CAC President Doug Kendall: “By following the Constitution’s balance of powers today, the court handed Tea Party politicians like Gov. Jan Brewer and Senator Russell Pearce a stinging defeat.”

    Washington, DC – On news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked enforcement of key provisions of SB 1070, Arizona’s anti-immigration law, Constitutional Accountability Center President Doug Kendall released the following statement:

    “The Ninth Circuit appropriately held that major parts of SB 1070 are unconstitutional because they inappropriately interfere with the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration and naturalization issues. Both Judge Paez’s opinion for the court and Judge Noonan’s concurrence appropriately emphasize that the federal government’s powers are particularly sweeping when it comes to foreign affairs. Indeed, as explained in Constitutional Accountability Center’s brief, Congress’ constitutional power to make a ‘uniform rule of naturalization’ is one of the few places where the Constitution makes absolutely clear that the federal government’s power is exclusive. As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 32: ‘if each state had the power to prescribe a DISTINCT RULE, there could be no UNIFORM RULE.’ (emphasis in original).

    “By following the Constitution’s balance of powers today, the court handed anti-immigration Tea Party politicians such as Gov. Jan Brewer and Senator Russell Pearce a well-deserved, but still stinging defeat.”

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Resources:

Brief of Constitutional Accountability Center in U.S. v. Arizona: http://theusconstitution.org/cases/briefs/us-v-arizona/9th-circuit-amicus-brief-us-v-az

Issue Brief, Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel, Constitutional Accountability Center, “Born Under the Constitution: Why Recent Attacks On Birthright Citizenship Are Unfounded,” http://www.acslaw.org/publications/issue-briefs/born-under-the-constitution-why-recent-attacks-on-birthright-citizenship-a

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

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