President Barack Obama has had face-to-face interviews with at least two leading Supreme Court candidates, as he steps up his search for a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens.
The president has met with two federal appeals-court judges, Merrick Garland of Washington, D.C., and Sidney Thomas of Montana, a senior administration official said Friday.
The hour-long meeting with Judge Thomas was Thursday, the official said; the one with Judge Garland took place earlier in April. Vice President Joe Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, met with both men in recent days as well, another official said.
The president is expected to announce his choice of a nominee before May 26—the date last year when he nominated now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the bench—in hopes that he or she is confirmed by the Senate’s August recess.
Merrick Brian Garland is an Article III federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He joined the court in 1997 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton. Garland is one of three leading contenders for nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States since the April 2010 retirement announcement of Justice John Paul Stevens.—Judgepedia
Sidney Runyan Thomas is a Federal Appeals Judge with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit based in San Francisco. He joined the court in 1996 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton.—Judgepedia
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer last week signed a new law into effect that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 60% of voters nationwide favor such a law, while 31% are opposed.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans support the law along with 62% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Democratic voters are evenly divided on the measure.
At the same time, however, 58% of all voters are at least somewhat concerned that “efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens.” That figure includes 29% who are Very Concerned about possible civil rights violations.
Voter support for empowering local police comes at a time when most voters (56%) believe it is unlikely Congress will take action to gain control of the border. Only 31% say Congress is even somewhat likely to take such an action. That figure includes just 10% who believe Congress is Very Likely to act.
There is little doubt that the Ninth Circuit court will rule SB 1070 unconstitutional if the Arizona Supreme Court does not. No doubt, they will echo the sentiments of Lozano v. Hazelton fought in Pennsylvania concerning the “Supremacy Clause” of the Constitution.
A discussion of the illegal immigration situation necessitates, I would think, a look at the subject through the eyes of history. There are some web sites that portend that the founding fathers were mute on the subject. That they were more concerned with “making citizens” that deporting illegals. A cursory examination of the web dispels this.
Let’s “facebook” the “father of separation of Church and State,” Thomas Jefferson, for example.
The present desire of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners as possible. But is this founded in good policy? The advantage proposed is the multiplication of numbers. Now let us suppose (for example only) that, in this State, [Virginia] we could double our numbers in one year by the importation of foreigners ; and this is a greater accession than the most sanguine advocate for immigration has a right to expect. Then I say, beginning with a double stock, we shall attain any given degree of population only twenty-seven years and three months sooner than if we proceed on our single stock. If we propose four millions and a half as a competent population for this State, we should be fifty-four and a half years attaining it, could we at once double our numbers ; and eighty-one and three-quarter years, if we rely on natural propagation, as may be seen by the following table:
…………………….Proceeding on our………Proceeding on
…………………….Present Stock……………double stock
1781……………………567,614………………..1,135,228
1808-1/4…………..1,135,228………………..2,270,456
1835-1/2…………..2,270,456………………..4,540,812
1862………………….4,540,912………………..———
Continue reading “<em>Facebooking</em> the founding fathers” »
It’s interesting, the most ardent constitutional literalists, supposed adherers to the founding fathers ideals, are often those most opposed to illegal immigration. Why is this the case though? Sure, the founding fathers certainly had ideas on citizenship, and citizenship is discussed in the Constitution. But illegal immigration? It doesn’t seem to have been an issue. Society at that time had many non citizens in its midst and here willingly, including free blacks and immigrants from Europe. Yet there’s nothing in the constitution about removing illegals, it only discusses determining citizenship. If the founding fathers intended to forcibly remove non citizens, wouldn’t this have been an issue if not in the constitution, at least in their writings? In fact, it would be almost 100 years from the adoption of the constitution before the concept of illegal immigration came to be:
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
* Restricted immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years.
* Prohibited Chinese naturalization.
* Provided deportation procedures for illegal Chinese.
* Marked the birth of illegal immigration [in America]. [1]
* The Act was “a response to racism [in America] and to anxiety about threats from cheap labor [from China].” [2]
Source: List of United States immigration laws
Continue reading “Illegal immigration, the constitution and the founding fathers” »
It is not meant, by stating this case, to insinuate that the Constitution would warrant a law of this kind! Or unnecessarily to alarm the fears of the people, by suggesting that the Federal legislature would be more likely to pass the limits assigned them by the Constitution, than that of an individual State, further than they are less responsible to the people. But what is meant is, that the legislature of the United States are vested with the great and uncontrollable powers of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; of regulating trade, raising and supporting armies, organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, instituting courts, and other general powers; and are by this clause invested with the power of making all laws, proper and necessary, for carrying all these into execution; and they may so exercise this power as entirely to annihilate all the State governments, and reduce this country to one single government. And if they may do it, it is pretty certain they will; for it will be found that the power retained by individual States, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of the government of the United States; the latter, therefore, will be naturally inclined to remove it out of the way. Besides, it is a truth confirmed by the unerring experience of ages, that every man, and every body of men, invested with power, are ever disposed to increase it, and to acquire a superiority over everything that stands in their way. This disposition, which is implanted in human nature, will operate in the Federal legislature to lessen and ultimately to subvert the State authority, and having such advantages, will most certainly succeed, if the Federal government succeeds at all. It must be very evident, then, that what this Constitution wants of being a complete consolidation of the several parts of the union into one complete government, possessed of perfect legislative, judicial, and executive powers, to all intents and purposes, it will necessarily acquire in its exercise in operation.—BRUTUS, Anti-Federalist Papers
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