Like a lot of other people, I frequently get emails passed around that the senders don't check out before they forward, or in the case of whoever was running the Clark County GOP web site a year or two ago, stupidly put one of those up, only to receive national ridicule (rightfully) for being gullible enough to believe the tripe they posted.
Well, I got one of those last night... one of those damning, to-good-to-be-true indictments of government. The person who sent it to me admitted that they hadn't checked it out... just forwarded it (Which means that there was a very high likelihood that it's false in either one or more critical elements used to buttress the case.)
But this one...
In a nutshell, it's rather simple:
As we all know by now, a federal court judge hacked up Arizona's HB 1070, the local enforcement effort to stop state government generally and state taxpayers particularly from being overrun by illegal aliens and the services they require as a result of federal government malfeasance in their deliberate failure to enforce immigration laws in the state.
The problem?
A plain language reading of the United States Constitution seems to indicate that the judge in question had no right to rule, and that the US Supreme Court should have been the jurisdiction from the beginning which resolved this case.
Here's Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.
Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.The boldfaced portion above says "In all Cases.... in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction."
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial
shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.
A relatively recent Supreme Court decision, Carcieri, uses the plain language standard to invalidate Interior's right to take land into trust for Indian Tribes.
(a) When a statute’s text is plain and unambiguous, United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1 , the statute must be applied according to its terms, see, e.g., Dodd v. United States, 545 U. S. 353 .
Now, I understand that the Constitution is NOT a "statute." But I cannot see and have yet to hear where the Constitution is not held to the same standard.
Which, of course, brings us to the case in question:
United States of America,
Plaintiff,
vs.
State of Arizona; and Janice K. Brewer,
Governor of the State of Arizona, in her
Official Capacity,
Defendants.
Can anyone in the legal profession tell me:
How is it that any court, outside the plain-language requirement described above, may rule on this case?
Looks rather straight forward to me.
.
9 comments:
Obama is a Constitutional lecturer, he's playing the game. It takes a higher court (9th Circuit) to rule on the Arizona court's jurisdiction, and a higher court still (U.S. Supreme Court) to rule on the 9th Circuit's opinion. This will all take a while - until then, the injunction holds. By that time, Obama plans to have another option in the works. Whatever that may be???
My editorial on the issue of immigration:
http://martinhash.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=386
Thanks for stopping by, Martin.
Well, as you might expect, I take a somewhat different view.
I don't believe that businesses hiring illegals should be "fined."
I believe they should be confiscated and their owners/management imprisoned.
What, exactly, do we do with profits from illegal drug operations when we can tie them to businesses?
Well, we confiscate the businesses or money or what have you, and we hold those engaged in the traffic (mostly) accountable.
End the anchor baby provisions. End any benefit of any kind to anyone who is here illegally, such as this state's moronic illegal illegal alien resident tuition provisions.
Make hiring them hurt. We are almost constantly told that the reason they're mostly here is because of economics. Eliminate the economic benefit, and they'll leave of their own accord.
We either want illegals here or we don't. If we don't, then we need to take every available step to make sure they aren't.
Yikers!
Yep, that certainly is a different view.
Half measures don't avail us much... and they simultaneously send out an ambiguous message to those trampling on our laws.
If paying fines is just a cost of doing business, how much of this is a disincentive for these profit driven companies to hire illegals?
We're in the midst of a bad recession (Though no where near the worst since the depression... this is, for example, a cake walk in terms of unemployment and interest rates during the Carter administration) and illegals are taking jobs away from Americans.
That's not a xenophobic observation. It's a fact that while we have the largest illegal alien population in our history, there is a chronic shortage of migrant workers to do agricultural work.
So with this huge population of millions, where's the jobs they ARE taking as opposed to the stereo-typical harvest worker?
Construction. Dry wall. Landscaping. Etc. Jobs normally done by Americans, now crowded out by illegal aliens. And those hiring them to do this work do so frequently knowing they're illegal, so they can pay a much lower wage.
Eliminate the incentive. Enforce our laws. Make it hurt to break our laws, both for those who do so... and for those who incentivize them to come here.
Otherwise... good luck ever getting this issue under control.
Scenario: Your neighborhood association (you’re the president), decides to get the entry to your subdivision landscaped. You bid it out and accept a contractor who’s a citizen. Four guys (and a gal) show up and do an excellent job. 2 days later Immigration shows up, attaches your home and puts you into the system because a couple of the workers were illegal. As an attorney, I know how to set that situation up to happen just as stated. It is ALWAYS a bad idea to make other people responsible for someone else’s transgressions.
(This little thought experiment doesn't mean I don't agree with your analysis of the situation.)
"You bid it out and accept a contractor who’s a citizen."
Sorry. Under my scenario the buck stops with the contractor. The "transgression" was the contractor's act of hiring illegals. His/Her responsibility... his or her fall.
U.S. Citizen representing a foreign company or incorrectly formed LLC. In that case, buck stops with you, babe. You'll probably be able to wiggle out of responsibility in court but the work was still done by illegal immigrants, you still went to court, and the rep. you talked to is long gone, not responsible, or a contract employee. I could go on...
OK, if, in fact, your scenario were to play out, then yeah, maybe I would deserve to get popped.
But the fact is that for a variety of ways, we get held accountable all the time for what others do.
If I'm the getaway driver in a bank robbery and the trigger man shots 3 people durring the robbery, am I not held equally liable as the trigger man?
In a community property state, am I not held liable for bills my wife runs up, with or without my knowledge or approval?
In this instance, with that liability, there is NO WAY *I*, in the neighborhood association scenario, would do business with anyone but a long-established, reputable company as opposed to a fly by night operation.
I repeat: The COMPANY hiring these people is liable under my scenario. But if I fail to use due diligence to take reasonable steps to insure they've conformed to applicable laws, then maybe I should get busted.
That said, you can both indict and sue a ham sandwich. But the fact is that a law as I envision it would protect the neighborhood association from such prosecution unless they DIRECTLY HIRED the illegal aliens as opposed to a company they work for. The hiring issue is the key.
And knowing that the loss of assets and going out of business along with imprisonment are what's at stake, how many businesses, be they a "foreign company or incorrectly formed LLC" or not would dare to hire illegals?
Damned few.
One of the classic definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome. You want to put an end to this madness? Then make the cost of using these people so incredibly high that no one would ever even consider it as an option.
Otherwise... this issue will never end.
Great discussion, BTW.
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