About 20 pages into his dissent in the SB 1070 case handed down today, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia takes a very dim view of President Obama’s recently announced amnesty-lite for young illegal aliens.
“It has become clear that federal enforcement priorities—in the sense of priorities based on the need to allocate ‘scarce enforcement resources’—is not the problem here,” Scalia writes, noting that the Obama administration announced a major executive branch policy change while the Arizona law was before the Supreme Court. After describing the criteria by which young illegal aliens may qualify for the administration’s amnesty, Scalia continues: “The President said at a news conference that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s failure to pass the Administration’s proposed revision of the Immigration Act.7 Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.”
From there, Scalia moves in for the kill: “The Court opinion’s looming specter of inutterable horror—’[i]f §3 of the Arizona statute were valid, every State could give itself independent authority to prosecute federal registration violations,’ ante, at 10—seems to me not so horrible and even less looming. But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws?”
Scalia asks if the states would have ever even joined the union if they had contemplated the federal government taking the power to enforce immigration law away from the states and then purposefully leaving their borders with another country undefended. He concludes that the union could not have been built that way: “Now, imagine a provision—perhaps inserted right after Art. I, §8, cl. 4, the Naturalization Clause—which included among the enumerated powers of Congress ‘To establish Limitations upon Immigration that will be exclusive and that will be enforced only to the extent the President deems appropriate.’ The delegates to the Grand Convention would have rushed to the exits.”
Amen.
So what about the other 8 (or 7) justices? What is WRONG with them?
Perhaps the states should now, as a result of the ruling, refuse to support any federal law, since that would be stepping on their toes. Thus, if there is a federal law that someone is violating, then local authorities just step back and say, “whoa, this is a federal law, we aren’t allow to do anything with this, it is all yours now”. Of course, thanks to our cowardly state governments, they are so used to sucking at the government teat that they don’t have the guts to stand up (except maybe a few governors, like Brewer).
This is one of those cases where the dissent is way more interesting than the verdict. Am I the only one that almost sees the set up in Scalia’s remarks for Arizona to revisit the issue?
The only state of the union having the foresight anticipating these circumstances was Texas. It can secede, written in its Constitution. All the rest will have to “Declare an Act of War” or some such thing. About like 1770′s era revolts.
Let’s face it: 1) Public sector – no Congressional representation in We The Elite People of culture of corruption in Washington DC, 2)Private Sector – crony capitalism, 3) Three Branches of Government – totally dysfunctional ceding their powers to the Executive Branch of US’s government, 4) Rule of Law is obeyed as an after thought…sometimes not at all, 5) religion under attack from all sides, 6) education has been relegated to less than third world status, 7) USA’s financial system and capitalism as well as its handmaiden “the invisible hand” have been replaced with centralised planning, 8) government, at national and local levels has become regulation happy with more and more attempts at centralization of both “greed and power.” 9) Rampant Election fraud, 10) Absurd Tax Codes, 11) National Popular Vote Movement seeking to replace Electoral College with “winner-takes-all” system. 12) Judicial activism legislating from the Bench, especially in apellate courts. Why continue with this farce?
Secession from a federation or confederation is a viable (though ugly) thought. Then there’s secession of a better off region (states)vs. worse off one (federal government). But the Supreme Court in it’s infinite wisdom shut-off all talk of sucession in the 1869 ruling Texas vs. White 74 U.S. 700 decision…”unilateral secession is unconstitutional,” commenting that revolution or consent of the States could lead to a sucessful secession.
The question before america revolves around “tyranny” and “tyrannical” as now excercised by an “out of control” Executive branch of US Government. Our founding Fathers designed three co-equal branches of government as a system of “Checks-and-Balance.” Absent this system, secession is an option. Something to think about. Frightening, but a thought. God Bless America. Amen.
I’ve often heard it said that the Texas constitution reserves the right of the state to secede. But it does not. If it did, it would not affect federal law on the issue.
The present Texas constitution was adopted right after Reconstruction was lifted. Accordingly, it contains a lot of quirky provisions intended to correct what were perceived as the abuses of Reconstruction. But it’s hard to imagine a state constitution claiming the right to secede so soon after such a bad experience arising from the attempt.
Messup at 4: Thanks for the info on secession. For what it is worth, I think the Federal government’s action makes secession almost a necessity–as of now, but sooner or later, a total necessity.
Scalia’s “Now, imagine a provision—perhaps inserted right after Art. I, §8, cl. 4, the Naturalization Clause… The delegates to the Grand Convention would have rushed to the exits.” segment points to the fact that secession IS a growing necessity. How can any contract work if one side just rips it up and laughs in the face of the other side? If the Federal gumit simply won’t enforce the law, except “exceptionally”, the sure, the “rule of law” is dead and the contract (Constitution) utterly broken.
So, that’s where we are at. Developments probably can’t get so bad that Texas (or others) will ever seriously secede. And as noted above by others, state gumits are lock-jawed onto the Federal tit.
But it is increasingly obvious that secession ought to be a serious issue.
An Préachán
Texas’ annexation is pretty poorly understood. When it happened, the republic had fewer than 50,000 people spread across an area the size of France, with a hostile Mexico still wanting to reclaim it from Sam Houston’s rebellion. Texas still had hostilities with Comanche Indian tribes here and there too. Annexation was in both Texas’ and the US interest given Mexico’s relative strength at the time, but it made the slavery question worse and helped spark the war with Mexico. Texas’ constitution doesn’t include the right of secession. The treaty by which the US annexed Texas included a provision allowing the state to break up into five states, but the Compromise of 1850 headed that possibility off and the Civil War and Reconstruction may have abrogated it anyway.
Why weren’t texans complaining when the Feds bailed them out of the S&L debacle? or when they given the bailout funds for the recent droughts?
This post isn’t actually about Texans, I was answering the above misconception about the Texas constitution. The post is about Scalia ripping Obama in today’s ruling.
obama is chavez without hugo’s wisdom, and with a much bigger sandbox to shit in
Now Bryan…..have you not learned by now to not let the facts get in the way of the narrative with socialist/marxist/progressive liberals?
I’m too young to discuss the S&L (which made TARP look like penny poker) but Obama specifically refused to declare a federal disaster for the Texas drought last summer or the wildfires that we dealt with.
Mom, it’s obvious that in addition to being too young, you are also incorrect as to its relative cost. In 1996 an article from the NYT stated the GAO estimated the cost of the S&L debacle at $500 billion, a far cry from making “TARP look like penny poker”. TARP eventually cost $700 billion. Obama’s stimulus additionally cost nearly another trillion.
And I have a workshop scheduled this week for a youth group with the Texas Senator who has studied the Annexation Treaty, the Constitution and other relevant documents extensively as part of his committee duties in the Texas Legislature. If you can wait a few days, I will get a complete, precise answer on the Texas Succession issue.
So, what happens if Arizona goes for a writ of mandamus? Would be useful on several different fronts no matter which way it went.
the supreme court has failed the whole country with its arizona decision
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