Arizona Immigration Bill Heads for Supreme Court

Russell Pearce, a Republican who is the former president of the Arizona Senate, ventured into hostile terrain in a hearing called by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration. Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, also a Republican, turned down Mr. Schumer’s invitation to advocate for the law at the hearing.

Mr. Pearce and Ms. Brewer are in Washington to attend a Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday in which the justices will consider whether four provisions of the law that have been challenged by the Obama administration are unconstitutional because they encroach on legal terrain reserved for the federal government.

Mr. Pearce, known for his blunt language, said the law, SB 1070, would protect the state’s citizens from “the invasion of illegal aliens we face today,” which he called “one of the greatest threats to our nation.” He said Arizona had acted because “the federal government has decided not to enforce the law,” and he accused the administration of “encouraging further lawbreaking” with its lawsuit.

The Senate hearing served primarily to highlight the political jockeying surrounding the Supreme Court’s deliberations, as Democrats and Republicans try to gauge the possible impact of a ruling by the justices on Latinos, a pivotal group of voters in the presidential contest.

As it appears increasingly possible that the court will uphold at least some of the disputed provisions, Mr. Schumer called the hearing as a showcase for the Democrats’ opposition to the law, which has been intensely unpopular among Latinos nationwide. He announced that if the Supreme Court upheld part or all of Arizona’s statute in its ruling, which is expected in June, he would introduce a bill to expressly prevent states from enacting their own immigration enforcement laws.

Senate staff members said that proposal would have little chance of passage, but it could serve as a rallying point for Democrats to appeal to Latino voters during the summer as the presidential race is fully under way.

None of the Republicans on the subcommittee attended the hearing.

“It is no more than election-year theater,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the senior Republican on the subcommittee. He said that none of the witnesses was an expert on the arcane legal issues that the Supreme Court is considering about the law.

The Arizona law requires state law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of people they stop or arrest if officials have reason to believe they might be illegal immigrants. The law also makes it a crime under state law for immigrants to fail to register under a federal law and for illegal immigrants to work or to try to find work. It also allows the police to make arrests without warrants if they have probable cause to believe that suspects are deportable under federal law.

Lower courts have blocked the provisions. The administration has argued to the Supreme Court that the law conflicts with federal policies and priorities. Arizona counters that the law complements federal efforts to control immigration and is a routine example of state enforcement of federal laws.

Mr. Pearce, a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, wrote the statute, which passed in 2010. Caught in the uproar the law provoked among some voters, especially Latinos, he lost his Senate seat in a recall election last November.

Persistent questioning from Mr. Schumer put Mr. Pearce on the defensive at times, as the senator bore down on sections of the bill he said could lead the Arizona police to engage in racial profiling. The senator pointed to a training manual showing that the police were instructed to consider how a person was dressed and whether his vehicle was “heavily loaded” in developing a “reasonable suspicion” that he was an illegal immigrant.

The bitterness that the bill has provoked was on display. Dennis DeConcini, who was a Democratic United States senator from Arizona from 1977 to 1995, issued an apology to Latinos for the “harm” of the law. “I am embarrassed for my state,” he said.

Around the country, immigrant advocate organizations were gearing up for protests and vigils. Immigrant groups in Los Angeles held a small rally on Tuesday in front of a federal court building downtown.

In a letter released Tuesday afternoon, religious leaders from a number of faiths called on President Obama to “reassert your authority” to stop states from enacting a patchwork of immigration laws, by working with Congress to pass a broad federal overhaul of the immigration system. Among those signing were Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Adam Liptak contributed reporting.

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This Election, Supreme Court Could Rally Democrats

The prospect arises both because of President Obama’s comments this week implicitly warning the court against striking down his signature domestic achievement, the expanded health insurance law, and because of recent court rulings, chiefly the Citizens United campaign finance decision, and looming cases on immigration and affirmative action that incite passions on the left.

“Historically, the court has been a rallying point for the Republican base, and it is now much easier to imagine that it will be a rallying point with the Democratic base just as much if not more, especially if the court overturns the Affordable Care Act,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who works with Priorities USA Action, a group supporting the president’s re-election but independent of his campaign.

“My guess,” Mr. Garin added, “is that more voters will think, ‘If they can do that, they can do just about anything — and that includes overturning Roe v. Wade’ ” — the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision.

Though the justices are not expected to rule on the 2010 health care law until June, the public reaction to the three days of arguments last week offered evidence of a potential Democratic backlash. In a poll for The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 32 percent of Democrats said they had a less favorable opinion of the Supreme Court after the hearings, compared with 14 percent of Republicans.

“There’s evidence here of a negative reaction from Democrats,” said Michael Dimock, Pew’s associate director for research. The justices “didn’t even decide anything yet, and many people walked away from their hearings feeling more negative about the court. So you can imagine the reaction if they overturn the law.”

Officials at the White House and with the Obama campaign would not comment for the record, though several insisted there was no political strategy to run against the Supreme Court’s conservative majority — at least not unless the court invalidates the health care law. Aides said Mr. Obama, a former Harvard Law Review president and constitutional law instructor at the University of Chicago, had simply been answering the predictable questions about his reaction to the hearings.

And much as Democrats argued in past election seasons, some aides expressed skepticism about how effective the issue could be in the election, given the public’s poll-tested lack of interest in the court.

Republicans, by contrast, have made it an issue since Richard M. Nixon, running in 1968, denounced the Warren-era court for liberal rulings on social issues and criminal procedures, and made phrases like “judicial activism,” “legislating from the bench” and “strict constructionism” presidential-year perennials for conservatives.

The criticisms fit with the broader Republican message against crime, cultural permissiveness and the removal of Christian faith from public policy. In the Republicans’ current contest for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich courted conservatives by arguing for elected officials to ignore judicial decisions they oppose. Last week, Rick Santorum joined protesters of the health care law outside the Supreme Court.

“I don’t think there’s a single presidential campaign going back to 1968 upon which the result turned on the Supreme Court generally or a single Supreme Court case,” said Joel Benenson, an Obama pollster.

“To the extent it would be a motivating issue this year,” he added, “it would be for Democratic and independent voters around the Citizens United case.”

That decision, with five Republican-appointed justices forming the majority, overturned precedents and allowed corporations and individuals to give unlimited sums of money to support independent campaigns on behalf of political candidates — a freedom that has helped define the Republican presidential contest.

Mr. Garin said his polling and focus groups showed that Citizens United “is probably the best-known decision since Bush v. Gore” — the 5-to-4 ruling that decided the deadlocked 2000 presidential election for the Republican, George W. Bush.

What makes the Citizens United case resonate with Democrats and some independent voters, party strategists say, is its fit with many Americans’ sense that the political system, including the conservative court, favors corporate and special interests.

“The jurisprudential divide on the Supreme Court regarding high-profile legal issues now appears to map almost perfectly onto the political divide that exists in the larger nation,” said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Texas, who was a law clerk to Sandra Day O’Connor, a former Republican appointee, and Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a Democratic appointee. “I do think that this may be a year for the Supreme Court to play a prominent role in the election in a way that we have not seen in a long time, maybe ever.”

Increasingly, Professor Driver said, the court splits 5 to 4, with appointees of one party opposite those of the other. That was true of Monday’s ruling that local officials can strip-search anyone being jailed, no matter how minor the alleged offense and regardless of whether there is reason to suspect contraband.

In contrast, court decisions of past decades that most roiled conservatives often had lopsided majorities or even unanimous votes. Until recently, party affiliation had little bearing. For example, the dissenters in Bush v. Gore included two Republican appointees, while the author of Roe v. Wade was a Republican appointee and its chief dissenter a Democratic appointee.

Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School, said “the smart money” among legal scholars was on the court’s upholding the health care law. But if the law is overturned, he said, the court is certain to be a major issue in the presidential campaign.

Together with decisions like Citizens United, he said, “that would add up to a real pattern of conservative judicial activism, of a kind that will really be unprecedented since the New Deal.”

Mr. Obama made that argument on Tuesday to a convention of newspaper editors, seeking to clarify his much-criticized comment on Monday that it would be “unprecedented” for the court to strike down a law.

On Tuesday he said he had meant that the court had deferred to Congress on matters affecting interstate commerce — like health care — “at least since Lochner.” That referred to the judicial era before the New Deal, when pro-business courts routinely invalidated laws on minimum wages, child labor and business regulations.

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Supreme Court throws out Texas election maps (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court handed Texas Republicans a partial victory in a partisan fight over election redistricting that has erupted after a huge increase in the state's Hispanic population.

Throwing out a set of election maps that favored Democrats and minorities, the justices on Friday sent the case back to a lower court, forcing further review of a matter with a limited timetable for resolution as 2012 elections are fast approaching.

In its first ruling on political boundary-drawing based on the 2010 U.S. Census, the high court unanimously rejected interim election maps that had been drawn up by federal judges in San Antonio.

The court said the judges' maps did not sufficiently take into account an earlier set of maps that were drawn up by the Texas state legislature that favored Republicans.

Under the high court's ruling, the Texas judges must redraw the maps for primary contests set for April 3 that will decide party candidates for congressional and state legislature elections in November.

The case is typical of redistricting fights that unfold in states across the country every 10 years after a national census. In this one, protecting the voting rights of millions of minorities and substantial political power are at stake.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, said, "The Supreme Court's swift decision will allow Texas to move forward with elections as soon as possible under maps that are lawful."

The case is being closely watched because it could help decide whether Republicans or Democrats gain as many as four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in November. The Texas delegation now has 23 Republicans and nine Democrats.

MEXICAN-AMERICANS GROUP WEIGHS IN

A civil rights group representing Hispanics, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the ruling reaffirmed Texas' obligation to comply with the voting rights law. The group said it looked forward to further proceedings in San Antonio to secure fair interim maps.

Abbott had appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the lower court had overstepped its authority, and arguing that the judges should have deferred to maps drawn by elected lawmakers.

Those maps favor Republican candidates, but have been challenged for violating the voting rights of Hispanics and other minorities.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal district court judges appeared to have unnecessarily ignored the state's plans in drawing certain districts and that those maps can at least be used as a starting point.

"Some aspects of the district court's plans seem to pay adequate attention to the state's policies, others do not and the propriety of still others is unclear," the court held in its narrow opinion limited to the unique facts of the Texas dispute.

Redrawing the Texas districts has been a major political and legal battle. The state's population went up by more than 20 percent, or 4.2 million people, over the past decade, with Hispanics accounting for 2.8 million of the increase.

FOUR NEW DISTRICTS FORMED

After the 2010 Census, Texas got four new congressional seats, giving it 36. The legislature's plan, signed by Texas Governor Rick Perry, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Thursday, created only one new heavily Hispanic district.

The Supreme Court, in the 11-page, unsigned opinion, said the judges, in coming up with new maps, must be careful not to incorporate any legal defects from the legislature's plan.

The interim maps drawn by the judges in Texas were designed to remain in place until a separate court in Washington, D.C., could decide whether the Texas state plan should be approved or rejected under the federal voting rights law.

A trial in that case is under way. That case and a different pending legal challenge in San Antonio are expected to determine the final maps to be used in Texas in future years.

The Obama administration, the state Democratic Party and minority groups have challenged parts or all of the state's redistricting plan for violating the voting rights law, and said the judicially drawn one should be used on an interim basis.

Justice Clarence Thomas issued a brief opinion agreeing with the judgment, but adding that he would have gone further. He said the legislature's plans have not been found to violate any law and should be used for the upcoming elections.

The Supreme Court cases are Perry v. Perez, No 11-713; Perry v. Davis, No. 11-714, and Perry v. Perez, No. 11-715.

(Reporting By James Vicini; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Vicki Allen)

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Vermin Supreme Places Third in New Hampshire Democratic Primary (ContributorNetwork)

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Vermin Supreme, the self-described "friendly fascist" who ran on a platform of mandatory dental hygiene and a pony for everyone, came in third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary.

According to the state's Secretary of State, Supreme racked up 829 votes for 1.4 percent of the vote, just 117 votes less than environmentalist Ed Cowan, who was the runner-up to Barack Obama. That was 380 more votes than Randall Terry, the anti-abortion activist who had a public falling out with his gay son, whom Vermin sprinkled with pixie dust at a lesser-known candidates forum at St. Anselm College.

Supreme claimed Jesus told him to glitter bomb Terry in order to transform him into a homosexual, according to the Union Leader.

Performance

The gray-bearded candidate, who can best be described as a performance artist, satirist and political activist, wears a distinctive outfit of a lime green jacket and multiple neck ties. He often wears a green plastic Hulk fist holding an American flag as a cod piece.

What is most distinct about Vermin Supreme's appearance is his headgear: a large black rubber boot known as a wader. His campaign slogan is, "A vote for me is a vote truly wasted."

Armed with a bullhorn, he popped up early for a Rick Santorum rally at a Manchester restaurant and took over the podium. "My name is Vermin Supreme. I am a friendly fascist. I am a tyrant that you can trust and you should let me run your life as I know what's best for you," he explained.

"As you know, all politicians are, in fact vermin. I am the Vermin Supreme, and that is why I am the most qualified candidate in this race at this time."

He then cut to the heart of the matter.

"Yes I am a politician. I will lie to you because as I have no reason not to. I will promise you anything your electoral heart desires because you are my constituents -- you are the informed voting public -- and because I have no intention of keeping any promise that I make."

Third's A Charm

This was the third-place candidate's third crack at the Democratic nomination, though only his second appearance in the New Hampshire primary, which featured 14 Democratic candidates this year.

Supreme first ran for the Oval Office in 2004, in Washington, D.C.'s Democratic primary. He first threw his boot into the ring in New Hampshire in '08, but compared to his 2012 finish, the outcome was disappointing. The 2008 Democratic primary featured Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich.

He took only 41 votes in that tough contest, perhaps because he sported a less-attractive galoshes-style boot rather than his impressive wader of 2012. He even ran in the general election, garnering 43 votes nationally, according to the Federal Elections Commission.

With the Democratic field again wide open in 2016, Vernon Supreme's horizons are endless. Makers of oral hygiene products and breeders of ponies will rejoice.

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Both Dems, GOP pleased: Supreme Court taking up Obama health-care law (The Christian Science Monitor)

There isn’t much these days that can spread unanimity across party lines in Washington. But that’s what happened following the US Supreme Court’s announcement on Monday that it will examine the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care reform law.

The news was greeted across the ideological spectrum as a positive development – but for different reasons.

“We are pleased the court has agreed to hear this case,” Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, said in a statement. “We know the Affordable Care Act [ACA] is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

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House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi echoed the sentiments. “Today’s announcement places the Affordable Care Act before the highest court in our country,” she said. “We are confident that the Supreme Court will find the law constitutional.”

Others are equally confident that the law is unconstitutional, and they’re looking forward to the Supreme Court saying so.

“Throughout the debate, Senate Republicans have argued that this misguided law represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of the federal government into the daily lives of every American. Most Americans agree,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

“In both public surveys and at the ballot box, Americans have rejected the law’s mandate that they must buy government-approved health insurance, and I hope the Supreme Court will do the same,â€

“The American people did not support this law when it was rushed through Congress and they do not support it now that they’ve seen what’s in it,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. “This government takeover of health care is threatening jobs, increasing costs, and jeopardizing coverage for millions of Americans, and I hope the Supreme Court overturns it.”

Rep. Pete Stark (D) of California had a different take. “I’m looking forward to a Supreme Court ruling that will force Republicans to join Democrats in governing instead of continuing their political grandstanding,” he said.

In announcing that they will take up the issue, the justices set aside an extraordinary 5-1/2 hours for oral argument. They have agreed to examine the ACA’s controversial independent mandate, the requirement that all Americans must purchase a government-approved level of health insurance or pay a penalty.

The court has also agreed to hear an appeal by Florida and 24 other states that the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid is overly coercive of state government, forcing the states to either adopt the federal reforms or lose federal health-care funding.

Beyond the fate of the ACA, the high court’s decision could establish new boundaries for federal power under the Constitution’s commerce clause.

“The Supreme Court has set the stage for the most significant case since Roe v. Wade,” said Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. “Indeed, this litigation implicates the future of the Republic as Roe never did.”

Randy Barnett, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, was among the first legal scholars to raise serious questions about the constitutionality of the health-care reform law. When most other legal analysts scoffed, Professor Barnett argued that the ACA’s individual mandate represented a sizable expansion of federal power.

“Upholding the individual mandate would end the notion that Congress is one of limited and enumerated powers, and fundamentally transform the relationship of Americans to their doctors and their government,” he said in a statement Monday. “It is high time for the high court to strike down this unconstitutional, unworkable, and unpopular law.”

Elizabeth Wydra, general counsel of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center in Washington, noted that two highly regarded conservative jurists have voted in lower court cases to uphold the ACA. Conservative members of the high court may follow the same path, she said.

“Observers should note the very real possibility that the tea party’s basic constitutional vision could be rejected by the Supreme Court – particularly its most conservative members,” she said. A high court endorsement of the ACA, Ms. Wydra added, “could deal a devastating blow to tea partiers’ ability to have their constitutional theories taken seriously by the American public in the future.”

Timothy Sandefur, a lawyer at the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif., says he’s hopeful the Supreme Court case sparks even more discussion, not less.

“The Supreme Court’s announcement marks an historic opportunity for a nationwide debate over the Constitution and its continued significance in our lives – the kind of debate this nation has not had since the 1930s,” Mr. Sandefur said. “The founding fathers made it clear that they were designing a federal government of limited powers. But since the 1930s, Congress has pushed its authority further and further, and courts have refused to enforce the constitutional limits.”

Sandefur added: “Today’s announcement means the justices will be faced with the question of whether the federal government is still bound by constitutional limits, or whether we will persist in our decades-long habit of ignoring the letter and spirit of our nation’s supreme law.”

Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, offered a different perspective. “I am confident the law will be upheld in its entirety,” she said.

Ms. Tanden called the lawsuits challenging the ACA “nothing more than an attempt to rewrite the Constitution to thwart national solutions to national problems.”

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) said he is confident the high court will invalidate the ACA. “Each day that these cases remain unresolved means that states must spend more time and money to prepare for the expensive and burdensome requirements of the health care law, while uncertainty looms over its constitutionality,” he said.

“Today’s news that the Supreme Court will hear arguments,” the governor said, “is reassuring news that we will soon reach finality on this critically important issue.”

The National Federation of Independent Business is a party to one of the appeals challenging the ACA’s constitutionality. The high court’s decision to hear its case is welcome news, said NFIB president Dan Danner.

“Only 18 months after its passage, the new health care law has been brought to the steps of the Supreme Court,” Mr. Danner said. “The health care law has not lived up to its promise of reducing costs, allowing citizens to keep their coverage or improving a cumbersome system that has long been a burden to small-business owners and employees.”

He added, “The small-business community can now have hope; their voices are going to be heard in the nation’s highest court.”

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Senate Democrats rap 'pro-business' Supreme Court (AP)

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats at a partisan-tinged hearing say the Supreme Court's conservative majority is wrongly favoring businesses over consumers, employees and investors.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy opened a committee hearing Tuesday by criticizing what he called "the most business friendly Supreme Court in the last 75 years."

Among the witnesses was Betty Dukes, the Wal-Mart greeter who lent her name to the massive sex-discrimination lawsuit that the court blocked last week by a 5-4 vote. Dukes vowed to continue her individual lawsuit and said that perhaps smaller groups of female Wal-Mart employees still would band together to press claims of unfair pay and promotions.

Business interests won slightly more often at the court than they lost in the past year, including victories in their most important cases.

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