Judge Bolton: Will 1070's worst elements once more be halted by her?

There's one general conclusion I have after reading and re-reading the transcript of Wednesday's oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court over Senate Bill 1070: Latinos and their allies cannot rely on the federal government or the courts for a long term solution to the overt bigotry that spawned SB 1070.

Ultimately, any solution will be a political one. What's needed is the attainment of raw political power. Because if Latinos are represented in this state's political hierarchy in a manner consistent with their being one-third of the population, we will be able to repeal 1070 and beat down its advocates.

See images from the SB 1070 protest in downtown Phoenix. 

I say this because the consensus among pundits, reporters and legal experts of today's oral argument is that section 2(b) of the law -- the "breathing while brown" section -- likely will be green-lighted by the Supremes. That's the part requiring cops to check immigration status for "any lawful stop, detention or arrest" where "reasonable suspicion" exists that a person is unlawfully present.

Based on questions asked by the justices during the hearing, it's also anticipated that section 6 will be un-enjoined. That section allows a police officer to arrest someone without a warrant if he or she has probable cause to believe that, "The person to be arrested has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States." 

These sections were crafted by 1070's author, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and pimped by recalled former state Senate President Russell Pearce for the express intent of profiling Latinos. 

But because the justices are looking at 1070 through the narrow prism of whether or not these sections are preempted by federal immigration law, it's expected that the injunctions on 2(b) and 6 will be lifted.

Sections 3 and 5(c) may remain enjoined. The first makes it a state crime for an alien not to register and not carry the proper immigration documents (it's already a federal crime). The second makes it a crime for anyone in the country unlawfully to seek work. 

Getting through the transcript is a depressing slog. But there is some hope. And that is conveyed, oddly, by Chief Justice John Roberts, not long after U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli stands before him.

"No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?" Roberts asks, later confirming, "Okay, so this is not a case about ethnic profiling."

See, the government's argument is this: Immigration law is our thing, and the states can't touch it unless we give them a permission slip, through information sharing programs like Secure Communities, wherein everyone booked into a jail has their immigration status checked. 

The Supremes didn't seem to be buying that argument, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor now famously telling Virrili, in regards to 2(b), "You can see it's not selling very well -- why don't you try to come up with something else?"

Puente's parade route for today

It's like 2010 all over again, with the Phoenix-based civil rights group Puente leading an anti-SB 1070 protest with a "march route [that] exposes collaborators in Arpaio's human rights crisis."

As you can see on the map, the demonstration begins at 3 p.m. at Phoenix's Civic Space Park, 424 North Central Avenue, and will make stops at Phoenix Police Department Headquarters, the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse, the Fourth Avenue Jail, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's offices at the Wells Fargo Building, and the offices of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Puente, which was responsible for massive demonstrations in 2010 against 1070, is now helmed by veteran organizer Carlos Garcia, who had this to say in Puente's press release:

"With SB1070, Arizona declared a war of attrition on immigrants. What was started in Arizona quickly led to the Arizon-ification of this country, one that treats undocumented immigrants as criminals and treats all Latinos as undocumented. Instead of investigating and suing in Arizona, the Administration should stop collaborating in deporting Arpaio's victims."

Pearce confronts DREAM Act students in 2010

I'll have more to say soon about recalled former state Senate President Russell Pearce's Tuesday appearance at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Senate Bill 1070. There was some good stuff in the nearly two hour donnybrook, especially from U.S. Senator from Illinois Dick Durbin, who gave Pearce a bit of a shellacking.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share this unusual quote from Pearce regarding DREAM Act students, which occurs at about 1:24:19 in the C-Span video of the hearing:

"I've met with these students at ASU," Pearce tells Durbin. "I've met with a bunch of them that are in that status, and we even shared some tears together. Some of them are wonderful kids. And I don't know how you carve out -- the way this bill works it's always a blanket for everybody. Doesn't carve out individually. It's a blanket amnesty for those folks." 

Following the hearing, reporters from Arizona and elsewhere mobbed Pearce. Leave it to Channel 12's Brahm Resnik to ask Pearce the question I was most curious about; i.e., when and where did this tear-sharing actually take place?

"I was at the convention at the downtown during the last election, 2010," Pearce states at 1:50:01 in, "We went off in the corner, about a half dozen of us and I have to admit I was very touched. These were exceptional kids and I understood their plight, and again, that's why I say, exceptions I think can be carved out. But you can't just do blanket policies and forgive the world for breaking our laws. Or use taxpayer dollars to subsidize it."

Could Pearce be talking about this confrontation above between him and DREAM Act students, which took place on election night 2010, at the Hyatt in downtown Phoenix?

A power mad sheriff and a 9 year-old fighting for her parents' freedom face off in Two Americans

Anyone who knows award-winning Phoenix journalist Valeria Fernandez knows that for four years now she and her collaborator, filmmaker Dan DeVivo, have been working on a documentary about Sheriff Joe Arpaio's reign of terror and error in Maricopa County, a film ultimately titled Two Americans.

Fernandez and DeVivo's film is finally finished and is scheduled to debut at the Arizona International Film Festival in Tucson this Friday at 7 p.m. Well, I should say "almost finished" because as I type this, Valeria and her cohorts are working furiously to make sure there are Spanish-language subtitles to portions of the film that are in English.

The film follows Arpaio as he hunts illegal immigrants, terrorizing anyone in Maricopa County with brown skin or an accent, but it also delves into Arpaio's lust for power, the profound corruption of his office, and his retaliation against anyone who opposes him.

Contrasted with this Mephistophelean character is American-born Katherine Figueroa, a 9 year-old girl whose parents are arrested and incarcerated as a result of Arpaio's raid on a Phoenix carwash. Figueroa garners national attention when a YouTube video of her, tearful and appealing for the help of President Obama, goes viral. 

Thrust into the media spotlight, this courageous youngster takes up her parents' cause, participating in demonstrations and even testifying before a Congressional panel about her experience.

Fernandez says she and DeVivo began working on an Arpaio documentary in 2008, but it wasn't until June of 2009, after Arpaio's car-wash raid and Figueroa's YouTube appeal (filmed by Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman with the assistance of Respect/Respeto's Lydia Guzman) that they decided to focus on Figueroa as a foil for Arpaio.

(See the film's trailer after the jump.)

One of hundreds of exhibits showing a culture of bias in the MCSO

More than four years after it was first filed, and more than three years since the American Civil Liberties Union lodged its amended complaint in the case, the big racial profiling lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio --  Melendres v. Arpaio -- will finally go to trial this summer.

That is, if the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice don't come to some agreement on the same issues first. 

In a hearing today, both sides in the lawsuit met to hammer out various pre-trial matters before U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow. After some dickering over dates, Snow scheduled a seven day trial to begin July 19.

Initially, Snow wanted to start the trial earlier, but Arpaio attorney Tim Casey begged off that one, telling the judge that MCSO Deputy Chief Brian Sands, a key witness, already had booked a trip to Europe beginning July 6. 

Snow moved back the date, and it looks like Sands will get to see the Eiffel Tower while stuffing his concrete mug full of baguette at long last. 

The judge set other ground rules, generally giving each side 20 hours to present its case. He dispensed with opening arguments, noting that there would be no jury and he was painfully familiar with all the pertinent facts. 

Later, the judge asked the defense about ongoing talks between the MCSO and the DOJ, noting that an agreement between those parties could "moot all or part of this case." 

Tony Diaz, dropping some knowledge with the Libro-Traficante caravan

Arizona's ethnic studies ban has resulted in the eradication of the successful and popular Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District, and a backward edict banning certain supposedly "dangerous" books by Latino authors from Tucson classrooms.

This peculiar mix of ethnic McCarthyism and Fahrenheit 451-style censorship is the product of the Republican Party in this state, which has, sadly, eschewed the traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and become the party of white pride and hatred of the brown.

I suspect that after the 2012 election, Sand Land GOPers will be singing a different tune, knocked from their high horse of a legislative supermajority to something a little more reasonable. Moreover, recent polls have suggested that President Obama has a dead even chance of flipping the state and turning it blue, with the assistance of an energized Latino voting bloc.

And what are they energized by? By bigoted laws like Senate Bill 1070 and House Bill 2281 (the ethnic studies ban) for starters. The de facto party of Anglos -- i.e., the Arizona GOP -- has been waging a war of hateful rhetoric on Hispanics, with nefarious statutes intended to drive out the undocumented en masse and keep the remaining Latinos beneath the boot heel.

Not all Cactus Country Republicans are racists, but far too many have copped a racist line for political gain. And come November, they will pay. Till then, Houston novelist Tony Diaz has a plan: a caravan of verboten books and their authors, starting out March 12 in Houston and ending up in Tucson on Friday, March 16.

Bigot-boy Pearce reckons he can do anything he wants, and skate...

Humiliated 12-point loser and ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce figures the rules don't apply to him. 

That's been a life-long pattern, from the shenanigans that got him fired from his post as head of the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles to the sham candidacy of Olivia Cortes in last year's recall election, which somehow Pearce knew nothing about, even though his friends, family members and hard-core supporters put her on the ballot.

That's why it should life nary an eyebrow that the prejudiced Mesa pol is claiming in federal court that he has "absolute legislative immunity" for his involvement in the false arrest and imprisonment of Phoenix human rights activist Salvador Reza last year at the state Senate.

See, Reza is suing Pearce in federal court over the incident, which occurred February 24, 2011. Reza was going to visit state Senator Steve Gallardo, when he was stopped by the Senate's security detail, made up of two plainclothes officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

The DPS officers informed Reza that he was banned from entering the building and must leave by order of state Senate President Pearce, who had blacklisted Reza, supposedly because Reza had been "disorderly and disruptive" a couple of days before as he and other activists watched a senate appropriations committee hearing. 

Actually, I was at that committee hearing, and Reza was not in the room. Instead, he and a large  group of activists had been relegated to another room in the senate, where they watched the proceedings via a large TV set. Apparently, some of the activists applauded at different times, but neither Reza nor the others there were asked to leave.

When Reza returned to the Senate on the 24th, this was somehow used to justify banning him from the building. Reza asked the DPS officers for documentation of Pearce's order, and the DPS duo promptly arrested Reza and a woman who was with him, shoving Reza's face against a glass wall in the process.

Reza was kept in a room in the senate for an hour, then transported to the Fourth Avenue Jail, putatively for "trespassing," and held in custody for five hours. The county attorney has never prosecuted him, and Reza has since filed his federal lawsuit with the help of civil rights attorney Stephen Montoya, a bulldog of the law if there ever was one.

In the complaint, Montoya alleges false arrest and imprisonment, and accuses Pearce and the DPS officers of violations of Reza's rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

My favorite part of the complaint is where Montoya refers to Pearce as a "racist." Which he most definitely is. Read on:

Glenn Spencer, hatemonger, speaking at Allen's committee

Nativist extremist and documented anti-Semite Glenn Spencer spoke today at the state Senate Border Security, Federalism, and States' Rights Committee, a seriously loony legislative panel chaired by crackpot Republican state Senator Sylvia Allen.

Democratic state Senators Steve Gallardo and Robert Meza walked out of the committee in protest as soon as they realized Spencer would be speaking. Spencer's name had not been placed on the agenda. Instead, the name of his company, Border Technology, Inc., was listed.

Essentially Allen and her fellow Mexican-bashers on the committee snuck in the notorious nativist, likely because the last time Spencer was scheduled to speak at this committee a year ago, the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League raised holy hell, and Spencer was quickly "uninvited."

There's plenty of reason that both Jews and Latinos would be offended by Spencer's appearance at a legislative committee. 

Spencer was linked to minutewoman Shawna Forde, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011 for her part in the murders of 9 year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul during a botched 2009 home invasion robbery at the Flores home in Arivaca.

Forde had lived on Spencer's property near the border, and she visited Spencer's home as she was being pursued by law enforcement. Spencer allowed her to use her laptop at his abode. She was arrestedby the FBI shortly after leaving his property.

kriskobach.org

Today's big loser, nativist poster-boy Kris Kobach

With oral arguments scheduled to take place April 25 before the U.S. Supreme Court on Arizona's breathing-while-brown statute Senate Bill 1070, Arizona District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton today enjoined two sections of the law she had not previously put on hold in 2010, when she stymied the most egregious parts of 1070.

The sections enjoined today were targeted at day laborers, also known as jornaleros. Section 5a prevented a driver from stopping to pick up passengers "for work at a different location," if the driver's vehicle impeded "the normal movement of traffic," and section 5b would have made it illegal for that passenger to get into such a vehicle.

Bolton had previously blocked the enforcement of section 5c of the law in July of 2010, along with other sections. Section 5c essentially outlawed day laborers by making it illegal for someone in the United States unlawfully to solicit work in a public place.

At that time, the judge found that 5c conflicted with federal law regulating the employment of aliens. This, in United States vs. State of Arizona, the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit to block 1070. That's the same case to be heard by the Supremes.

Pearce, now 1st Vice Chair of the AZ GOP

Ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce began slithering back into relevancy this Saturday during the Arizona GOP's winter meeting, held at Phoenix's Church for the Nations, where he was elected to the party's First Vice Chair position.

Despite an embarrassing 12-point loss to fellow Republican Jerry Lewis in November's recall election, Pearce remains popular with many state tuskers. His bid was endorsed by Arizona GOP Chair Tom Morrissey and various Republican office-holders

Though Pearce was running against a respected incumbent, Diane Ortiz-Parsons, when Morrissey announced the results at day's end, Pearce had crushed her, 669 to 443.

(The SeeingRedAz blog has a slightly different vote count, 668 to 441. The numbers I'm quoting above are what I heard Morrissey read to the assembled.)

One other stark result from Saturday's meeting: Congressman Ron Paul's name drew massive support in a presidential straw poll that served as a fundraiser for the party. 

Paul scored 256 votes to 20 for Newt Gingrich, 17 for Mitt Romney and 8 for sweater-boy Rick Santorum.

Young, intelligent and enthusiastic, the Paul supporters were a welcome, non-conformist presence. 

Otherwise, the day was dominated by Pearce's triumph over Ortiz-Parsons, and the sickening shadow of nativism, which darkens every aspect of the GOP in Arizona.