. Terry Goddard, the current Democratic Attorney General, is the personification of intelligence,competence and professionalism. He recently received the distinction of being selected as the outstanding AG by his fellow Attorney Generals. On the other side we have Jan Brewer, a mediocre conservative opportunist, who is leading Goddard by 20 points. If he continues with his current conventional campaign he is going to lose badly. The AZ Democratic party has a decent ground game here. It's a well organized party. I'm a member, but I'm member because I'm impressed that the AZ Democratic party is a decent organization. Full time paid OFA organizers who work between elections is something we only dreamed about a few years ago, yet we have them in Arizona. OFA remains a work in progress.You are going to see more of a fight here than you might expect. The ground game will turn out Democrats despite the enthusiasm gap. It does look, however, like the wave of righteous anger may very well prevail.
This is one for the record books. While watching the twitter stream for "supreme court" in the wake of the good news on Prop 8 (which I know was not a Supreme Court ruling but many others evidently do not), I noticed a few tweets claiming that Judge Bolton's ruling halting portions of the Arizona immigration law was necessarily unconstitutional. Following a couple links, the claim seems to be that this is on the basis that the Constitution grants "original jurisdiction" to the Supreme Court for matters involving a State government, and therefore a district or appellate court Judge has no authority to even hear the case, it has to be the Supreme Court.
The origin is this piece in an obscure Canadian wingnut outlet:
ONLY the US Supreme Court has Constitutional Authority to Conduct the Trial By Publius Huldah Thursday, July 29, 2010
Does anyone read the U.S. Constitution these days? American lawyers don't read it. Federal Judge Susan R. Bolton apparently has never read it. Same goes for our illustrious Attorney General Eric Holder. But this lawyer has read it and she is going to show you something in Our Constitution which is as plain as the nose on your face.
See, she's a lawyer, and she's read the US Constitution and knows it better than some silly Federal Judge, State Attorney-General or just about anyone else who observed or commented on the Arizona case. The Supreme Court is required to hear every case launched by anyone against any State. Clearly that makes a lot of sense. Take it away Ms. Publius!
Though Arizona's SB 1070 went into effect without its most controversial provisions, the legislation's stated intent-attrition through enforcement-is nevertheless gaining traction among anti-immigrant legislators across the nation. In the wake of the law's enactment, other states are coming out in support of Arizona, some developing policy modeled after SB 1070. Others even hope to alter the U.S. constitution to deny "birthright citizenship" to children of undocumented immigrants.
Just a day before Senate Bill 1070 was set to become law in Arizona, District Judge Susan Bolton stepped in and made the critical decision to put an injunction, or temporary hold, on the most contentious portions of the bill.
The injunction request came straight from the United States, who filed a complaint against Arizona earlier this month challenging the constitutionality of SB 1070. The United States’ primary argument is that immigration law falls under federal, not state, authority. Therefore, Arizona doesn’t have the constitutional right to enforce SB 1070 since federal law preempts state law, and immigration is a federal issue.
The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service. With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!
Dear Mr. President,
My name is Marlen Moreno and I am undocumented. I am also a possible beneficiary of the DREAM Act. On Sunday, August 8, I will be deported.
In a victory yesterday, a judge's ruling (PDF) will prevent some of the most contested provisions of Arizona's controversial immigration law from going into effect.
One of the problematic provisions of the law, S.B. 1070, requires police officers to verify the immigration status (i.e., "check the papers") of anyone stopped, detained, or arrested-even for traffic violations and other routine stops-when there is "reasonable suspicion" the person is undocumented.
