Chad Christensen is really giving up his
Faced with a number of lawsuits, Las Vegas Assemblyman Chad Christensen has abandoned his initiative petition to enact an immigration law in Nevada similar to one in Arizona. [...]
A number of groups filed suit to block the Christensen petition and Futrell said that put it on hold, making it impossible to gather 97,002 signatures by Nov. 8.
If successful, it would have been submitted to the 2011 Legislature. If the Legislature rejected it, the plan would go on the 2012 ballot for voters to decide.
Christensen, an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate, is officially notifying the Secretary of State to withdraw the petition. [...]
The proposal was similar to Arizona, where a law enforcement officer stopping a person for another offense could require the person to show proof of citizenship. The Nevada plan would have imposed penalties on employers who knowingly hire people here illegally.
So this really didn't pan out? When this wasn't enough to lift Chad Christensen out of the low single digits in his failed US Senate bid? When the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce did something it almost NEVER does... Join the ACLU in a law suit (!!!)? When all the casinos were begging us not to sign this petition, as our very tourism industry depends on the free flow of travelers, and foreign tourists would be less likely to go somewhere full of police officers harassing them and demanding to see "their papers"? And when our police officers are already overstretched dealing with actual crime?
Let's face it, the GOoPers love using those "scary brown people" as a handy political prop to stoke fear in their "targeted voters". And in economic hard times like these, it's easy to claim this as a "populist issue" and direct everyone's anger to those "illegal aliens". Never mind that none of this fear is based in any fact.
But hey, reason won this time and this stupid waste of time is being dropped... For now. But jeez, let's hope a few extreme GOoPer hotheads don't try to waste our time next year by carrying Chad Christensen's ridiculously FAIL-tastic race-baiting banner.
That justification is not really the resort industry's true motive in opposing a bill like this, but it's the one they're willing to talk about.
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