One year after the passage of SB 1070, it is clear that the momentum and the people are still with Arizona. While most political observers gloated that they did not expect another state to pass the bill just a few months ago, Arizona modeled legislation passed the Georgia and Alabama legislature with the two governors of the two states indicating they will sign the legislation.
Americans still overwhelmingly support the legislation, and so now the biggest obstacle has become activist courts.
Earlier this month, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier injunction against SB 1070. These activist decisions demonstrate the complete contempt that many federal judges have for the Constitution and the democratic process.
Unfortunately, judges all too frequently abuse their power to impose their own agenda. The 9th Circuit is widely held as the most activist court in the nation and even ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
Yet the decision against SB 1070 went a step further in that the judges explicitly appealed to their own ideological and political concerns, and went as far as to cite the views of anti-American dictators as a justification for subverting the rule of law.
Justice Richard Paez, who wrote the decision, argued that the law has “created actual foreign policy problems.” Among the “problems” he cited was the disapproval of the Mexican government, the United Nations Human Rights commissioners, the government of Bolivia, and the Organization of American States.
What he does not mention is that the United Nations commission includes dictatorships like Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Cuba is also a member of the Organization of American States, as are the socialist dictatorships of Bolivia, and Venezuela.
The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Cuba for over fifty years. In 2008, Bolivian President Evo Morales said that all Latin American nations should expel American ambassadors and cheered on a mob who tried to burn down our embassy. He said, “I don’t mind being a permanent nightmare for the United States.”
Venezuela’s dictator Hugo Chavez has spewed so much anti-American rhetoric that even Barack Obama expelled their ambassador just three months ago. Chavez had called Bush the “devil” and Obama “Satan.”
The idea that the SB 1070 will affect our relationships with this country is preposterous.
Judge John Noonan wrote a concurring opinion against Arizona in which he argued that SB 1070 would upset our relations with Mexico, which he called a “policy…of cordiality, friendship and cooperation.”