State supreme court candidate Harry Lyon (D-AL)

During last March’s primary to select candidates for Alabama’s next chief justice, both major parties embarrassed themselves. Disgraced former Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office for defying a court order to remove an unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building in 2003, defeated incumbent Chief Justice Chuck Malone to receive the Republican Party’s nomination. Meanwhile, Alabama Democrats nominated Harry Lyon, a perennial candidate who called for “public execution” of undocumented immigrants, and who was once shot in the neck after a neighbor caught Lyons pouring chocolate syrup on the neighbor’s car.

In the wake of several hateful anti-gay statements Lyons wrote on his Facebook page, the state’s Democrats are now trying to disqualify him as their candidate:

The Alabama Democratic Party plans a hearing in Birmingham on Friday to discuss the possible disqualification of Harry Lyon, currently the party’s candidate for Chief Justice, and Lyon said he believes the party will drop him from the ballot.

The body of evidence submitted in the show-cause letter includes inflammatory comments made about gays on his Facebook page, but Bradley Davidson, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, said Monday evening that the move was chiefly because of incidents that indicate “a lack of self-control and bizarre behavior.” . . .

In comments made on Facebook, Lyon called homosexuals and those who support same-sex marriage “an abomination of God.”

In another statement, Lyon said that “only sick and perverted persons believe in homosexuality or lesbianism, though there are a lot of them.” In another instance, Lyon, using a derogatory term for gays, asked those who believe in homosexuality to “delist” him.

Republican candidate Roy Moore has made similarly bigoted comments. In one 2002 opinion, then Chief Justice Moore even suggested that gay people should be executed. According to Moore, “[t]o disfavor practicing homosexuals in custody matters is not invidious discrimination, nor is it legislating personal morality. . . . The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle.”

Almost 100 people protested against Mitt Romney’s extreme immigration policies outside of a campaign fundraiser the GOP presidential candidate attended at The Club, a private dining club in Birmingham, Alabama. The exclusive, 60-year-old restaurant requires a membership, and applicants must be sponsored by a current member and provide a picture with their application. Attendees at the Romney fundraiser paid as much as $25,000 to share dinner with Romney.

Before the event’s attendees reached the fundraiser, they passed the mostly Hispanic crowd chanting outside of the exclusive restaurant’s gates:

When Romney drove by at 4:45 p.m. only a handful of protestors had gathered and the candidate did not stop, but by 5:15 local protestors and a charter bus load from Decatur had arrived. They called out “No Papers, No Fear” and “Education not Deportation.”

The protest rally preceding Romney’s event was organized by the Immigrant Youth Leadership Initiative of Alabama and was held because Wednesday was the first day that undocumented immigrant youth brought to this country by their parents could apply for Deferred Action from deportation, an Obama administration policy that will allow such youth to obtain permits and work legally in the the U.S.

Romney still has refused to say if he would undo President Obama’s immigration directive protecting DREAM Act-eligible young adults from deportation, although a co-chair of his campaign said Romney would “rescind” the policy. During the GOP primary, Romney often staked out the most extreme immigration positions of any one of the GOP candidates, and his immigration advisers include the anti-immigrant official who wrote Alabama and Arizona’s immigration laws.

Yesterday Alabama filed suit in federal court asking for approval of the state’s redistricting plan. Alabama is one of nine states with a history of discrimination that the Voting Rights Act requires to get preclearance before making any changes to election procedures. Usually the states ask the Justice Department, but Alabama decided to go straight to federal court.

The suit asks a panel of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to declare that Alabama’s redistricing plan, approved by the legislature in May, does not deny or abridge the right to vote based on race or color. Alternatively, Alabama is asking the panel to decide that Section 5, the preclearance provision, of the VRA is unconstitutional.

Alabama and several other Southern states or counties need federal approval for election changes under the 1965 Voting Rights Act because of their histories of voter discrimination.

Thursday’s lawsuit from Alabama also takes aim at that requirement: If the court doesn’t grant a declaratory judgment, Alabama argues it should find the preclearance provision and its 2006 amendments unconstitutional.

Democrats in the legislature argue that the redistricting plan discriminates against voters of color in an attempt to favor Republicans.

Senate Minority Leader Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, said the attorney general’s office wants to avoid the justice department’s preclearance process because the Legislature “passed a racially gerrymandered plan.”

“It’s a ridiculous waste of taxpayer’s money,” Bedford said of the lawsuit. He said Republicans are trying to circumvent the way voting changes have been approved in Alabama for the last 40 years.

Section 5 was last upheld by the Supreme Cour in 2009, but was left in a precarious position by Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority decision. Roberts noted that Section 5 is a significant intrusion on state and local rights and responsibilities and concluded that the VRA itself now “raises serious constitutional questions.” Because some of the discriminatory conditions that originally necessitated the VRA have improved, the significant burdens imposed by preclearance requirements may no longer be justified.

Two challenges to the VRA have reached the Supreme Court and are expected to be taken up next term. There have been more challenges to the Voting Rights Act in the past two years than in the previous 45

–Alex Brown

South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Michael Nettles

Circuit Court Judge Michael Nettles of Rock Hill has included in his sentencing of Cassandra Tolley the assignment of reading through the Book of Job and then writing a summary on the Old Testament Scripture.

Cassandra Tolley was convicted of drunk driving after she drove down the wrong side of the road and plowed into an oncoming car, seriously injuring two men. Her blood alcohol content was more than four times the legal limit.

Tolley undoubtedly deserved a stiff sentence, but sentencing someone to a religious activity clearly violates the Constitution’s ban on laws “respecting an establishment of religion.” As conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in Lee v. Weisman, “[i]t is beyond dispute that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise.”

Nettles’ biography on the South Carolina Judicial Department website lists his involvement with the Lake City First Baptist Church and his membership in the Foreign Missions Team.

Religion has clashed with the rule of law plenty of times before, though rarely during sentencing. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from his office in 2003 for refusing to comply with a federal court order to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments in front of the courthouse.

All loving Christians are invited to celebrate the word of God at Rev. William Collier’s annual conference — that is, as long and they are white.

Collier’s Alabama town is outraged over the flyer for his pastors’ conference, which specifies “All White Christians Invited.” The town’s mayor is renouncing the Reverend, saying that such hate speech is unwelcome in the town. But Collier defended the flyer this week, saying that he isn’t a racist — just that “the white race is God’s chosen people”:

The organizer of the event, Rev. William C. Collier says that his Church of God’s Chosen (Christian Identity Ministries) is not a hate group but adds that he believes “the white race is God’s chosen people.”

Collier defends why only white Christians are invited.

“We don’t have the facilities to accommodate other people. We haven’t got any invitations to black, Muslim events. Of course we are not invited to Jewish events and stuff,” Collier said.

Collier does not specify what sort of special “facilities” people of color may need, but the line harkens back to old southern segregation, when water fountains and bathrooms had “whites only” signs similar to Collier’s flyer.

The church hosting the conference is named Christian Identity Ministries. This is the third annual conference — and the Ku Klux Klan is among the attendees this year. The founder of the church, Rev. Mel Lewis, complained that this year’s uproar shows a disrespect for religious liberty.

Conservative officials are disenfranchising voters across the country through voter ID laws that could prevent up to 3 million voters from casting a ballot and Florida’s voter purge that continues even though Justice Department officials say it is illegal. Now another state is stopping voters by not providing voter registration information.

According to national voting rights and civil rights groups, Alabama agencies are failing to follow a federal law requiring that state offices provide voter registration materials to residents who seek government assistance.The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 states that all applicants for public assistance must be given voter registration applications, but a coalition including Demos, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Project Vote said their investigation and interviews found that state Department of Human Resources (DHR) and Medicaid offices are not complying with this law.

A DHR spokeswoman said it was the department’s policy to provide voter registration, but in a letter to Alabama Secretary of State Beth Chapman (R), the coalition outlines how this policy is not being followed:

“According to U.S. Election Assistance Commission data, the number of voter registration applications submitted at Alabama public assistance offices decreased by more than 75 percent from its peak in 1995-1996 to the most recent reporting period of 2009-2010,” the group wrote in its letter to Chapman.

“This drop in voter registrations is particularly significant given that the number of initial food stamp applications in Alabama during the same time frame increased by 60 percent.”

The letter also describes visits to DHR offices in 20 counties by investigators who found half the offices did not have applications available and could not provide them when requested. Three-quarters of the offices provided information only when clients asked. In one case an investigator was told to go to the courthouse to register and another office told an investigator it hadn’t done voter registration in seven to 10 years.

The groups asked Chapman to explain how the state would fix this problem and comply with federal law. If a plan has not been developed in 90 days, they say they will sue the state.

It has been one year since Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed HB 56, the nation’s most harmful immigration measure, into law. He praised the bill after signing it on June 9, 2011, calling it the “toughest bill in the country.”

Shortly after some of immigration provisions went into effect in September, the widespread damage from the law was obvious. By December, even Bentley admitted that HB 56 “need[s] revision,” although it would be months before lawmakers took action. Courts temporarily blocked parts of HB 56, but not before students were too scared to go to school and families were denied utilities:

• Attack On School Children: Politicians readily admitted that the goal of HB 56 was to make Alabama a hostile place for undocumented immigrants, but as a result, families have fled the state out of fear, leaving schools with high absenteeism rates among Hispanic students. HB 56 required schools only to check the immigration status of all newly enrolled students, and 13 percent of Latino students dropped out by February, likely out of fear.
• Families Denied Water, Food Stamps: Because of a provision of the immigration law preventing contracts between the state and undocumented immigrants, public utility companies have denied service to anyone who cannot prove they are a citizen or legally in the United States, effectively making it a felony for undocumented immigrants to take a bath in their own homes. No other state or developed nation has a ban this extreme on contracting with undocumented immigrants. Beyond public utilities, this “business transaction” ban led some U.S.-born children to be denied food stamps simply because their parents were undocumented immigrants.
• Economic Damage: After families fled the state out of fear, farmers watched their crops rot without enough workers to help harvest, and some said they were at risk of losing their farms. And owners of poultry processing plants and catfish farms said they have lost workers and are having trouble replacing the workers who left. It’s estimated that HB 56 could cost Alabama as many as 100,000 jobs and billions in GDP losses, but the law’s author still said it has no “negative impact.”
• Embarrassing Arrests: HB 56 turned into a PR nightmare for the state when police arrested a German Mercedes Benz employee for not having the right documents when he was pulled over in November. The charges were later dropped, but almost two weeks later, police also arrested a Japanese Honda employee for being in violation of HB 56 while driving even though he reportedly had his passport and international driver’s license. Charges were later dropped as well.

During the 2012 legislative session, Alabama legislators finally had the opportunity to address these glaring issues. But instead of repealing HB 56 or even taking out the worst provisions, like asking school children about their immigration status, lawmakers doubled down and made the immigration law even worse. Undocumented immigrants are still barred from renting property, and law enforcement officials can still check immigration status based on a “reasonable suspicion.”

Briefly, Alabama’s governor stood up to the anti-immigrant supporters of HB 56 and threatened to veto the proposed changes if they did not take out the requirement that schools check immigration status. But he eventually caved and signed the changes, which have one bright spot: legislators clarified what is a “business transaction” so that people are not blocked from having water in their homes.

Alabama did not learn the lessons of Arizona about the problems that result from these extreme immigration laws that do nothing but hurt the state. Now it’s serving as a lesson for other states who do not want to make the same mistake as Alabama’s lawmakers.