Post 6

High court to look at state immigration laws

By MARK SHERMAN | AP – 40 mins ago

Related Content

• 
  Demonstrators yell at police officers during a protest against Arizona's controversial …

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on Arizona's controversial law targeting illegal immigrants.

The justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked several tough provisions in the Arizona law. One of those requires that police, while enforcing other laws, question a person's immigration status if officers suspect he is in the country illegally.

The Obama administration challenged the Arizona law by arguing that regulating immigration is the job of the federal government, not states. Similar laws in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah also are facing administration lawsuits. Private groups are suing over immigration measures adopted in Georgia and Indiana.

The court now has three politically charged cases on its election-year calendar. The other two are President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and new electoral maps for Texas' legislature and congressional delegation.

Justice Elena Kagan will not take part in the Arizona case, presumably because of her work on the issue when she served in the Justice Department.

Arguments probably will take place in late April, which would give the court roughly two months to decide the case.

The immigration case stems from the administration's furious legal fight against a patchwork of state laws targeting illegal immigrants.

Arizona wants the justices to allow the state to begin enforcing measures that have been blocked by lower courts at the administration's request.

The state says that the federal government isn't doing enough to address illegal immigration and that border states are suffering disproportionately.

In urging the court to hear the immigration case, Arizona says the administration's contention that states "are powerless to use their own resources to enforce federal immigration standards without the express blessing of the federal executive goes to the heart of our nation's system of dual sovereignty and cooperative federalism."

Many other state and local governments have taken steps aimed at reducing the effects of illegal immigration, the state says.

But the administration argues that the various legal challenges making their way through the system provide a reason to wait and see how other courts rule.

In April, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge's ruling halting enforcement of several provisions of Arizona's S.B. 1070. Among the blocked provisions: requiring all immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers; making it a state criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job; and allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without a warrant.

In October, the federal appeals court in Atlanta blocked parts of the Alabama law that forced public schools to check the immigration status of students and allowed police to file criminal charges against people who are unable to prove their citizenship.

Lawsuits in South Carolina and Utah are not as far along.

The case is Arizona v.U.S., 11-182.

Assignment1

1.  Vocabulary--identify and define words you do not know.
2.  Write a two paragraph summary in your own words of this article
3.  Do you agree that illegal immigration is a problem?  If so, do you agree with the Arizona laws requiring the police to ask for identification for anything, even a parking ticket?

 

 

[

 

•  

Power to the People: Outrage Over Insider Trading Puts STOCK Act on Fast Track

On Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee is slated to hold a hearing on the STOCK Act - short for Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act.

The bill, which has languished since first being introduced in 2006, now has over 150 sponsors and the Senate held its first-ever hearing on related legislation last week.

"We've had a lot of recent converts now that the public knows what's going on," quips Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out, a book which -- along with a subsequent 60 Minutes profile -- helped focus the nation's attention on the trading activities of sitting members of Congress.

According to both Schweizer and separate university studies, sitting members of Congress have outperformed the market by 6% to 12% in the 1980s and 1990s. Another study contradicts that claim. Andrew Eggers of Yale University and Jens Hainmueller of MIT examined the stock portfolios of members of Congress between 2004 and 2008 and found the country's representatives "unperformed the market by 2-3% annually" during that period.

But whether elected officials outperform or trail the market is almost beside the point: Americans overwhelmingly believe insider trading by members of Congress needs to stop.

"To me it's a little encouraging," Schweizer says of Congress' sudden interest in the STOCK Act. "It shows if the American people are angry about something...there is an opportunity to effect change in a positive way that's not partisan one way or the other."

While encouraged by support for the STOCK Act, which he believes will pass, Schweizer says other reforms are necessary, just as mandating sitting members of Congress use blind trusts for their portfolios. (See: 'Throw Them All Out' Author Says STOCK Act Won't Stop Pols' Insider Trades)

As a fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institute, editor at the right-leaning Breitbart.com and adviser to Sarah Palin's PAC, Schweizer's political affiliations are pretty obvious. Still, he is bipartisan in criticizing insider trading by politicians.

Among other Republicans, he cites Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Al.) for allegedly shorting the market after privately meeting with Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Rep. Bachus, who claims the book has "several major and serious untruths and outright factual errors about me," will chair Tuesday's House hearing on the STOCK Act, which should make for some very interesting testimony.

For the record, Schweizer did not be testify at last week's Senate hearing nor is he scheduled to appear at Tuesday's House hearing in part, he suspects, because he's 'named names.'
Aaron Task is the host of The Daily Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter

Assignment 4

1.  List words you did not know with definitions
2.  Write a two paragraph summary of what this article is about
3.  What's your opinion?  Should all elected officials have their money in blind trusts, as the author of the book Throw Them All Out believes?  Write a two paragraph argument for or against the STOCK Act..