A Win for Arizona, and the Rule of Law

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
May 27, 2011 4:00 A.M.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Arizona’s 2007 law requiring all employers in the state to use the federal E-Verify system for screening out illegal aliens and revoking the business licenses of firms that knowingly hire them.

The court split 5–3 along party lines: Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor (Kagan recused herself) ignored the plain meaning of the federal law empowering states to use their licensing power to address the employment of illegal workers. Chief Justice Roberts, on the other hand, found “no basis in law, fact, or logic” for the argument that Arizona should be stopped from doing so in the name of federal “preemption” of state activity.

It’s an important win for many reasons, not least of them the fact that Arizona’s E-Verify mandate actually works. While the illegal-alien population nationwide fell 7 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the number of illegal aliens in Arizona fell by nearly 18 percent, and many analysts credit the E-Verify mandate with that success. Post Continues on www.nationalreview.com

This week has been a shameful disaster

Commentary

During the past three days in the United States, I witnessed two events, which will make this week go down in history. It will go down in history as the House of Representatives passed the Obama Health Care Bill on Sunday, March 21, 2010. It will go down in history as President, Barack Obama, signed the bill into law on Tuesday, March 23, 2010.

Immediately after the signing of the bill by the president, thirteen states filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the bill violated Amendment 10, of the U.S. Constitution. The wording of the Tenth Amendment is as follows: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The states maintain that the constitution does not allow the federal government to compel private citizens to buy anything from private employers, such as insurance companies.

To others of us, we believe the process in passing the bill was flawed. The usual procedure is for each house to pass their versions of a bill, and then refer their bills to a committee to work out the disagreements, then send it back to each house for approval. This whole process has been an unmitigated disaster! The Republicans were locked out of discussions, debates, and much of the discussions were limited to Democrats behind locked doors. If the process was not out and out unconstitutional, it was an utter disgrace!

It is incredible to me, that the president, who claims to have been a professor teaching constitutional law, that he would be a part of this process. It is obvious that he either does not know or understand the constitution, or he knows and wants to change it through legislation. His conduct would seem to confirm the claims of those who claim he is a socialist. His actions, and those of a Democratically controlled congress would certainly confirm we are heading in the direction of socialism. And be not deceived: socialism means control, and they will continue to move in other areas of our lives.

November of this year will give us a chance to remedy this dangerous trend. We need to go to the polls and throw out every Democrat and a high percentage of Republicans, and to replace them with constitutional conservatives that will promise to enact term limits, to repeal the seventeenth amendment to begin with (Click here for my previous post on the seventeenth amendment). Both actions will restore states rights, and to destroy political dynasties that unlimited terms allow. The result over time should be less federal control over the states and individuals, less spending, and lower taxes. And hopefully, we will be able to take our beloved country back.