Immigration

Robert Robb is correct, but also mistaken, in his analysis of Top Two Primary.

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

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Photo: Arizona Republic

Robert Robb makes a logically consistent, persuasive, and correct argument (sort of) in favor of the 2016 Top Two Primary initiative in Arizona:

The principal objective of the top-two primary initiative shouldn’t be sugarcoated.

It isn’t to increase voter turnout or eliminate discriminatory barriers to independent candidates. Those might be desired byproducts. But they are not the main event.

The principal objective, the main event, is to reduce the influence of conservative Republicans in state government and politics. Those who don’t like the outcomes of Arizona elections want to change those outcomes by changing the rules.

It’s really about reducing conservative power

Plainly stating the principal objective shouldn’t settle the argument, even for conservative Republicans. For there is something else that should be plainly stated: The current system of partisan primaries doesn’t fit today’s political demography in Arizona.

Under the current system, state law establishes conditions for having a political party recognized. Taxpayers pay for recognized parties to hold primary elections to select their general election candidates. Parties get other advantages, such as preferential access to the voter roll.

Robb is correct that claims of Top Two increasing turnout or helping “independent” candidates get elected are howlers to people who pay anything resembling close attention to Arizona elections but possibly plausible to those who don’t, hence such claims being at the forefront of selling the initiative to the general public and certain gullible pundits.

And Robb is on point with his assertion that the traditional primary system does not reflect current registration figures (a third of the state’s voters are not officially affiliated with any party) and the case he makes for removing taxpayer funding of partisan primaries is a solid one. It is objectively the best argument for changing to an open primary system.

So far, so good, but here’s where even Robb, who has thus far evaluated the initiative in the most clear-headed manner of anyone in the news media, gets it wrong:

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Top Two Primary intends to demolish Democrats in AZ

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

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As I drove home Wednesday evening I caught the tail end of a recorded segment on the radio about the Top Two Primary initiative. I heard a man telling KJZZ host Steve Goldstein (I’m paraphrasing) about how Democrats have little power in state government so Hispanic voters would do well to stop aligning themselves with them. I rolled my eyes and continued on but I saw this summary of the interview when I got home:

Arizona’s Latino community is gravitating away from either major political party.

Those were the findings of a recent survey by an organization hoping to reform elections in the state.

About 40 percent of Latinos in Arizona are Independent, a trend that becomes even more pronounced among millennials. According to the survey, more than 75 percent of respondents said Latinos should register as Independent and eschew the established parties. This is good news for supporters of a ballot initiative that would allow independents to run in the primary.

Danny Ortega is a co-chair of the Open and Honest Elections Coalition.

He said Latinos, who were once loyal to democrats, are increasingly disillusioned with the party’s inability to make meaningful progress on immigration, education and other issues.

“They don’t see the party as effective, number one,” Ortega said. “Number two, every state office is controlled by Republicans. The legislature is controlled by Republicans, and so Latinos don’t feel like they are part of the end game.”

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Supreme Court issues orders on immigration executive orders, ObamaCare individual mandate, and abortion restrictions

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Back in January I posted that The Mass Deportation Party wants the US Supreme Court to delay ruling on the Obama administration’s executive orders on immigration:

ImmigrantsThe 26 “red states” that brought the legal challenge to the Obama administration’s executive orders on immigration do not want the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the appeal this term in the middle of an election year. They would rather use the case for political propaganda purposes during the election.

So the 26 “red states” are asking the Court (1) not to rule on the Obama administration’s appeal, or (2) to expand the scope of the appeal to address the underlying constitutional issues (which has not been addressed by the trial court nor the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals). This would be extraordinary for the Court to depart from the regular order of legal procedure.

The GOP desperately does not want the Court to rule on this appeal until after a new president takes office in January 2017 — leaving hundreds of thousands of immigrants who qualify for the Obama administration’s DACA and DAPA programs in legal limbo and uncertainty, because the Mass Deportation Party does not care about their situation.  They are hoping that a Republican will be elected in 2016 who will reverse Obama’s executive orders, rendering this appeal moot, and putting those individuals in the DACA and DAPA programs in jeopardy.

The U.S. Supreme Court today issued its orders list from last Friday’s conference, and granted the Obama administration’s request to hear this appeal from the 5th Circuit this term. There will be a decision on the administration’s executive orders before the end of June.

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Law Professor: Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president

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Mary Brigid McManamon, a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School, wrote a research paper in 2014 entitled The Natural Born Citizen Clause as Originally Understood. This research paper presents the pertinent English sources, combined with statements by early American jurists. Based on a reading of these materials, the article concludes that, in the eyes of the Framers of the Constitution, a presidential candidate must be born within the United States.

Professor McManamon writes in an op-ed today at the Washington Post,  “Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.” Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president:

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.” The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. The Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this principle for the United States. James Madison, known as the “father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. . . . [And] place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”

Cartoon_49Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator’s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth. This provision has not always been available. For example, there were several decades in the 19th century when children of Americans born abroad were not given automatic naturalization.

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(Update) SCOTUS: the defining issue in the 2016 election

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Last year I posted SCOTUS: the defining issue in the 2016 election, a quick glance at attorney Rick Hasen’s  longread for TPM, which is well worth your time to read.  It begins:

The future composition of the Supreme Court is the most important civil rights cause of our time. It is more important than racial justice, marriage equality, voting rights, money in politics, abortion rights, gun rights, or managing climate change. It matters more because the ability to move forward in these other civil rights struggles depends first and foremost upon control of the Court. And control for the next generation is about to be up for grabs, likely in the next presidential election, a point many on the right but few on the left seem to have recognized.

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Today Hillary Clinton  has a new op-ed in the Boston Globe emphasizing the importance of the high court in this year’s election:

There’s a lot at stake in this election. Nowhere is this clearer than in the US Supreme Court.

The court’s decisions have a profound impact on American families. In the past two decades alone, it effectively declared George W. Bush president, significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act, and opened the door to a flood of unaccountable money in our politics. It also made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, preserved the Affordable Care Act not once but twice, and ensured equal access to education for women.

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