Immigration

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Back in the dark days when disgraced and recalled former Senate President Russell Pearce was at the zenith of his anti-immigrant reign of terror, he and his good buddy Kris Kobach from the Immigration Law Reform Institute and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) were proposing bills to deny undocumented immigrants access to health care, public education, rental properties, public services. etc. Many of these anti-immigrant measures were first beta-tested by Kris Kobach in the City of Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Russell Pearce, who is now the First Vice Chair of the Arizona Republican Party, still has his loyal acolytes willing to carry out his anti-immigrant hysteria in the Arizona legislature.

"Crazy" Carl Seel — you remember him, one of the sponsors of the "Birther" bills in 2011 and 2012 Arizona's Penis-Free "Birther" Bill Is Back in Action — has filed HB 2192 (.pdf), a bill that would declare it "an unlawful use of public resources if the person uses any public resource while present in this state in violation of any [law] that has determined that the person is not lawfully present in this state…"

Rep. Seel is the only sponsor of this bill, and his bill has not yet been assigned to a committee. Arizona's business community has made it abundently clear in recent years that it does not want to revisit the dark days of Russell Pearce's reign of terror. So will the business community punish Seel for his sin?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona's lawless legislature does not hesitate to piss away taxpayer money on lawsuits defending their unconstitutional and unlawful extremist agenda in court. It does this all the time, and frequently loses in court. The real losers in the end are Arizona's taxpayers who have to pay the attorneys fees and court costs for these ideological extremists.

Our lawless legislature — the Tea-Publican leadership — currently has three lawsuits in court challenging the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC), the citizens initiative that created it, and the 2012 redistricting maps. This is a purely partisan endeavor that the Arizona GOP should be paying for out of its own deep pockets, not the taxpayers of Arizona.

The most recent example of our lawless legislature pissing away taxpayer money on lawsuits defending their unconstitutional and unlawful extremist agenda in court is the continuing litigation over the remnants of SB 1070, most of which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which came with a warning from the Court that it would strike down the remainder of the law when a proper case and controversy under the remaining provisions of SB 1070 reached the Court. The writing is on the wall.

This week, the legislature approved using taxpayer money to pay the court costs of Republican politicians — some of whom are no longer in the legislature — in response to discovery requests in the litigation over SB 1070. Lawmakers approve funds for SB 1070 defense:

Saying they were protecting the legislative process, the House and Senate voted along party lines Thursday to hire a lawyer to help them fight subpoenas over the state’s controversial 2010 immigration law.

The legislation sets aside up to $100,000 to contest a request by the American Civil Liberties Union for the personal emails and other correspondence between some current and former lawmakers and those who might have helped them craft or line up votes for SB 1070.