Jake Tapper: Where Is The Discrimination Charge In The AZ Lawsuit?
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 9:30AM I really like Jake Tapper. The guy plays it as straight down the middle as any mainstream media reporter. Yesterday he happened to note the lack of a discrimination charge in the federal lawsuit brought against Arizona. After all, that's what the case was built upon in the press. This from Tapper:
Jake Tapper, ABC NewsAs widely anticipated, Attorney General Eric Holder today filed a lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer over the state’s immigration law. The suit seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the law from being implemented.
The court filing states that Arizona law is pre-empted by federal law and therefore violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The filing makes no assertion that the law is discriminatory or risks being applied in a discriminatory fashion, as the president and other officials said they feared would be the case. Interestingly, this suit makes no civil rights charges against the Arizona law.
You can read the complaint HERE and the preliminary injunction brief HERE.
“The State of Arizona has crossed this constitutional line,” write Assistant Attorney General Tony West, United States Attorney Dennis K. Burke and others. “In acknowledged disagreement with the manner in which the federal government has regulated immigration and in contravention of these constitutional principles…The states are not permitted to set their own independent immigration policies, with varying and potentially conflicting enforcement systems and priorities. Were a number of states to act as Arizona has and strike out on their own, federal immigration policy and enforcement efforts would be crippled.”
The suit states that the Arizona law pursues only the goal of “attrition” while ignoring other objectives Congress has established for the federal immigration system.
You can read more about the lawsuit in THIS PIECE by Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.
Reader Comments (2)
Totally agree Pundit, Tapper is stand up. For all I know he is a liberal Democrat, but you'd have to look awfully hard to find any bias in his reporting. He seems to take it to Democrats as hard as Republicans.
Tapper is solid. The Obama administration sucks. Simple as that.