In a 5-3 ruling handed down by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the high court held that most of the provisions being challenged encroached on turf that is constitutionally reserved for the federal government. The court overturned parts of the law that criminalize one’s presence in Arizona without documentation, criminalize working or looking for work without legal status, and permit police to arrest people without a warrant if there’s suspicion that they’ve committed a deportable crime.
But the provision of the law permitting police to check a person’s immigration papers during lawful encounters was deemed valid and not a preemption of federal law.
Joining Justice Kennedy in the majority were John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan, who worked on the issue as Obama’s solicitor general, did not participate in the case.
Arizona argued that the law cooperatively assists the U.S. with immigration enforcement, but the court mostly agreed with the Obama administration that key parts of the law encroach on the federal government’s exclusive right to make policy on the matter.
So apparently, Mitt Romney's immigration guru, Kris Kobach, isn't as good on abiding by the US Constitution as he is in using xenophobia to further his political career. I wonder what Mittens thinks about this.
And now, we're finding out that crazy train is unconstitutional. And we're supposed to be surprised? The State of Arizona clearly encroached upon federal jurisdiction, and it clearly violated many Americans' civil rights. We'll just have to wait and see if this is a wake-up call for Republicans. Will they ever see that their zeal for harrassing people that don't look like them is really alienating all the rest of us? Or is that just too much of a "clown question"?
All of a sudden, Dean Heller wants Nevada voters to forget his real record. All of a sudden, Heller now says he's "open" to Marco Rubio's "Kill the DREAM Act" that would permanently make millions of immigrant kids second-class citizens.
Rubio’s suggestion for a DREAM Act would mean that potentially millions of kids who grew up in the United States without the right papers would be forced to be non-voting residents of their home country. Rubio may be using the rhetoric of defending Latinos against right-wing attacks, but the Republican policies don’t play out well for Latinos, specifically on the DREAM Act. The Republican presidential candidates are running on extreme immigration policies, and it would take a lot for Latinos to regain trust in the party. Offering a path to second-class citizenship is not exactly the olive branch Latinos are looking for.
And this is what Dean Heller is "open" to. Second-class citizenship? Mitt Romnney and Kris Kobach may still think it's "amnesty", but this is really nothing more than pointless pandering.
And then, there's this. All of a sudden, Heller wants us to think he opposes Paul Ryan's Medicare busting budget. So now we're supposed to forget Heller's real record? And we're supposed to forget his unbalanced nonsense plan that would destroy Medicare & Social Security if enacted?
Heller is even trying to have it both ways on marriage equality. He claims he "doesn't want to talk about it", but he still managed to (again) state his support for marriage discrimination against LGBTQ Nevadans. So he "doesn't want to talk about it", except when he wants to reassure the radical religious right that he's still "one of them". Lovely.
I can see right through Heller's BS. He's trying to make us forget his real record. He wants us to forget his history of bowing to extreme "tea party" madness. But in today's era of online vote archives & YouTube, Dean Heller will have to find out the hard way that it's not as easy to erase away his own record as he thinks.
Mitt Romney is reaching for his Etch-A-Sketch because he's desperate to shake up and reset his campaign. His trouble with Latin@ and other minority voters is real, especially in key swing states that he would like to wrest away from Obama. PPP recently showed that Obama's support among Latino voters both here in Nevada and in Colorado is especially strong (so strong, in fact, that Obama now has healthy overall leads in both states), and now even PPP's newest Florida poll shows the same over there. Mittens now realizes he's in deep trouble, so he's grabbing that Etch-A-Sketch in a desperate move to reset his own campaign.
But seriously, can Willard make all of us forget what he was saying during G-O-TEA primary season? Remember that early this year, Willard's BFF Kris Kobach, the man behind such extreme, xenophobic "Papers, Please" state statutes like Arizona's infamous SB 1070 and its "copycats" in Alabama & Georgia, praised Mittens' commitment to anti-immigrant extremism. In fact, he exclaimed that "Romney stands far to the right" of the other G-O-TEA contenders on immigration.
No really, Kris Kobach is on record praising Romney's anti-immigrant policies... And Romney is on record embracing Kobach and his hate-fueled extremism!
Yet now, Romney and his RNC buddies want us to believe that he's better for Latin@ American families than Obama? Are they for real? Another infamous figure behind Arizona's SB 1070, recalled State Senator Russell Pearce, boasted that his and Romney's immigration policies are "identical".
And in case Romney's extreme anti-immigrant views aren't bad enough, there's even more for Latin@ voters not to like. His economic policies also aim to slap hard-working Latin@ families en la cara. Let's not forget this.
First of all, he supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plans that would cut Medicaid spending by $700 billion over 10 years, reduce food stamps by $127 billion, and cut in half the funding of Pell Grants. Gov. Romney’s own budget plans seek to impose a cap on overall annual federal spending at 20 percent of the nation’s GDP, which would necessarily slash vital programs for the poor and middle class such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and Pell Grants. He also signed the Cut, Cap and Balance pledge promoted by a number of conservative and Tea Party groups.
His proposal to fund Medicaid through block grants to the states would result in deep cuts to a program that is at the crux of Latinos’ access to health care. In fact, according to the National Council of La Raza, in 2009, Medicaid and its sister program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, covered more than one in four Latinos and nearly half (49.8 percent) of all Hispanics under age 18—representing 8.5 million children.
Social Security and Medicare are also of particular importance to Hispanics: Over three-fourths of senior citizens rely on Social Security for their income, and overall, Medicare serves approximately 3.5 million Hispanics. Gov. Romney’s plan to raise the retirement age for eligibility for Social Security would have a negative impact on Latinos because it would amount to an additional 13 percent across-the-board benefit cut. This would be especially unfair to low-income workers who are more likely to have significant health problems, and work in physically demanding jobs. It would also affect the elderly, who have a much harder time finding new work after being laid off.
Gov. Romney has also indicated that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would insure 9 million Hispanics that currently lack health insurance, a position supported by only 29 percent of Latinos.
Finally, while Hispanics routinely cite education as a key issue and strongly support our public schools and access to college, Gov. Romney’s pledge to cut the budget would require cutting funds for Pell Grants—a program that benefits 12.1 percent of Latino undergraduate students.
So far, it looks like the American electorate in 2012 will be the most diverse electorate our country has ever seen. Earlier today, NALEO released stats to confirm this.
The number of Hispanics who will head to voter booths in November is projected to increase by 26 percent over 2008, a national Latino interest group announced Wednesday.
The bipartisan National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund based its projections on average increases in turnout in previous elections as reported by the Census Bureau.
Hispanic voter turnout in 2008 was 9.7 million, and is expected to reach 12.2 million this year. The interest group said the increased projection is due in part to the estimated 50,000 Latinos who turn 18 each month.
“Latinos continue to reshape the nation’s political map, and the Latino electorate will play a decisive role in Election 2012,” NALEO executive director Arturo Vargas said in a statement.
If the group’s projection holds true, Latinos will account for at least 8.7 percent of the country’s voters in November.
Vargas concluded: “Both presidential candidates and political parties must actively work to engage Latino voters and address the issues they care about. This electorate has shown that it cannot be taken for granted by either party … Latinos played a key role in the 2008 election; they will determine who is sworn in on January 20, 2013.”
It now looks like today's batch of G-O-TEA Presidential Candidates are following in her footsteps. And even Republicans are wondering aloud if their Presidential Candidates can tone down the "TEA" flavored xenophobia in time to make inroads with Latin@ voters in the general election.
Look at how far Willard Romney has gone. He's been endorsed by the extreme right Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), the guy perhaps most responsible for Arizona's and Alabama's extreme anti-immigrant statutes as well as someone with well documented ties to white supremacist groups.
Republican strategists must be hoping so, as their candidates' polling numbers among Latinos are becoming absolutely atrocious. Of course, the overallpolling data are becoming worse for everyone in the G-O-TEA field. But if they can't close the gap with Latinos, then there's little hope for sustained overall improvement. As we noted above, Latinos are a fast growing part of our electorate. And as long as the likes of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum continue to bash Latino Americans, they're just sowing the seeds of their own defeat this November.
