As the immigration reform debate heats up, private prison executives have made it clear that they are monitoring how it will affect their rates of incarceration. During a call with investors last week, Corrections Corporation of America CEO assured investors that there will “always be demand for beds”, reflecting concern that incarceration rates will actually go down. With many elements of reform left on the negotiating table, the Columbia Journalism Review is showing just how much money the two major private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, have invested in the outcome:

Some of the politicians who have benefited most from this largesse are influential Senators who are now playing key roles in shaping proposed immigration reform legislation.

Among members of Congress, the top two recipients of contributions from CCA are its home-state senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee. The Republican lawmakers, each of whom has received more than $50,000 from CCA according to data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation, represent important swing votes for advancing a reform bill through the Senate. Another top CCA recipient is Arizona Republican John McCain, who has gotten $32,146 from CCA and is a member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” that is working to draft legislation. His fellow Gang of Eight member, Marco Rubio, ranks among the top recipients of contributions from the Florida-based GEO Group, receiving $27,300 in donations over the course of his career.

In recent years, each of these senators has sponsored bills that would have increased the detention and incarceration of immigrants. Legislation put forward by Alexander in 2009, for example, would have provided for “increased alien detention facilities.” And a 2011 bill cosponsored by McCain and Rubio sought to expand Operation Streamline, a federal enforcement program that makes illegal entry a criminal offense in some jurisdictions.

Skyrocketing immigration detention numbers are attributable in part to programs like Operation Streamline and Secure Communities, which link criminal activity to immigration status. But they are also linked to record deportations, as many facing removal are subject to mandatory detention while proceedings are pending, leaving judges no discretion to decide whether to release them.

A McCain spokesman told CJR that McCain stands by Operation Streamline, and that he expects it to continue whether or not comprehensive immigration is implemented “because it works.” According to ColorLines, Democratic staffers are concerned that negotiations will lead to an expansion of Operation Streamline and other programs that detain and criminalize immigrants in exchange for support on other core elements of reform.

Immigration detention has more than doubled private prison profits since 1995, and these corporations have not been shy about using their influence to lobby for incarceration-friendly policies, despite claims from both Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group that they do not take official positiions on issues. Those sentenced for immigration offenses make up one of the fastest-growing segments of the United States’ overflowing federal prison population.

After President Obama won the state in November, Virginia Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli (R) called for stricter photo ID requirements because Obama “can’t win a state where photo ID is required.” On Wednesday, Virginia lawmakers proved they were listening to Cuccinelli, voting to adopt a photo ID requirement among the strictest in the country.

During the 2012 election cycle, voter ID laws were a huge hit with Republican-controlled state legislatures — but somewhat less popular with the courts. Judges struck down a number of voter ID laws due to the disproportionate impact they would have for minorities, seniors, and low-income voters. Virginia’s voter ID law was one of the few that survived review by the Justice Department, as its list of acceptable ID was flexible enough that it would not harm minority voting rights.

If Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) signs these new requirements into law, voters will have to present a government-issued card bearing their photo, such as a drivers license or a passport. If they do not have a photo ID, they will have to fill out a provisional ballot that will be discarded if they cannot produce the required ID by the Friday after an election:

On a 65-34 vote, the House completed legislative action on a strict photo identification bill that would require all voters to present identification such as a drivers license or passport bearing a photo of the holder to cast a regular ballot. Those without it would have to vote a provisional ballot that would count only if the voter could provide local election officials with the required identification by noon on the Friday after the election. Only one Democrat supported the measure.

An almost identical measure was blocked in Texas under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain regions with a history of discrimination to “pre-clear” any election law changes with the DOJ. An appeals court determined Texas’ law would clearly hurt minority and low-income communities, who are much less likely to have the requisite identification. Under Section 5, Virginia’s new requirements would almost certainly be blocked by the DOJ. However, the US Supreme Court will hear arguments next week on the validity of this section of the VRA. If the court strikes down Section 5, minority voters will be left vulnerable in Virginia, Texas, and other states that targeted minority voting power during the Jim Crow era.

Earlier this month, Virginians endured colossal lines on Election Day, with some voters still waiting hours after polls officially closed. Still, lawmakers seem convinced that voting is too easy in Virginia. On Wednesday, the House also passed a bill to purge any non-citizens on Virginia’s voter rolls by accessing a federal immigration database. Florida and Colorado fought costly legal battles for access to this same database, but failed to find almost any confirmed non-citizen voters.

INDIANOLA, Iowa — Republicans have offered a number of reasons why they oppose the Violence Against Women Act. Some think it’s unconstitutional. Others argue that it’s just a meaningless bill with a patriotic title.

On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) added a new one: Native Americans supposedly aren’t capable of holding fair trials.

Last week, Grassley was one of just 22 senators—all Republican men—who voted against reauthorizing VAWA. During a town hall meeting in Indianola on Wednesday, a woman asked him to explain his vote. Grassley responded that the legislation is unconstitutional, a belief shared by at least five of his colleagues.

Since the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to a trial among a jury of peers, Grassley reasoned that white men would be deprived of their rights if those who were accused of violence against Native American women had to appear in a tribal court. “On an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right?” Grassley said. “So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.”

GRASSLEY: One provision that non-Native Americans can be tried in tribal court. And why is that a big thing? Because of the constitutionality of it, for two reasons. One, you know how the law is, that if you have a jury, the jury is supposed to be a reflection of society. [...] So you get non-Indians, let me say to make it easy, you get non-Indians going into a reservation and violating a woman. They need to be prosecuted. They aren’t prosecuted. So the idea behind [VAWA] is we’ll try them in tribal court. But under the laws of our land, you got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole, and on an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.

Watch it:

There is actually no requirement that juries reflect “society as a whole.” The Sixth Amendment requires juries to be drawn from the “State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and Supreme Court decisions establish that criminal defendants also have a right to a jury which is “drawn from a fair cross section of the community,” where the trial court convenes to hear their case. But this does not entitle anyone to be tried by a jury that reflects the whole of American society.

A person who is tried in Vermont is likely to have an all-white jury because over 95 percent of Vermont is white. Similarly, a person who commits a crime in the Navajo Nation will face a jury of Native Americans because the population of the local community is made up of Navajo people. There is no reason to believe that Navajo jurors are any less impartial than white Vermonters, and Grassley is wrong to suggest otherwise.

Grassley went to great lengths to tell attendees that he had supported VAWA in the past. “I support 98 percent of what’s in the bill,” he said. If it weren’t for his belief that Native Americans’ are incapable of conducting a fair trial, perhaps he would have voted for it again.

If you want Congress to reauthorize VAWA, sign ThinkProgress’ petition here.

Among a slate of far-reaching gun bills that cleared the Montana House Judiciary Committee this week was one that takes defiance of federal authority far beyond the Second Amendment context. The “Sheriffs First” bill would require federal agents to seek county sheriffs’ permission before enforcing any federal law, and empowers those sheriffs to arrest federal agents who don’t comply for kidnapping. The bill also mandates county attorneys to prosecute any claim by a sheriff against a federal official. Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reports:

The proposal already passed both houses of the legislature once, in 2011, but was vetoed by then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat. This time [Gary] Marbut, the Montana gun lobbyist and aspiring firearms manufacturer who wrote the bill, is hoping Montana voters will determine the fate of his legislation. If passed, the latest version of the Sheriffs First measure would become a ballot question in November of 2014. […]

For Marbut, a prolific lobbyist who has written 58 pro-gun bills that made it into law, the referendum would have an added benefit. An earlier law he wrote, which blocks the federal government from regulating in-state gun manufacturing, is tied up in the courts. But if his “Sheriffs first” measure became a reality, that would become an afterthought.

The ATF might say “We have probable cause to believe that we have this person in your county who’s making firearms without a license,” Marbut explains. “And the sheriff might say, ‘Well, gosh, under the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, that’s protected activity in Montana, so you don’t have my permission for this bust.”

In case it wasn’t clear to state legislators that the bill is blatantly unconstitutional and amounts to all-out revolt against our federal-state system, an official legal review explicitly warns that this violates of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which asserts that federal law trumps state law to the extent that they conflict. The analysis even cites a 1913 case in which the Supreme Court said that state law is preempted where, as here, “compliance with both federal and state regulation is a physical impossibility.” The document also links to a more in-depth analysis by the South Carolina Attorney General of a similar 2011 bill in that state, which adds that the mandatory prosecution of any claim by the county sheriff is a violation of separation of powers principles.

In a response, Marbut cautions the attorney who authored the memo to “be careful about any claim that LC 1040 is unconstitutional,” making the remarkable argument that the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause is entirely void because it conflicts with the subsequently passed Tenth Amendment.

The “Sheriffs First” bill is one of a number of unconstitutional state bills that have threatened to flout federal authority, through nullification of federal gun laws, discretion to nullify any laws they don’t like, and criminalizing federal enforcement of gun laws. The bill also tracks a movement by county sheriffs who have refused to enforce federal gun laws on the belief they are the highest law enforcement authorities – above federal authorities.
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Countless individuals have publicly attested to medical marijuana’s singular effectiveness in alleviating pain, nausea and other suffering. But to those who doubt the credibility of those sources, along comes a tough-on-crime prosecutor. Former U.S. Attorney Mel McDonald, who was a self-professed drug warrior when he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, is now coming out as an avid supporter of medical marijuana. In a YouTube video, he explains his son’s medical transformation after trying the substance:

On August 8, 1997, my stepson Bennett Black was involved in an accident in Gilbert, Arizona. He was crossing the street on a go-pad and was hit by a vehicle going 45 miles an hour. Since 1998, he has had dozens upon dozens of seizures involving epilepsy. There is constant 24-hour nausea. My son had gone from 180 pounds to 119, was literally starving to death. A dear friend had given him some marijuana, illegal at the time, to use thinking that that marijuana would help his condition.

With all of the medicines that we’ve used since 1997, not one has ever been able to solve the problem of the deep and acute nausea other than marijuana. Do not criminalize people that are desperately needing medicine to help them eat and remain alive. Don’t criminalize it and force people like my wife to go underground and to commit crimes to spare the life of her son.

WATCH IT:

McDonald’s state of Arizona now has a medical marijuana law and dispensaries are just starting to emerge, although medical marijuana remains federally illegal. But the video is being circulated after a Republican lawmaker sponsored a ballot initiative to repeal the state’s law. The law is also embroiled in litigation over whether it is preempted by federal law, after Maricopa County appealed a ruling that the law is constitutional.

McDonald, also a former judge and law professor, has become a vocal advocate over the past few weeks, aiming to dispel stereotypes about the types of people who support medical marijuana. In an interview with the Huffington Post, he explains:

Marijuana is the one plant out there that solves enormous problems for people with not only a seizure disorder like my son, but also with cancer and other illness. What I’ve tried to do is to become a vocal proponent that this is not contrived. You don’t have to be riding a skateboard with long hair and be a hippy to realize that there are genuine people that need this. And people that take efforts to block it … [are] just wrong.

CHARITON, Iowa — During a town hall on Wednesday, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee embraced the reasoning behind the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing a woman’s choice to get an abortion, although he did not appear aware of the significance of his statement.

Speaking to a small group of constituents in rural Chariton, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was asked about a Facebook rumor that the government would soon be implanting microchips in children and government workers in order to track their health records. After informing the constituent that the claim had no merit, Grassley continued by endorsing the same “right to privacy” that was the backbone of Roe v. Wade and similar decisions.

CONSTITUENT: They’re saying that they’re going to start, in 2013, putting microchips in government workers and then any kid that enrolls in school, starting in pre-school, will have a microchip implanted in them so that they can track them. [...] Is that true?

GRASSLEY: No. First of all, nothing can be done to your body without your permission. It’d be a violation of the constitutional right to privacy if that were to happen.

Watch it:

The constitutional right to privacy that Grassley refers to is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, but Roe concluded that it is one of the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that states many not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Anti-choice advocates, such as Justice Antonin Scalia, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), all contend that women should be stripped of their ability to get an abortion because, in Scalia’s words, “there’s no right to privacy in the Constitution — no generalized right to privacy.”

Of course, Grassley remains a staunch opponent of a woman’s right to choose, receiving a “0” pro-choice score from NARAL in 2011. But for the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to confirm that the Constitution does, indeed, include a right to privacy is a major concession undercutting conservatives’ legal argument for overturning Roe.