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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 | 10:51 a.m.
Chad Christensen
Sun Archives
A complaint has been filed challenging the validity of an immigration reform petition in Nevada because of an invalid address.
The complaint filed Tuesday with the secretary of state's office alleges Republican Assemblyman Chad Christensen of Las Vegas doesn't have a valid address to reach him and his petition advocacy group.
Christensen named himself resident agent for the petition drive, and provided his U.S. Senate campaign office address. But he lost the GOP Senate race primary.
Christensen has vowed to collect the required 97,002 signatures by Nov. 9 to have his "Nevada Immigration Verification" initiative considered by the 2011 Legislature.
A business group challenging the petition in state court in Carson City says it has been unable to serve Christensen with legal papers.
Is he on the run? or is he not a legal resident of the state of Nevada? Those would be the only two reasons I could see for not being able to find this guy...
Isn't immigration strictly a federal enforcement matter?
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That is in fact open to debate, Harley. The question, in general terms, is this: Do States have the right to adopt laws that allow for a State penalty for violations of federal law?
It only takes one existing instance of that being upheld and the feds argument against SB1070 is demolished.
This ruling will have significant implications for those States that have medical marijuana laws.
Interesting statistics, 113 billion per year;
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2/1144340...
The feds might have undermined their own case.
The text of the lawsuit can be found here: http://images.bimedia.net/documents/sb10...
From section 16 in the lawsuit: "16. The Constitution affords the President of the United States the authority to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." U.S. Const., art. II 3. Further, the President has broad authority over foreign affairs. Immigration law, policy, and enforcement priorities are affected by and have impacts on U.S. foreign policy, and are themselves the subject of
diplomatic arrangements."
It can be inferred that the President has an obligation to faithfully execute laws.
From Article 4, section 4 of the US Constitution: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."
It can be inferred that the Government is obligated to protect the States' security.
No where in either passage does it say that these obligations are subject to legislative or executive policy priorities.
Beyond this, the feds mention repeatedly that the AZ law is in conflict with federal law, which is an absurd claim on it's face when one reads the AZ law and see how it in fact refers to and takes language directly from the federal law.
At its most basic level, AZ SB1070 makes it a state crime to not carry a green card if you have one. This is IDENTICAL to federal law.
I have no doubt the final ruling will come down as 5 - 4 along Party lines, which is sad. There is a foundation here for greatly needed debate and serious legal consideration which will not be employed.
I do think that if the feds should prevail on the argument of the Supremacy Clause, then there will be significant unforeseen impact in many other areas.
Perhaps the presidential cocaine user can answer why the federal government isn't enforcing immigration laws in a manner which relieves States from taking action during Friday's UNLV visit?
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Surprisingly enough, the reason for non-enforcement is spelled out in the lawsuit, in detail, and is being used as one of the primary reasons to strike down SB1070. Not only that, this lawsuit could invalidate the concept of "reasonable suspicion" as opposed to "probable cause".
Where is the 'hope and change' we were promised?