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Michigan Attorney General Admits Arizona Immigration Law Does Not Mirror Federal Law

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Jul 15, 2010 at 8:40 pm

Defenders of Arizona’s immigration law, have repeatedly claimed that SB-1070 simply mirrors federal law. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) legal challenge against the law is based on argument that SB-1070 is federally preempted and interferes with the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws. If SB-1070 were really a “mirror image” of federal law, the DOJ wouldn’t have a very a strong case. However, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (R), who filed a brief in support of SB-1070 along with eight other states, admitted today on Fox News that the Arizona law is not identical to federal law:

Right now, in every single state, state police officers can exercise their discretion if they have reasonable suspicion that someone they stop is an illegal and check with the feds. What Arizona said, instead of leaving that up to the individual cop, we’re gonna make it our state policy that whenever there’s reasonable suspicion, we’re gonna give it to the feds. There really hasn’t been that big of change in the laws. The Obama administration is a little “miffed” that Arizona is forcing it to enforce immigration law.

Watch Cox and those who claim SB-1070 “mirrors” federal law:

However, what Cox dismisses as not “that big of a change” is actually a huge deal with potentially devastating effects. Before deciding to file the lawsuit, Attorney General Holder met with nine police chiefs who expressed concerns about what the difference between mandating local enforcement of immigration laws and allowing police to use “discretion” implies for the safety of their communities. “This law is the culmination of a very broken immigration system,” Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris said. “It doesn’t fix the immigration problem, it only diverts our scarce resources.” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck added, “This bill breaks the trust with our communities.”

Not only does SB-1070 require police to ask about immigration status, it also allows Arizona residents to sue law enforcement officials if they believe the law is not being enforced. Additionally, SB-1070 criminalizes several aspects of immigration that are only considered civil violations under federal law and in some cases aren’t even illegal — such as the transport of an undocumented immigrant and the solicitation of work in a public space (day labor). Finally the explicitly stated purpose of SB-1070 is to make “attrition through enforcement” the law. In other words, the law is crafted to make life in Arizona unbearable — if not impossible — so that they self-deport. The federal government meanwhile prioritizes removing dangerous undocumented immigrants. In its brief, the DOJ explains that the “federal government will be required to divert resources from its own, carefully considered enforcement priorities – dangerous aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety – to address the work that Arizona will now create for it.”

Politics

Rep. Roy Blunt Refuses To Join Boehner In Calling For Repeal Of Financial Reform Legislation

By Scott Keyes on Jul 15, 2010 at 8:00 pm

Roy Blunt John BoehnerEarlier today, the Senate broke a Republican filibuster by a 60-39 vote and approved major financial reform legislation. Even before the bill passed, House Minority Leader John Boehner declared at a press conference, “I think it ought to be repealed.”

However, not all of Boehner’s colleagues are rushing to join his immediate call for repeal. ThinkProgress caught up with Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — a former GOP whip and current Senate candidate — to ask him if he supported Boehner’s plan. After pausing for a few seconds, Blunt danced around the question. When pressed again, Blunt said that “it’s just a hypothetical question” and “really doesn’t matter right now”:

TP: Obviously you’ve been following the financial reform bill. I was curious, if it ends up passing – which it looks like it will – would you be in favor of repealing the bill?

BLUNT: Well, the bill does look like it’s going to pass. I think probably what the most likely thing to happen now is that people are going to have to watch and see if the difficulties for small banks – the restriction on credit – really occurs. And if it does, as I anticipate it will, we’ll have to take a second look at this bill and the country will demand it.

TP: But you wouldn’t immediately be in favor of repealing it?

BLUNT: It’s just a hypothetical question, it really doesn’t matter right now.

TP: Well, you’d voted against it before. Do you regret that vote now, or do you still think that we shouldn’t have this law – well, this bill that’s about to become a law?

Blunt: Why don’t you get back to me when the bill becomes a law?

Listen here:

As The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo points out, repealing the bill would mean: losing the ability to unwind failed banks without engaging in bailouts, halting the efforts to make the derivatives market more transparent, allowing risky trading to continue, and disbanding the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other things.

Economy

Republican Credibility On Deficits Is A Joke

By Guest Blogger on Jul 15, 2010 at 7:45 pm

Our guest blogger is Michael Linden, Associate Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A Republican Senator walks into a bar and goes on and on about how bad the deficit is, and how much money the “Democrat” Congress has been spending and how President Obama has run up all this debt. The GOP Senator is so incensed about the state of the federal budget that he votes against extending unemployment benefits, even though the unemployment rate is at 9.5 percent. $33 billion, says the senator, is just too much to spend on the millions of people who are pounding the pavement looking for work.

Now here comes the punch line. The bartender asks the Senator if he’s in favor of $800 billion in tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans, and the Senator replies that not only is he strongly in favor of more tax breaks for wealthy people, but, “tax cuts should not have to be offset.”

It’s not a particularly funny joke, because, sadly, it’s not a joke at all. This is the position of the Republican party. Senate Republicans unanimously opposed extending jobless aid one day, citing concern over the deficit, but then turn right around and push for huge tax cuts for the very richest people in the country, which would cost more than 20 times as much.

I’ll never understand how a Senator can feign such anxiety about the deficit one minute, push for budget busting tax cuts the next and still keep a straight face. I’ll also never understand how they keep getting away with it.

Politics

After Claiming They Support Fair Nomination Process, GOP Retaliates For Berwick Appointment With Holds

By Igor Volsky on Jul 15, 2010 at 7:00 pm

mitch-739075Refusing to allow Republicans to delay implementation of reform any longer and trying to avoid a Republican hold, President Obama recess appointed Harvard Professor Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a position vacant since 2006. Republicans, who had had characterized Berwick as a proponent of “health care rationing,” took to the Senate floor to condemn Obama for installing Berwick before he even had a chance to appear before the Senate Finance Committee. The GOP admitted that they had criticized the nominee but argued that they had not held up his nomination and would have treated his confirmation fairly:

– SEN. JON KYL: (R-AZ): But for anybody to suggest that Republicans are to blame for the fact that Dr. Berwick’s nomination didn’t come to a vote or wasn’t brought to the senate floor is sheer fantasy. We have not held up the nomination. We have not prested a vote. We haven’t — We have not prevented a vote. [7/12/2010]

– SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: (R-AZ): But where’s the evidence of delay in Berwick’s case? It can’t fairly accuse the other side of political gamesmanship when you short circuit the process and storm off the court before the first set. [7/13/2010]

– SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): The nomination hasn’t been held up by Republicans in Congress and to say otherwise is misleading. [7/7/2010]

Ironically, the Republicans are now showcasing their desire for a fair and transparent nomination process by delaying two other nominations in retaliation for Berwick’s appointment. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has “blocked a Democratic request Wednesday evening to advance two of President Obama’s nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit,” the Hill reports. “Democrats didn’t schedule so much as a committee hearing for Donald Berwick,” McConnell said. “So given that the President has been so dismissive of the Senate’s right to provide advice and consent under the Constitution, I am not inclined at this point to consent to the agreement proposed by my friend from North Carolina,” he added.

The GOP is also demanding to hear from Berwick, and has written a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) asking him to call Berwick to testify.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Health

The New Preventive Services The GOP Can’t Bring Itself To Take Away

By Igor Volsky on Jul 15, 2010 at 6:40 pm

Yesterday, I explained why the new regulations about which preventive services insurers will be required to cover at no additional cost did not include family planing services without really delving into the specifics of the rules themselves. Luckily, Tim Jost has looked at the regulations and as he points out, this is the simplest rule yet:

– Insurers will begin following the new rules starting September 23, but we expect to see relatively few changes at first. Grandfathered plans — i.e. all existing insurance plans — aren’t required to follow the new rules, although laws in many states already require insurers provide the preventive treatments. “Over time, however, plans will lose grandfathered status and the benefits and costs will rise.”

– The lists of preventive services is available here and it includes most screenings, laboratory tests, and vaccinations.

– Plans may also use “reasonable medical management techniques to determine the frequency, method, treatment, or setting for an item or service” if consistent with the recommendation or guideline.

– The three federal departments estimate that premiums will increase on average about 1.5 percent, with some of the increase resulting from a transfer of costs to insurers from individuals who will face reduced cost-sharing, and some due to increased demand attributable to the absence of cost-sharing.

These kinds of benefits make the entire Republican premise of repeal so completely intangible. As I will never tire from pointing out, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) took credit for the provision on Monday and the pro-repeal crowd has been remarkably silent about the new regulations. They like to discuss the law in the broad terms of deficits, entitlements, and rationing and use rhetoric that has no connection to the very tangible benefits of affordable cancer screenings and vaccinations. They’ll cling to their terms even as the law is slowly implemented, but I suspect that as the benefits increase, support for repeal will tapper off to the point where its mere mention will be seen as inappropriate. Of course health reform has its costs and the law has its problems, but eventually, people won’t want to give up what the Republicans want to take away because they’ll actually have it.

Economy

What Would Republicans Take Away By Repealing The Wall Street Reform Bill?

By Pat Garofalo on Jul 15, 2010 at 5:47 pm

Before the Senate had even managed to vote on final passage of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill today (which it approved on a 60-39 vote), House Republican leaders were publicly promising to repeal it. “I think it ought to be repealed,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). “We hope [the Senate vote] falters so we can start over,” agreed Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). “I think the reason you’re not hearing talk about efforts to repeal the permanent bailout authority is because the bill hasn’t passed yet.”

This isn’t a surprising development, as House Republicans have gone gangbusters with threats to repeal health care reform ever since it passed. However, much like repealing health care reform would remove protections like the ban on discriminating against customers with preexisting conditions, repealing the Dodd-Frank bill would send the country back to a status quo in which an unshackled Wall Street built up huge amounts of systemic risk, with the full knowledge that a taxpayer-funded bailout awaited their almost inevitable implosion. Here are some provisions of the Dodd-Frank that will become law with President Obama’s signature, but that the GOP is already set to repeal:

– Ability to unwind failed banks without bailouts: Republicans constantly demagogue the bailouts that occurred in 2008 to stabilize the financial system (though they occurred under a Republican administration), but repealing the Dodd-Frank bill would take away new tools granted to regulators to unwind failing firms without taxpayer dollars. This week, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said he “would have loved to have” the bill’s authorities during the crisis of 2008.

– Bringing derivatives out of the dark: The $600 trillion derivatives market is almost entirely unregulated, and helped bring about the demise of some of the big financial institutions, most notably AIG, that needed to be rescued by the government. The Dodd-Frank bill puts these instruments onto public exchanges and through clearinghouses, giving the companies clear price information and regulators transparent paths to follow while policing abuse. It also prevents banks from engaging in some derivatives trading with federally insured dollars.

– Reining in risky trading: Courtesy of the Volcker rule — named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker — banks are prevented from trading for their own benefit with federally insured dollars. Such trading, which amounted to gambling with the government’s backing, sustained upward pressure on the housing bubble. Repealing this rule would be a sign to Wall Street that the casino is back open for business.

Repealing the bill would also mean disbanding the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which fills a huge gap in the regulatory system that allows banks to run wild with predatory products while consumers have no advocate (and which Republicans have complained about so much that they probably would be all too happy to see it disappear).

Now, this bill is not perfect, and could have gone much farther in terms of breaking up the biggest banks or getting rid of risky trading entirely. But repealing it would simply let Wall Street banks right back into the wild, wild west that was created by years of deregulation and financial innovation that boosted bank profits but had no societal benefit.

Politics

Georgia GOP Candidate Handel On Why She Doesn’t Think Gays Are Suitable Parents: ‘Because I Don’t’

By Guest Blogger on Jul 15, 2010 at 5:37 pm

This week, Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate and former congressman Nathan Deal slammed his opponent, former secretary of state Karen Handel, for her past support of “taxpayer-funded domestic partner benefits and gay adoption” and membership in the Log Cabin Republicans. Concerned about shoring up support for next week’s primary, Handel has been denying and backtracking on those positions.

But in 2003, the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans said it supported Handel’s candidacy for county commission chair because she “demonstrated in her last run that she was supportive of domestic partner benefits” and “supported same-sex adoptions on the basis of the best interest of the child.” Handel is now calling the quote inaccurate, even though “she never asked Southern Voice for a correction or retraction.”

In an interview yesterday, Handel made her new-found feelings clear. Speaking with Doug Richards of Georgia’s 11 Alive, she uncomfortably tried to define her new opposition to gay rights and became exasperated when Richards pushed her to explain herself:

ON GAY ADOPTION:

Q: Do you know any gay couples with children?

A: Not that I’m aware of.

Q: So you think gay couples are less qualified to function as parents than straight couples?

A: I think that for a child to be in a household — in a family in a household with a situation where the parents are not married, as in one man and one woman, is not the best household for a child.

Q: Is it better or worse than a single parent household?

A: Doug, I’m really trying to be straightforward with you but I’m not going to debate all the nuances. I’ve made it abundantly clear that I think that marriage is between a man and a woman. And that’s what I believe, and I don’t know what more you would like me to add to that.

Q: I guess I want to know why you think gay parents aren’t as legitimate as heterosexual parents.

A: Because I don’t.

ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Q: Well why — do you view committed gay relationships as being less legitimate than committed heterosexual relationships?

A: As a Christian, I view relationships and marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Q: But what about the legitimacy of the relationship? Do you have any gay friends? Do you know gay couples?

A: Of course I do. Are we going to spend our whole day talking on this issue?

Q: I want to know how you feel about this.

Watch:

Obvious equality issues aside, recent research does not support Handel’s view. Studies have shown that “children with same-sex parents show no significant differences compared with children in heterosexual homes when it comes to social development and adjustment” and a paper published last month showed that “children of lesbian mothers tend to do better than those in heterosexual families on certain measures.”

In April, “an Arkansas Circuit Court struck down a state law that banned unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children.” The law, clearly targeted at gay couples wishing to adopt, was found to be unconstitutional under the due process and equal protection clauses. An explicit gay adoption ban in Florida has also been found to be unconstitutional.

– Charlie Eisenhood

Yglesias

How We Got So Sprawly

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 15, 2010 at 5:28 pm

030809 1244 by dougtone 1

From Alyssa Katz’s excellent profile of the people in the Obama administration working to shift policy away from its anti-urban bias:

New measures to reverse the march of spraw may be too little, too late. It took seven decades and trillions in federal investment to create the sprawl that the Obama administration is now moving to brake. The first interstate highways rolled out in the 1950s with the present-day equivalent of $300 billion in federal funds. The suburban home industry was fueled by subsidies that today amount each year to almost twice HUD’s entire budget.

By way of contrast, the budget of the Federal Transit Administration is about $2.4 billion. If you put $300 billion in 30-year treasuries, you’d generate enough income to quintuple that. Which isn’t to say that’s something we can or should do, but merely to observe that suburban sprawl is not a market outcome. In part it’s a question of unintended consequences, but largely it’s a result of “industrial policy” designed to boost firms that make automobiles, drill oil, and build suburban homes. Much of that is legacy at this point but to this day Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack serve to create bias against financing mixed-use projects which is why it can be more economical to build large, empty lobbies rather than fill them with stores.

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