In the past year, federal judges, many of them conservative, have blocked parts of radical anti-immigrant laws in Alabama and Arizona, including provisions that require carrying proof of lawful residency and mandate that public schools check the immigration status of all students before they can enroll.

The Obama administration has also challenged sections that force state law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if officials have reason to believe that the individual might be undocumented — a recipe for racial profiling.

But Missouri Republicans apparently didn’t the memo. They’ve introduced a copycat bill that includes the most outrageous — and unconstitutional — parts of the Alabama and Arizona laws:

Missouri could be the next battleground in a nationwide fight over tougher immigration laws.

State Sen. Will Kraus, a Lee’s Summit Republican, is sponsoring a bill that would mandate that all public schools verify the immigration status of enrollees. It also would require law enforcement officers to check immigration status on all stops when they have reasonable cause, and create a state misdemeanor for not carrying proper citizenship documentation. [...]

“This bill is a really bad idea,” [Vanessa Crawford, executive director of Missouri Immigration and Refugee Advocates] said. “This would force police and school officials to act as immigration agents, and would result in innocent people facing harassment. And passing a law that will undoubtedly end up in court is irresponsible.”

By ignoring recent rulings on anti-immigrant laws, Missouri Republicans seem to be spoiling for a fight. The Supreme Court recently announced that it will determine whether Arizona’s measure violates federal law.

The Court has already ruled that it’s unconstitutional for states to deprive undocumented students of an education. The Alabama law has effectively done just that, successfully intimidating immigrant families into withdrawing their children from school.

James O’Keefe’s latest video features surrogates appearing to commit voter fraud in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary election, all in an attempt to highlight voter fraud, a problem which is by-and-large nonexistent in the Granite State.

The undercover video shows unnamed individuals working at O’Keefe’s behest approaching polling stations throughout New Hampshire. After poll workers asked for the person’s name, O’Keefe’s agents gave the name of a voter who died within the past few weeks, before then receiving a ballot to vote. The individuals asked the poll workers if they needed ID to prove their identity, and when poll workers confirmed that they did not, O’Keefe’s men insisted on returning to their car to retrieve their ID and returned the ballot.

However, in highlighting the non-problem of voter fraud in New Hampshire and elsewhere, O’Keefe’s agents appear to have committed voter fraud themselves. Section 659:34 of the New Hampshire code defines voter fraud as when a person (highlights are ours):

(a) When registering to vote; when obtaining an official ballot; or when casting a vote by official ballot, makes a false material statement regarding his or her qualifications as a voter to an election officer or submits a voter registration form, and election day registration affidavit, a qualified voter affidavit, a domicile affidavit, or an absentee registration affidavit containing false material information regarding his or her qualifications as a voter;

(b) Votes more than once for any office or measure;
(c) Applies for a ballot in a name other than his or her own;
(d) Applies for a ballot in his or her own name after he or she has voted once;
(e) Votes for any office or measure at an election if such person is not qualified to vote as provided in RSA 654; or
(f) Gives a false name or answer if under examination as to his or her qualifications as a voter before the supervisors of the checklist or moderator.

In the raw footage released by O’Keefe (reproduced below), at 12:32, the poll worker asks the unnamed individual, “what’s your name again?” The man replies with the name of a dead New Hampshire voter, “Thomas McCarron.” She then asks if he lives at “179 Harrison Street?” The man affirms, “yes.”

In another instance, at 5:00, the poll worker checks off the individual’s fake name and says, “that’s you.” He does not correct her, but implicitly affirms the false identity by taking the ballot she hands him.

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South Carolina’s new law requiring voters to provide a photo ID before casting a ballot violates the Voting Rights Act because of its discriminatory impact on racial minorities, which is why the Department of Justice recently prevented the law from going into effect. In response, the state now plans to sue DOJ. The Justice Department found that the law could harm the voting rights of tens of thousands of people, mostly minorities since just over a third of the state’s minorities who are registered voters did not have a driver’s license.

Under the Voting Rights Act, DOJ must approve changes in voting laws in states with discriminatory pasts, including South Carolina. State Attorney General Alan Wilson said he will file a suit against DOJ in the next week or two.

An Associated Press study showed that the voter ID law would hurt black precincts the most in South Carolina, but Wilson disagreed that it would stop voters from voting, according to Reuters:

“I have heard and looked and seen no evidence of voter suppression,” Wilson said of other states that already enforce ID laws. [...]

Republican [Gov. Nikki] Haley said the Justice Department’s decision was part of a “war on South Carolina” by the federal government that included a lawsuit by the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing Co. over its new South Carolina assembly plant, and a federal judge blocking the state’s new immigration restrictions.

“If you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get on a plane, you should have to show a picture ID to do that one thing that is so important to us and that is the right to vote,” Haley said. “This is common sense legislation.”

South Carolina offered one day of free rides to the Department of Motor Vehicles for people to get a free voter ID, and Haley said only 30 people took the state up on the offer. But critics argue many do not have the required documents, like a birth certificate, needed to get the ID and likely did not know about the state’s offer.

Because the administration blocked the voter ID law, it will not be in effect during South Carolina’s presidential primary on January 21.

Following his win in the New Hampshire presidential primary, Mitt Romney announced today that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) endorsed his campaign. Kobach is the anti-immigrant official who drafted Arizona and Alabama’s harmful immigration laws, and who once wrote a book opposing the anti-Apartheid boycott of South Africa. “With Kris on the team, I look forward to working with him to take forceful steps to curtail illegal immigration and to support states like South Carolina and Arizona that are stepping forward to address this problem,” Romney said in press release.

Earlier in the campaign, Romney had sought the endorsement of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who eventually endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry. With Kobach’s support, Romney reinforces his anti-immigrant stances heading into South Carolina, where officials are facing court challenges to the state’s own anti-immigrant law. Kobach praised Romney in a press release:

“We need a president who will finally put a stop to a problem that has plagued our country for a generation: millions of illegal aliens coming into the country and taking jobs from United States citizens and legal aliens, while consuming hundreds of billions of dollars in public benefits at taxpayer expense,” said Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. “Illegal immigration is a nightmare for America’s economy and America’s national security. Mitt Romney is the candidate who will finally secure the borders and put a stop to the magnets, like in-state tuition, that encourage illegal aliens to remain in our country unlawfully.”

Kobach’s statement that Romney would actually “put a stop” to progressive state immigration laws which provide in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants is a great deal more radical than Romney’s previous statements. Romney has left no doubt that he thinks state laws providing this opportunity to the undocumented are wrong, but Kobach now appears to be suggesting that Romney would wield the full power of the federal government’s authority to preempt state laws in order to invalidate existing pro-immigrant laws in the states. This doesn’t just fly in the face of the GOP’s supposed love affair with the Tenth Amendment, it would strip many undocumented residents of states like Texas, who already pay in-state tuition to public universities, of a right they presently enjoy.

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) may have violated his state’s campaign finance law over 1,000 times in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign by failing to properly report contributions, according to a new report.

Wisconsin law requires gubernatorial campaigns to disclose information about contributors who give more than $100. Again and again, Walker appears to have skirted that requirement.

One Wisconsin Now examined the Walker for Governor’s finance records and found 1,115 instances where the campaign received contributions of more than $100 but did not properly disclose who gave the money. In total, “Walker has improperly reported well over $500,000 in contributions from inside and outside of Wisconsin,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. According to the group, which has filed a complaint with the state Government Accountability Board, Walker’s violations could result in a fine of $557,500:

The reporting statutes were enacted to give the public a full and timely picture of who is contributing to political candidates and the interests they may be representing. Lawmakers felt this was particularly important in the days preceding a general or primary election. According to the statutes, each violation of the reporting laws can result in a fine of up to $500, which in Walker’s case could top nearly $557,500.

ThinkProgress reached out to the Walker campaign for comment, but had not heard back by publication time. We will provide an update if they respond to the charge.

One of the few remaining limits on corporations’ power to buy and sell American elections is that corporations are not allowed to give money directly to federal candidates. Citizens United frees them to spend billions of dollars running ads or otherwise trying to change the result of an election to suit their interests, but corporations cutting checks directly to candidates or to political committees such as the Republican National Committee is one of the few things the Supreme Court’s conservatives have not yet imposed upon the country.

If the RNC gets its way, however, that will soon change. In a brief filed yesterday in the Fourth Circuit, the RNC argues that the federal ban on corporate donations is unconstitutional in large part because it applies across the board to all corporations:

Most corporations are not large entities waiting to flood the political system with contributions to curry influence. Most corporations are small businesses. As the Court noted in Citizens United, “more than 75% of corporations whose income is taxed under federal law have less than $1 million in receipts per year,” while “96% of the 3 million businesses that belong to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have fewer than 100 employees.” While the concept of corporate contributions evokes images of organizations like Exxon or Halliburton, with large numbers of shareholders and large corporate treasuries, the reality is that most corporations in the United States are small businesses more akin to a neighborhood store. Yet § 441b does not distinguish between these different types of entities; under § 441b, a corporation is a corporation. As such, it is over-inclusive.

This attempt to make mom and pop stores — as opposed to Halliburton — the face of the RNC’s argument is clever, but it does not change the implications of their argument. If a court accepted the RNC’s argument, it would have to strike down the entire federal ban on corporate donations — leaving Exxon and Halliburton free to give money to any candidate they’d like. Congress might be able to restore part of this ban by enacting legislation. But, of course, that would require any such bill disadvantaging corporations to survive John Boehner’s House and Mitch McConnell’s filibuster.

Moreover, if the court accepts the RNC’s argument, it will effectively destroy any limits on the amount of money wealthy individuals or corporation can give to candidates. In most states, all that is necessary to form a new corporation is to file the right paperwork in the appropriate government office. Moreover, nothing prevents one corporation from owning another corporation. For this reason, a Wall Street tycoon who wanted to give as much as a billion dollars to fund a campaign could do so simply by creating a series of shell corporations that exist for the sole purpose of evading the ban on massive dollar donations to candidates.