Earlier this year, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) signed the nation’s harshest anti-immigrant law — including provisions that intimidate undocumented children from attending school and which effectively make it a felony for many immigrants to take a shower in their own home. Much of this law has since been blocked by federal courts, but key provisions of the law are still in effect.

One provision that has yet to be struck down by a federal judge provides, with two exceptions, that “[n]o court of this state shall enforce the terms of, or otherwise regard as valid, any contract between a party and an alien unlawfully present in the United States.” In essence, it seeks to drive undocumented immigrants from the state by giving their landlords, employers, and other persons they do business with a free pass to exploit them. Federal judges have thus far allowed this provision to stand. Yet, as Alabama Circuit Judge Scott Vowell pointed out in an opinion yesterday, the anti-contracting provision still has to overcome a big obstacle — the Alabama state constitution’s command that

There can be no law of this state impairing the obligation of contracts by destroying or impairing the remedy for their enforcement; and the legislature shall have no power to revive any right or remedy which may have become barred by lapse of time, or by any statute of this state. After suit has been commenced on any cause of action, the legislature shall have no power to take away such cause of action, or destroy any existing defense to such suit.

Because Judge Vowell’s opinion deals with a breach of contract suit that was filed by an undocumented immigrant before the law took effect, his opinion merely holds that the anti-immigrant law cannot constitutionally be applied to those suits because “the legislature shall have no power to take away” people’s right to pursue contacts claims that are already pending. Nevertheless, Vowell also suggests that the entire anti-contracting provision may violate the state constitution’s requirement that no law may “destroy[] or impair[e] the remedy” for enforcing a contract in court.

Should the Alabama courts ultimately agree that the entire anti-contracting provision is unconstitutional under the state constitution, then the provision will cease to function even if the federal courts uphold it. State courts are allowed to apply state law independently of how federal courts handle questions of federal law.

In other words, it looks like Alabama’s assault on immigrants not only ignores the United States Constitution, it likely violates the Alabama Constitution as well.

In a valiant attempt to fight non-existent voter fraud, GOP lawmakers across the country have been passing legislation that systematically disenfranchises core Democratic constituencies by making it more difficult to vote. One of those groups — young voters — have chronically low turnout and report feeling disaffected by politics.

But high school teachers who are trying to combat that trend and get their students interested and involved in civic life are finding their mission at odds with the news laws created by Republican legislators, who would prefer young voters just stay home. Florida high school teacher Jill Cicciarelli recently discovered she had inadvertently broken the law when she tried to help her students register to vote:

The teacher who heads up New Smyrna Beach High School’s student government association could face thousands of dollars in fines. Her transgression? Helping students register to vote.

Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida’s new and controversial election law.

Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours. The law also reduces the time for early voting from 14 days to eight and requires voters who want to give a new address at the polls to use a provisional ballot.

Cicciarelli was motivated to register students because volunteers helped her first register when she was a student at Florida State University. League of Women Voters volunteers helped her “navigate a process that seemed a little intimidating to a teenager who’d never voted.” Ironically, fear of violating the state’s new rules have prompted the League of Women Voters to suspend their registration efforts in Florida.

“I just want them to be participating in our democracy,” Ciccarelli says of her students. “The more participation we have, the stronger our democracy will be.”

One of those students, 17-year-old student government association co-president Shannon Miller, was grateful she had the chance to register at school. But she worries her peers won’t participate if there are too many obstacles. “It may discourage some students (from registering) if it’s more difficult,” she said.

While other states are cracking down undocumented immigrants — and scaring away legal immigrants at the same time — one town is embracing them. Dayton, Ohio officials adopted the “Welcome to Dayton” plan on Oct. 5 to encourage immigrants to settle in their city. They see the potential influx of new residents as a way to boost the city’s economy, while states like Alabama and Georgia that have extreme anti-immigrant laws are seeing their economies suffer.

Before the Dayton city commission unanimously approved the plan, Mayor Gary Leitzell, whom the local Republican party endorsed in 2009, said immigrants bring “new ideas, new perspectives and new talent to our workforce. … To reverse the decades-long trend of economic decline in this city, we need to think globally.” The city’s unemployment rate is 11 percent, two points higher than the national rate, yet the number of foreign-born residents in Dayton has increased 57 percent in 10 years to 5,102. So far, this has been a boon as manufacturers have left the area:

City leaders aiming to turn Dayton around started examining the immigrant population: Indian doctors in hospitals; foreign-born professors and graduate students at the region’s universities; and owners of new small businesses such as a Turkish family’s New York Pizzeria on the city’s east side and Hispanic-run car lots, repair shops and small markets. They say immigrants have revitalized some rundown housing, moving into and fixing up what had been vacant homes. [...]

Dayton officials say their plan still needs funding and volunteers to help put it in place; they hope by the end of the year. Its key tenets include increasing information and access to government, social services and housing issues; language education and help with identification cards, and grants and marketing help for immigrant entrepreneurs to help build the East Third Street section.

“We will be more diverse, we will grow, we will have more restaurants, more small businesses,” said Tom Wahlrab, the city’s human relations council director, who helped lead the plan’s development.

City officials say those who are illegally in the United States will still be subject to U.S. law; however, Ohio does not have an extreme statewide law like Alabama’s HB 56, which even makes it a felon for many undocumented immigrants to have water in their own homes. Farms and businesses in Alabama have lost workers as immigrants have fled the state, and few Alabamians have stepped in to take the jobs left behind. Without a comparably harsh law in Ohio, the southern state’s loss could be Ohio’s gain: one restaurant manager in Dayton said he has already heard of families planning to move there from Alabama.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) believes the GOP “jobs” plan is “constitutionally problematic” because it includes a bill that tells state courts how much they can award to medical malpractice plaintiffs. Lee’s claim that the bill is constitutional suspect is particularly significant because he promised last March to block any bill that he believes does not have “a clear and obvious basis connected to one of the enumerated powers” of the Constitution.

On Twitter, we asked Lee’s office if he would keep his promise to obstruct bills that he does not believe to be obviously constitutional now that keeping his word requires him to block a major Republican priority. Lee’s office refused to say that he would:

It’s not exactly clear what Lee’s office is saying here, but one thing is absolutely clear. Lee has abandoned his original promise to obstruct legislation he deems unconstitutional.

The origin of Lee’s promise is a March 2 letter where he and seven of his colleagues promised to “object to the consideration of any legislation” that fails to meet five criteria — one of which states that “all bills must have a clear and obvious basis connected to one of the enumerated powers” in the Constitution. Because there are only two ways to bring most legislation to the Senate floor, unanimous consent from all 100 senators or a 60-vote “cloture” motion breaking a filibuster, Lee’s promise not to consent to a vote on bills that are not obviously constitutional amounts to an effective promise to filibuster those bills.

Now, however, Lee is merely saying that he will “vote against” bills that he thinks violate the “original understanding of the Const[itution],” not that he will actively filibuster them. This is a much weaker pledge. It leaves Lee free to vote yes on the only vote that matters in today’s hyperobstructionist Senate — the vote to invoke cloture and allow the GOP’s bill to receive an up or down vote. Similarly, his new claim that he will vote no on bills that he can’t reconcile with the “original understanding” is weaker than his original pledge to not only block bills that he deems unconstitutional, but also to block bills whose constitutionality is not “obvious.”

Lee made a sweeping and unambiguous pledge when he signed his March 2 letter. Now that this promise hinders his ability to behave like a loyal partisan, however, he has suddenly decided that it no longer applies. Lee’s willingness to water down his own promises the minute they come into tension with the Republican agenda raises serious questions about whether anything he says can be trusted.