The Supreme Court will rule on Arizona's Immigration Enforcement Law (SB 1070) this summer. It begins hearing oral arguments tomorrow. Should the court uphold the law, Democrats in the Senate have their own plan to force a vote on legislation that would invalidate Arizona's law.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) will announce the fallback legislation at a hearing on the Arizona law Tuesday, a day before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a suit to determine whether Arizona had the authority to enact the 2010 state crackdown.
The plan is to allow Democrats a route to express displeasure with the Arizona law if the court allows it to stand, and it would force Republicans to take a clear position on the law during the height of the presidential campaign.
If the court upholds the Arizona law, Congress can make it clear that what Arizona is doing goes beyond what the federal government and what Congress ever intended,” Schumer said in an interview.
He called the Arizona law an “assault on the domain of the federal government” that Congress will need to address if the court allows it to stand.
Sen. Schumer, immigration subcommittee chairman, will hold a hearing today on the impact of the law. The state senator who wrote the law will appear, but Gov. Tarmac Incident has declined an invitation and will not show.
The Obama administration has sued to prevent implementation of the law as an encroachment into federal jurisdiction. Lower courts have blocked provisions of the law. In response, Arizona appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the federal government has failed to deal with illegal immigration, therefore it has the right to pass a state law to deal with it.
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has waffled on the issue (like every other one) saying he supported Arizona's law, then saying his comments were misinterpreted. A showdown in Congress would force him to take a stand on the issue.
A congressional debate on the issue would probably force Romney to take a more definitive position on Arizona’s statute and the broader issue of the proper balance of state and federal power in immigration enforcement.
At the same time, Republicans would surely cite the proposed legislation as another example of Democratic attempts to expand the federal government and squash state power.
Which is of course a ridiculous argument as Arizona has claimed it needed to pass this law in order to pick up the federal government's slack.
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