NDN Blog

In Texas, a heavily Hispanic state, Republican legislators are drafting highly anti-immigrant legislation for 2011.

David Montgomery of the Fort Worth Telegraph has the whole story here:

"Conservative lawmakers, empowered by last week's Republican election gains, introduced a host of bills Monday that include an Arizona-style crackdown on illegal immigration and the requirement of a photo ID to vote."

State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who at her finest can be seen here railing against "Terror Babies," has begun a new quest to pass Anti Immigrant legislation in the state capitol:

"Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, said she set up folding chairs and camped out near the House chamber over the weekend to be first in line to file a batch of bills that include a voter ID measure and Arizona-style legislation that would allow local law enforcement officers to arrest illegal immigrants."

The Texas state legislators actions highlight the battle currently raging over what to do in the absence of any federal legislation that addresses our broken immigration system. After Arizona, states have become increasingly emboldened to pass their own immigrant legislation.

Certainly state legislators should try to help their constituents, but until there is a definitive ruling on the constitutionality of laws like SB1070, these new laws may be much ado about nothing.

It is important to note that where similar laws have been passed they have been incredibly expensive to enact and been all but impossible to implement as there have been so many lawsuits filed against said laws. 

It would be wise for states to at least wait until the 9th circuit comes back with their ruling on whether the law is constitutional or not, before they attempt to pass laws that may be thrown out shortly after they are passed.

That might save state legislators time and money, that they could devote to passing laws that would actually help the state, as opposed to tying it up in legal battles with the federal government.

Ben Smith and Carrie Budoff Brown of The Politico have just written a piece about the importance of the Hispanic vote for 2012, Marc Lacey and Julia Preston of The New York Times  have written a piece on the Hispanic vote being the highest it has ever been in a mid-term election, but what is also garnering attention is how much this voting block helped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his bid to retain his Senate seat in Nevada.

Newsweek has the full story HERE:

According to election-eve polling and analysis by Latino Decisions, a surveying firm, Hispanics chose Reid over Angle 90 percent to 8 percent—an astounding margin. CNN’s exit polls showed a significantly smaller spread, with Reid winning 68 percent to Angle’s 30 percent.

But Latino Decisions argues that exit-polling methodology is typically inaccurate at measuring voting by Hispanics and other subgroups. The firm also contends that exit polls tend to lowball Latino turnout.

Still, CNN’s figures show that Hispanics constituted 15 percent of the Nevada electorate this year, a notable increase over the last midterm cycle, in 2006, when they made up 12 percent. “Latinos certainly saved Harry Reid,” says Gary Segura, a member of Latino Decisions and a professor at Stanford University.

Another important take away from the election is that like any constituency, Hispanic's react badly to being demonized:

Hispanics’ resounding rejection of Angle should come as no surprise. Her harsh ads depicting undocumented immigrants as shady gangbangers and calling Reid “the best friend illegal aliens ever had” infuriated Hispanics in Nevada and beyond.

And her remark before a group of Latino schoolkids that some of them “look Asian” invited heaps of ridicule. Yet her campaign evidently made a calculus: that alienating Hispanic voters mattered less than galvanizing conservative, get-tough-on-the-border whites. That may have been a critical misstep.

Hopefully, the idea that a candidate can be elected by alienating an entire portion of their electorate, can be laid to rest with the utter failure of Angle's campaign. This strategy has severely weakened the Republican brand with Hispanic's nationally:

One thing is clear: Hispanic disenchantment with Republicans continues to run deep. The Latino Decisions analysis found that Hispanics sided with Democrats over Republicans by 76 percent to 24 percent. Amid all the GOP high-fiving, that should be a sobering data point for Republicans—and an encouraging one for otherwise despondent Democrats.

Arizona Legislator Russell Pearce has become the President of the Republican controlled state Senate.

This is significant for several reasons:

1. Pearce has largely taken credit for masterminding SB1070, Arizona's anti-immigrant legislation. He is of course being too modest, as he had plenty of help from both private prison lobbyists and Washington D.C. based lobbying firm ALEC.

2. He has vowed to take SB1070 national, by forming a coalition of like minded state legislators who have vowed to pass similar legislation and help repeal birth right citizenship, in their home states.

3. This will only increase the influence of Washington D.C. based group ALEC's influence on state, and national politics.  Pearce has worked hand in hand with this organization to draft legislation in the state. By virtue of their working relationship, as Pearce's influence grows in the state so too does the reach of ALEC.

This is evidenced by the fact, that all of the legislators who voted for SB1070 received generous handouts from Private Prison Lobbyists.

The Associated Press has more HERE:

Arizona Republican senators-elect on Wednesday chose illegal immigration hard-liner Russell Pearce to be the chamber's next president.

The Mesa Republican was chosen by lawmakers who held a closed-door reorganization caucus one day after Tuesday's general election added to Republicans' majorities in both legislative chambers.

Pearce has made a name for himself by passing anti-immigrant legislation in the state Senate:

Pearce also served as a co-chairman of the campaign for Proposition 200, a 2004 voter-approved law that denied some public benefits to illegal immigrants and required proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Last week, a federal appeals court struck down the citizenship requirement for voter registration.

With the gains made in the last election the GOP now has veto proof majority:

Republicans won three more Senate seats Tuesday, increasing their majority in the 30-member Senate to 21. They also added at least two additional seats to their current 35-member majority in the 60-member House and GOP candidates held leads in three other races.

If those leads hold, the Republicans would have veto-proof majorities in both chambers, although it is unclear if they need it. Republican Jan Brewer won a full term Tuesday and has often agreed with Republican lawmakers.

Ironically, the GOP has risen to prominence in the state, by hammering the federal government for being in the pocket of special interests.

In Arizona, it is hard to imagine the GOP taking such large shares of the electorate without the help of outside money flooding the election. Money taken from both D.C. based organizations and big corporations.

With a veto proof majority, the state GOP has set their sights on repealing birth right citizenship.  

One can only imagine what creative new ways, D.C. based organizations, lobbyists and big corporations can find to separate families and demonize children.

We will continue to follow this as it develops.

A couple weeks before the election NPR ran a story detailing how SB1070 was created in part to provide prison's in Arizona financial gain.

Much was written about how state legislators took money from private prison lobbyists, after casting votes for SB1070, however not as much has been written about the follow up story which delved deeply into the murky Washington D.C. based organization which helped write SB1070.

American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC) is responsible for helping draft SB1070, while also putting state legislators in contact with private prison lobbyists who would go on to give generously to the campaigns of those who voted for SB1070.

Much of the narrative that the Arizona state legislature has pushed is that SB1070 is a states solution to the immigration crisis. They were very keen to remind voters during the election season that SB1070 was a homegrown solution.

Yet, as it turns out the legislation was crafted behind closed doors, by an out of state Washington D.C. based firm that represents large corporations. Laura Sullivan of NPR has more on the organization here:

When you walk into the offices of the American Legislative Exchange Council, it's hard to imagine it is the birthplace of a thousand pieces of legislation introduced in statehouses across the county.

Only 28 people work in ALEC's dark, quiet headquarters in Washington, D.C.  And Michael Bowman, senior director of policy, explains that the little-known organization's staff is not the ones writing the bills. The real authors are the group's members — a mix of state legislators and some of the biggest corporations in the country.

The organization receives money from a large number of private corporations:

Here's how it works: ALEC is a membership organization. State legislators pay $50 a year to belong. Private corporations can join, too. The tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and drug-maker Pfizer Inc. are among the members. They pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. Tax records show that corporations collectively pay as much as $6 million a year.

With that money, the 28 people in the ALEC offices throw three annual conferences. The companies get to sit around a table and write "model bills" with the state legislators, who then take them home to their states.

Arizona, it seems was ripe for some ALEC style legislative help:

One of those bills is now Arizona's controversial new immigration law. It requires police to arrest anyone who cannot prove they entered the country legally when asked. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could be locked up, and private prison companies stand to make millions.

The largest prison company in the country, the Corrections Corporation of America, was present when the model immigration legislation was drafted at an ALEC conference last year.

ALEC's Bowman says that is not unusual; more than 200 of the organization's model bills became actual laws over the past year. But he hedges when asked if that means the unofficial drafting process is an effective way to accelerate the legislative process.

It seems somewhat incongruous that as the Arizona state Republican delegation continues to lambast the federal government for mishandling the country's finances, they are taking money from lobbyists to promote legislation, that has benefited no one in the state other then private industries and the state GOP apparatus.

Again, to date there have been zero arrests as a result of SB1070, this is probably for the best, as the state which is currently set to run a budget deficit of a billion dollars in 2011 can ill afford another lawsuit added to the several they are currently defending.

Tucson - Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio already under hot water for misspending over $80 million dollars of state funds, unwittingly contributing to a voter suppression plan orchestrated by a hate group, and is currently in the midst of a civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice, may also have defrauded the state of more money using a duplicate payroll system that state auditors did not know existed.

Yvonne Wingett and J.J. Henlsy of the Arizona Republic have the full story HERE:

Maricopa County officials believe the discovery of a duplicate payroll log and database hidden in a secure computer system at the Sheriff's Office could reveal the extent of alleged misspending in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's agency.

The sheriff's employee database operated parallel to a county-run system, recording a different set of sheriff's staff assignments and payments than official records provided to county auditors. County officials say the system has existed since the early part of the decade, but they learned of it only recently through paperwork produced in a case alleging racial profiling against the Sheriff's Office.

Details of the sheriff's employee database and steps taken to investigate will be outlined to county supervisors at a hearing this morning.

The Sherrif's department is denying any wrong doing, but it is believed that the office skimmed as much as 30% of their funds used to pay their payroll from the wrong account:

A spokesman for the Sheriff's Office denied any intent to deceive county administrators. He blamed the confusion on a lack of compatible technology between the Sheriff's Office and other county agencies.

Some experts also have criticized county supervisors for not closely scrutinizing Sheriff's Office finances earlier.

County officials believe the Sheriff's Office used the payroll system, along with other spreadsheets and databases, to monitor work assignments but did not update the changes to the county's official payroll system. As many as 30 percent of employees were paid out of the wrong funds, they say.

County officials however believe that there was a very deliberate attempt to keep the second payroll system:

"That's a reasonable conclusion to draw, but we don't know for sure," Irvine said. "From Maricopa County's perspective, the ICJIS dispute and lawsuit has made no sense."

County officials sent information on the payroll system to the U.S. Attorney's Office for review. That office is conducting a separate abuse-of-power probe of Sheriff Arpaio, his employees and others.

U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke is working with County Attorney Rick Romley to deputize federal prosecutors so they can investigate allegations of crimes committed under state law, including potential legal violations as a result of the hidden payroll system.

 

Tucson  Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has cut ties with an anti-immigrant organization, after they used his name and signature urging its followers to stop Hispanics from voting.

As a result, the Justice Department will be sending election day monitors to voting places in Arizona.

Fair and balanced Fox News Online has the full story here:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he is cutting ties with an anti-immigration organization after the group reportedly piggybacked on his name to make the claim that grassroots volunteers will be at the polls Tuesday stopping illegal immigrants from trying to vote, MyFoxPhoenix reported Friday.

An email sent out by anti-immigration group Ban Amnesty Now had Arpaio’s signature and said that when thousands of illegal immigrants attempt to vote this Election Day, an army of volunteers will be there to stop them

Not surprisingly, Sheriff Joe denies knowledge of the email, however he failed to mention that he was once the Co-Chairmen of the organization that sent out the email:

Arpaio denies writing the email and has asked the Tempe, Ariz.-based organization to disassociate itself from him.

Arpaio was once co-chairman on Ban Amnesty Now, but he says he never authorized the email to be sent out under his name.

As a result, according to Americas Voice and Vivir Latino, the Justice Department has decided to send election day monitors to make sure Hispanics are not intimidated at the polls. The full DOJ release can be seen here:

On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department announced that its Civil Rights Division plans to deploy more than 400 federal observers and department personnel to 30 jurisdictions in 18 states for the Nov. 2, 2010, general election. One of those jurisdictions is Maricopa County in Arizona.

An excerpt from the Hispanic Voter intimidation email is below:

“STOP ILLEGALS FROM STEALING THE ELECTION! Our grassroots army of VOTER FRAUD PREVENTION VOLUNTEERS will stand vigilant across the nation. We will be the first and strongest line of defense to ensure that only legal citizens vote on November 2nd.”

Tucson  Today, SB1070 goes before a federal appeals court, as a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge begins deliberations on lifting an injunction on the controversial immigration law.

Michael Kiefer and Alia Beard Rau of the Arizona Republic have more here:

With battle lines over immigration drawn and the nation watching, attorneys for Arizona and the U.S. Department of Justice will debate Monday lifting a preliminary injunction against portions of the state's controversial immigration law, known as Senate Bill 1070.

A federal judge in Phoenix put several key components of the law on hold in late July, only hours before the law was supposed to take effect. Rather than enter into litigation to amend problems pointed out by the judge, Gov. Jan Brewer appealed the injunction.

At least 13 states, dozens of congressional members, numerous cities in Arizona and across the country, advocacy groups pro and con, and 11 Latin American nations have weighed in with statements to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, where the argument will be heard.

A verdict is not expected for a week or up to a month:

A ruling by the three-judge panel assigned to hear the case isn't likely for weeks or even months. And the debate will not stop with the panel's ruling.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, not about to let a perfectly good, campaign photo-op go unused has graciously decided to travel to San Francisco to attend the proceedings:

Brewer will attend Monday's hearing.

....Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry Goddard on Sunday said Brewer seeks only to grab headlines by traveling to the hearing.

"The court will make its decision based on the law, not on who's in the courtroom," said Goddard, who is Arizona's attorney general but is not arguing the state's case.

Jerry Merkon of The Washington Post has a story up that examines the likely outcome of the appeal process HERE:

"Appellate judges have a tendency not to muck around in the district court's backfield too much,'' said Jonathan Benner, a Washington lawyer who has argued numerous cases involving federal-state conflicts. "Unless the appeals court believes that [Bolton] blew it, they are likely to uphold the injunction.''

Tucson - Since being enacted, SB1070 has cost Arizona over a million dollars in legal bills, but has yielded exactly zero arrests. If the goal of SB1070 was to secure Arizona from drug dealers, and deal with crime in general, it has been a spectacular failure. 

Alan Beard Rau of the Arizona Republic has the full story here:

The nation's toughest immigration law has been in effect for three months. But after the federal courts prevented key portions from going into effect, it has failed to live up to both opponents' worst fears and supporters' greatest hopes.

Immigrant-rights groups and major Arizona law-enforcement agencies say they've heard of no arrests made or citations issued using the statutes created under Senate Bill 1070, and no Arizona resident has taken advantage of the portion of the law that allows them to sue an official or agency that is not enforcing federal immigration law to the fullest extent.

Ironically though the law itself does not have quite the bite it originally did, several statutes added have created new and more creative ways of "enforcing immigration laws."

The statutes allowed to go into effect do several things:

• Require government officials and agencies to enforce federal immigration laws to the fullest extent permitted by federal law and allow Arizona residents to sue if the official or agency adopts a policy that violates this requirement.

• Allow law enforcement to pull anybody over for any traffic violation if the driver is suspected of engaging in the "smuggling" of human beings for profit or commercial purposes. This could include stopping a driver for a secondary offense such as not wearing a seat belt, which in every other circumstance can be cited only if the driver is stopped for a separate primary violation such as speeding.

• Make it a crime to pick up or be picked up as a day laborer if the vehicle is stopped on a road and impeding traffic.

• Make it a crime to encourage an illegal immigrant to come to Arizona or transport, conceal, harbor or shield an immigrant if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact the immigrant is in the country illegally. This offense has to be during the commission of another criminal offense.

State Senator Russell Pearce, seems impervious to reality, and says that the law has in fact been a huge success in driving undocumented immigrants away from Arizona:

On Thursday, he said that despite there having been no arrests under the law, it has succeeded at driving illegal immigrants out of Arizona and assisting law enforcement.

"It is having the impact needed," he said. "I have talked to law enforcement, and they intend to use these laws."

So, Senator Pearce says, that law enforcement, "intends to use the law," the real question is, when?

The law has been enacted for nearly 3 months, there are all these neat new statutes that allow police to "enforce the law."

And there has not been a single arrest. Could it be that local law enforcement officers are not comfortable profiling people. Perhaps they are out solving real crimes...

In summation... There have been zero arrests, it is costing the state millions of dollars in legal bills and Senator Pearce says this is a.... success?

I would hate to see what a failure would have looked like.

Tucson - Howard Fischer of the East Valley Tribune has a story up here, which shows that since July of this year SB1070 has cost Arizona a Million dollars to defend.

Lawyers defending the state's new immigration law already have tallied more than $1 million in bills.

And that's as of the end of July.

New figures released Wednesday by the governor's office put the legal bills for just July at $621,846. That is the most expensive month since the lawsuits were filed after Gov. Jan Brewer signed the new law in April.

That is on top of an already large amount of legal bills that have billed to the law firm of Snell and Wilmer:

It also comes on top of more than $442,000 already paid to the law firm of Snell & Wilmer for prior work.

In reality none of the cost of defending the state has affected Arizona tax payers, yet:

So far, though, none of that has affected the state treasury: Brewer's office reports that a defense fund she set up already has collected more than $3.6 million in donations.

About two-thirds of that has come through the mail, including a check for more than $1.5 million from Timothy Mellon.

However with up to eight lawsuits, and Governor Brewers plan to appeal any decision that repeals SB1070, those bills will probably increase beyond the 3.6 million donations:

What's left, nearly $1.5 million, was donated through a website set up to take credit card donations.

The big bill for July is no surprise, as that includes the preparation for and actual hearings before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton over whether the law should be allowed to take effect. She eventually enjoined the state from enforcing key provisions of SB 1070, including a section to require police who have stopped someone to check that person's immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion'' he or she is in the country illegally.

Bolton's ruling will be reviewed Monday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Preparation for that hearing, coupled with the expenses of sending the legal team out of town, is likely to result in large bills for October and November

Tucson - NDN has been writing about the somewhat corrupt machinations behind the passage of SB1070 for some time, AZ Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio Charged Luxury Trips To County, Misused Up To $80 Million and AZ Governor Jan Brewer Awarded Contracts To Private Prisons Who Benefited From SB1070.

Now the story is starting to break nationally, with Laura Sullivans story in NPR, Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law:

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

It was of course State Senator Russell Pearce, who decided to the get the ball rolling on SB1070, not to by first taking his idea to the people of Arizona, but to prison lobbyists:

Instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.

It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.

It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.

"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"

About all that is left out of that last statement, is an admission that he took money to push legislation that would overwhelmingly benefit some of those corporate members in attendance.

SB1070 was by all accounts an important bill for the Corrections Corporations of America:

And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.

"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."

Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.

This of course led to future campaign contributions from prison companies who benefited from the law, directly to state law makers who supported the bill. Its a good thing Arizona is a clean election state...

At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.

Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.

And of Course Governor Jan Brewers, Spokesman and Campaign Manager both are former Lobbyists for the prison companies:

Brewer has her own connections to private prison companies. State lobbying records show two of her top advisers — her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin — are former lobbyists for private prison companies. Brewer signed the bill — with the name of the legislation Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America and the others in the Hyatt conference room came up with — in four days.

More on this story as it develops