Alabama’s extreme immigration law, slated to go into effect on Sept. 1, is already under fire at the federal level. Several civil rights organizations have filed a lawsuit against the law, which makes it illegal to live or work in Alabama without proof of legal residence, and a federal judge in Georgia has blocked a similar law in that state.

Now, a group of Alabamians, including undocumented workers as well as U.S. citizens who fear discrimination from the law’s enforcement, is challenging the law at the state level because they say it violates the 1901 state constitution. According to Section 30 of Article I, “immigration shall be encouraged; emigration shall not be prohibited, and no citizen shall be exiled.”

Thomas E. Drake II, the lawyer who filed the suit, said the federal challenge against the law — that it pre-empts federal immigration policy — is not needed because of the state constitution. “The fact of the matter is the Alabama constitution is significantly more liberal that the federal constitution,” he said, according to the Huntsville Times.

The laws supporters already have a plan to neutralize Drake’s suit — if the constitution does not fit the law, simply change the constitution:

Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, co-sponsor of the new law, said Republicans were delivering on a popular campaign promise and could rewrite the constitution if necessary.

“If they are challenging it due to state law, that should be something we can take care of ourselves,” said Hammon on Tuesday. “The people of the state of Alabama want this. I’m very confident that if we have to pass some type of constitutional amendment, the people will overwhelmingly support it.“

Sadly, there is precedent for this strategy. When the Alabama courts held that the state’s education system did not meet its constitutional obligation to educate low-income children, the state responded by simply deleting that requirement from its constitution.

If the Alabama immigration law survives — whether by court decision or constitutional amendment — it will be the harshest state immigration statute in the nation. The law lets police officers detain those suspected of being illegal immigrations, requires schools to inquire about a student’s immigration status, and makes it a crime to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant. One of the plaintiffs whom Drake represents is the unidentified wife of an illegal immigrant. If the law goes into effect, then she would become a criminal overnight for living with her husband.

Last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said he is “fine” with New York’s marriage equality law because “if you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.” Yet, in an interview with the leader of an anti-gay hate group, Rick Perry announced that he doesn’t “believe in the 10th Amendment” after all:

I probably needed to add a few words after that ‘it’s fine with me,’ and that it’s fine with me that a state is using their sovereign rights to decide an issue. Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me. My stance hasn’t changed. [...] To not pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would impinge on Texas and other states’ right not to have [gay] marriage forced upon them by these activist judges and these special interest groups.

Listen:

Perry’s claim that he supports states’ rights to govern themselves, while simultaneously supporting the anti-gay “Federal Marriage Amendment” is impossible to reconcile. The FMA provides that:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

So Perry’s position is that we should ram his anti-gay views down New York voters’ throats by rewriting the Constitution to make marriage equality illegal in all 50 states. The states can have any law they want, so long as Perry approves of them.

Perry’s attempt to impose anti-gay bigotry on progressive states is also a stark contrast to his stance on economic issues. While Perry is perfectly willing to let the federal government force New York to discriminate against gay couples, he believes that Texas should have the right to flout Medicaid laws, ignore federal education laws and thumb its nose at environmental regulations.

In other words, Perry doesn’t actually care one bit about the 10th Amendment — he doesn’t even care all that much about his own twisted tenther interpretation of the 10th Amendment — he just wants to force everyone to live the way he wants them to live.

Last night the Chicago Sun-Times broke the story that Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who has spent months lecturing President Obama and Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children. Laura Walsh has asked a judge to suspend his driver’s license until he pays his child support. Despite loaning his own campaign $35,000 — and paying himself back at least $14,200 for the loans — Walsh claims he failed to make the payments because he “had no money.”

The tax-bashing congressman campaigned on a pledge to reject the Washington “status quo” and has bragged about his own frugality, claiming he even sleeps in his congressional office to save money. Walsh, who’s been described as “the biggest media hound in the freshman class,” has been a prominent voice in the debt ceiling showdown in recent weeks, making television appearances almost every day to denounce President Obama’s “reckless spending,” which he says has “bankrupted this country.”

“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” Walsh says in one video. But today, when confronted in a CNN interview about his failure to support his own children, Walsh not only refused to acknowledge his hypocrisy but insisted that being a deadbeat dad meant he understood the plight of average Americans:

I know that story just broke, and it’s interesting that it just broke right now as I’m out there trying my best to fight this President and fight the Democrats and solve this debt crisis. But look, I’m the most openly vetted candidate in the world. I have had financial troubles and I talked about them throughout the campaign. This is where real America is.

Watch it:

This is not the first time Walsh has faced scrutiny for the disconnect between his rhetoric and the way he conducts his personal life. In 2009, Walsh lost a condo to foreclosure because he owed more than $300,000 on the property. In April 2010, an investigation revealed that Walsh failed to file his personal financial disclosure form as required by federal election law. When questions about his personal finances dogged his congressional campaign, Walsh once again claimed he wasn’t a rich man, despite managing to pay $3,300 per month for a house in upscale Winnetka.

Walsh also rejected the congressional health insurance plan for his family on principle, much to the chagrin of his current wife, Helene, who had a preexisting condition and needed surgery while the couple was uninsured. (Walsh’s Wikipedia page excludes his first marriage.) But Walsh apparently thinks he can have it both ways — claiming his own indebtedness and failure to care for his family’s needs allows him to understand average Americans, while railing against Washington for irresponsibly racking up deficits. As he put it in a recent interview, “Thank God congressmen like me are here!”

Earlier this month, 16 senators sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for DOJ to examine whether the voter ID laws, which are the centerpiece of the GOP’s war on voting, violate the Voting Rights Act. Earlier this week, over 100 members of the House of Representatives wrote to Holder echoing this call for the Justice Department to take action to preserve America’s democracy:

Approximately 11 percent of voting-age citizens in the country — or more than 20 million individuals — lack government-issued photo identification. We urge you to protect the voting rights of Americans by using the full power of the Department of Justice to review these voter identification bills and scrutinize their implementation.

The Voting Rights Act vests significant authority in the Department to ensure laws are not implemented in a discriminatory manner. [...] [T]he Department should exercise vigilance in overseeing whether these laws are implemented in a way that discriminates against protected clauses in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The VRA not only forbids laws that are passed specifically to target minority voters but also strikes down state laws that have a greater impact on minority voters than on others. Because voter ID laws disproportionately affect minority communities, it is difficult to see how many of the voter ID laws being pushed in GOP-controlled states could survive scrutiny under this law.