What Arizona's immigration law really says:
It's not about racial profiling; it's about upholding the law.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein-20100430,0,603760.story
Byron York: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-Obama-could-lose-Arizona-immigration-battle-92460459.html
Peggy Noonan: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704302304575214613784530750.html
And the elitist fools over at the NYT Editorial Board: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/opinion/30fri1.html?ref=opinion
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
ObamaCare Unconstitutionality Update
The Shifting Constitutional Defense of Obamacare [Daniel Foster]
Over at WSJ, Randy Barnett spots a major change in the way liberals are defending the constitutionality of the individual mandate. With legal challengers understandably jumping all over the "interstate commerce" justification, liberals will likely defend the mandate and its attendant penalties under Congress's powers of taxation.
Alas, Barnett argues, that argument is a non-starter:
Congress simply did not enact the personal insurance mandate pursuant to its tax powers. To the contrary, the statute expressly says the mandate "regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature." It never mentions the tax power and none of its eight findings mention raising any revenue with the penalty.
Moreover, while inserting the mandate into the Internal Revenue Code, Congress then expressly severed the penalty from the normal enforcement mechanisms of the tax code. The failure to pay the penalty "shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure." Nor shall the IRS "file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section," or "levy on any such property with respect to such failure."
In short, the "penalty" is explicitly justified as a penalty to enforce a regulation of economic activity and not as a tax. There is no authority for the Court to recharacterize a regulation as a tax when doing so is contrary to the express and actual regulatory purpose of Congress.
So defenders of the mandate are making yet another unprecedented claim. Never before has the Court looked behind Congress's unconstitutional assertion of its commerce power to see if a measure could have been justified as a tax. For that matter, never before has a "tax" penalty been used to mandate, rather than discourage or prohibit, economic activity.
More here.
Over at WSJ, Randy Barnett spots a major change in the way liberals are defending the constitutionality of the individual mandate. With legal challengers understandably jumping all over the "interstate commerce" justification, liberals will likely defend the mandate and its attendant penalties under Congress's powers of taxation.
Alas, Barnett argues, that argument is a non-starter:
Congress simply did not enact the personal insurance mandate pursuant to its tax powers. To the contrary, the statute expressly says the mandate "regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature." It never mentions the tax power and none of its eight findings mention raising any revenue with the penalty.
Moreover, while inserting the mandate into the Internal Revenue Code, Congress then expressly severed the penalty from the normal enforcement mechanisms of the tax code. The failure to pay the penalty "shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure." Nor shall the IRS "file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section," or "levy on any such property with respect to such failure."
In short, the "penalty" is explicitly justified as a penalty to enforce a regulation of economic activity and not as a tax. There is no authority for the Court to recharacterize a regulation as a tax when doing so is contrary to the express and actual regulatory purpose of Congress.
So defenders of the mandate are making yet another unprecedented claim. Never before has the Court looked behind Congress's unconstitutional assertion of its commerce power to see if a measure could have been justified as a tax. For that matter, never before has a "tax" penalty been used to mandate, rather than discourage or prohibit, economic activity.
More here.
Immigration: Enforcing the Law (even threatening to) Has Impact
This is the real reason the loose-borders folks opposed the Arizona law:
Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. law. . . Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants. . . .Standing near potted trees and bushes for sale at a Home Depot in east Phoenix, Diaz, 35, says he may follow three families in his neighborhood who moved to New Mexico because of the law. He says a friend is finding plenty of work in Dallas.Diaz says he has too much to lose by staying — he's supporting a wife and infant son back home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
"They depend on me to survive," he says. "I'm not going to wait for police to come and arrest me."Jose Armenta, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico's western coast, is already planning to move to Utah within the next 20 days because of a combination of the economy and the new law.
Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. law. . . Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants. . . .Standing near potted trees and bushes for sale at a Home Depot in east Phoenix, Diaz, 35, says he may follow three families in his neighborhood who moved to New Mexico because of the law. He says a friend is finding plenty of work in Dallas.Diaz says he has too much to lose by staying — he's supporting a wife and infant son back home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
"They depend on me to survive," he says. "I'm not going to wait for police to come and arrest me."Jose Armenta, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico's western coast, is already planning to move to Utah within the next 20 days because of a combination of the economy and the new law.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Arizona Immigration Enforcement Law - picks up where feds have failed
Another good article from Rich Lowry.
AG Eric Holder "regrets" the new AZ law.
But since the AZ law is meant to mirror the US law, then Holder must also regret the law of the land that he is supposed to uphold.
What sheer hypocrisy.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/extremism_not_o9rKer3pEtrJQ4YHPJL1rK
And the left is simply apoplectic.
The media coverage is horrible and biased.
Enforce the Law !
AG Eric Holder "regrets" the new AZ law.
But since the AZ law is meant to mirror the US law, then Holder must also regret the law of the land that he is supposed to uphold.
What sheer hypocrisy.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/extremism_not_o9rKer3pEtrJQ4YHPJL1rK
And the left is simply apoplectic.
The media coverage is horrible and biased.
Enforce the Law !
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