This week the Homeland Security Department released a memo outlining ongoing terror threats and new ones that are developing.
Within hours the right was all over the document, and distorting it in misleading and terrible ways.
Well, let me defend the memo and the department and its chief, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.
First, let's address the whole issue of domestic versus foreign terrorism. Despite what you may have heard, nowhere does the memo suggest that we should be any less vigilant on the issue of foreign terrorists. We still live in a world containing people outside the United States who want to kill Americans and the memorandum says nothing to downplay that fact.
It does however highlight domestic terrorism as the fastest growing terror threat at this time. If anything, I'd think the right would be taking plaudits and repeating their oft-repeated assertion that this shows that the Bush administration's policy against foreign terrorists worked, at least inside the United States. And while I may feel that some of the tactics employed by the Bush administration may have been unnecessarily intrusive and a violation of civil rights (such as the right to search your home when you are not present and without presenting a warrant) I'm willing to give them credit in that attacks by foreign terrorists since 9/11 have all occurred outside rather than inside the United States.
But the right chooses to go after the whole 'domestic terrorist' argument as an attack on them. Where does it say that? The memo is about growing terrorist threats, and nowhere does it suggest that anyone who speaks out peacefully against the administration is a threat.
It does go into some detail about the profile of people that domestic terror groups are looking to recruit. One sentence states that returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are more likely to be recruited by these groups because they value their weapons training and combat experience. Unfortunately the right has turned this on its ear and said that the memo claims that veterans are now being called terrorists. House Republican Leader John Boehner called the language 'offensive' and demanded an apology. The commander of the American Legion demanded that that section of the document be retracted. Napolitano has contacted him to set up a meeting to discuss the issue. However the interpretation that the memorandum calls veterans domestic terrorsts is a gross distortion. For one thing, the memo says that these groups are looking to recruit returning veterans. Obviously if you are recruiting someone they are not yet a member of your organization. Further, it is a fact that all terrorist organizations (foreign or domestic) need to recruit people and if you know who they want to recruit then you can take advantage of that knowledge (for example if the FBI wants to infiltrate a domestic terror group then they would probably start by looking for agents that fit the profile of who the group is recruiting.) Saying that domestic terror groups look to recruit veterans is no more an indictment of veterans than for example the statement that al-Qaeda likes to recruit young unemployed muslims is an indictment of all young unemployed muslims (at least not to any rational person-- maybe the right does read it that way since some of them actually do believe that all young unemployed muslims are therefore terrorists.)
The memo goes on to discuss a number of specific issue-indentified terror threats, most notably militant anti-abortion groups or individuals. From this, the right has twisted it to claim that anyone who expresses a pro-life opinion on abortion is therefore being tarred as a terrorist. Which is of course ridiculous. Nothing in the memo says any such thing, but it is a fact that we live in a nation in which several doctors have been murdered and numerous abortion clinics have been bombed. This is terrorism, plain and simple, and if the right can't figure out the difference between a pastor who uses his First Amendment right to speak out against abortion and Eric Robert Rudolf, then they are either stupid or are being wilfully ignorant. The Homeland Security Department is concerned with preventing acts of violence, and if there is an increased potential for violence from anti-abortion extremists then it is the responsibility of the deparment to recognize that and take action to prevent it. The memo isn't about shutting anybody up, it's about stopping terrorists before they strike.
And that is the crux of the problem. If this memorandum was never issued and a terrorist attack occurred then the department would be attacked for never delving into the groups that carried it out (just as the right used the occasion of the Oklahoma City Bombing to jump all over the Clinton administration for supposedly weakening domestic surveillance and not looking closer at those kinds of groups after Waco.)
Incidentally the same memorandum suggests that left-wing extremists are more likely to be involved with cyberterrorism. I'm not sure how come computer literate people on the left are more likely to engage in malicious hacking than computer literate people on the right, but I am throwing that in to show the contrast-- for the most part the righties are assuming this memo targets them and are ignoring that section of the document, except for a couple of talk radio heads who have instead jumped on it as what they claim is 'the only thing in it that is true.' You can't win with this paranoid, xenophobic crowd.
I would like to conclude that I believe that it was a mistake to put FEMA under the auspices of the Homeland Security Department. DHS is tasked with stopping terrorism before it happens, not picking up the pieces afterward. That is what FEMA does, but if DHS does its job well then FEMA will be able to concentrate on natural disasters.
But instead of 'you're doing a great job, Brownie' apparently the reaction of the right to the memo put out by DHS is that they are baking something into the brownies.
Showing posts with label Janet Napolitano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Janet Napolitano. Show all posts
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Governor should reconsider her prison transfer plan
The Governor's office has put forward a plan to reduce overcrowding in state prisons and save money by sending some prison inmates to county jails around the state.
I think it's a terrible plan, and I have to take issue with her office on this one, even though most of the time I've been supportive of the Governor's initiatives.
First of all, there is overcrowding in state prisons. However there is also overcrowding in county jails (that is certainly true here in Navajo county, where the jail is often full.) It is certainly true that a lot of prisoners don't need to be locked up and there are alternative forms of sentencing (and I wrote a post questioning whether all the people we incarcerate should be just a couple of months ago) but foisting the problem of which prisoners to keep in prison and which can be released to probation or some other status onto counties is the same kind of 'pass the buck' approach that we've seen at times from Washington and trying to make the problem 'local' does not constitute a solution. Looking at and modernizing sentencing guidelines is actually something that we should be doing both on a state and national level, but that isn't something that this plan does anything to address.
Cost is another issue. The state paying counties to house prison inmates is nothing new, and most county jails now include some state inmates. In general however these inmates are subject to careful monitoring, and the money that the state pays the counties is spent paying the extra costs. But with the significant number of new prisoners that are being recommended for transfer, it is likely that many counties will have to expand their facilities and hire more staff, and so far there is no indication that any money that the state sends them will be sufficient to cover all of this.
The most damning issue, in my opinion though is one of the categories of prisoners who will be tranferred. In some cases, I don't have a problem (for example they want to send repeat DUI offenders-- that's fine.) One category though is prisoners, often violent felons, in the last year of their sentence. The theory is that if they are in the last year (of presumably a much longer sentence) they will be less likely to behave violently, try to escape or do anything else that will tack anything onto their sentence. Unfortunately I don't see that as the case-- I've read plenty of stories about prisoners in the last year of their sentence doing things that earn them more time. Not all prisoners fit the stereotype of the patient older inmate scratching off numbers one by one on the wall of his cell. Many of them are impulsive or don't think things like that through very effectively. More ominously many are members of prison gangs or otherwise are more prone to be violent. Sending them into a county lockup will also give them a whole new pool of potential recruits. Besides all of that, some prisoners want to remain in prison because they can't function on the outside and they know that. So they will often commit crimes against guards or other inmates while in prison in order to buy themselves more time behind bars. These inmates are most likely to be dangerous in the last year of their sentence.
It is true that when prisoners get out of prison they often have no job prospects or any other way making a living except to return to a life of crime (a career path that is always available.) And we do need more job training programs, halfway houses and perhaps even an employment placement office for ex-convicts. But I'm not sure how having them finish their sentence in the county jail is going to help them when it comes time to find a job after they get out.
I am glad that under the leadership and at the recommendation of Mr. J.R. DeSpain, our county commission unanimously sent a letter to the Governor raising several objections to the plan. But ultimately it's not up to anyone in the county, but rather to bureaucrats in Phoenix. I hope that they and Governor Napolitano reconsider this decision and look for real solutions to prison overcrowding instead of handing the problem to the counties.
I think it's a terrible plan, and I have to take issue with her office on this one, even though most of the time I've been supportive of the Governor's initiatives.
First of all, there is overcrowding in state prisons. However there is also overcrowding in county jails (that is certainly true here in Navajo county, where the jail is often full.) It is certainly true that a lot of prisoners don't need to be locked up and there are alternative forms of sentencing (and I wrote a post questioning whether all the people we incarcerate should be just a couple of months ago) but foisting the problem of which prisoners to keep in prison and which can be released to probation or some other status onto counties is the same kind of 'pass the buck' approach that we've seen at times from Washington and trying to make the problem 'local' does not constitute a solution. Looking at and modernizing sentencing guidelines is actually something that we should be doing both on a state and national level, but that isn't something that this plan does anything to address.
Cost is another issue. The state paying counties to house prison inmates is nothing new, and most county jails now include some state inmates. In general however these inmates are subject to careful monitoring, and the money that the state pays the counties is spent paying the extra costs. But with the significant number of new prisoners that are being recommended for transfer, it is likely that many counties will have to expand their facilities and hire more staff, and so far there is no indication that any money that the state sends them will be sufficient to cover all of this.
The most damning issue, in my opinion though is one of the categories of prisoners who will be tranferred. In some cases, I don't have a problem (for example they want to send repeat DUI offenders-- that's fine.) One category though is prisoners, often violent felons, in the last year of their sentence. The theory is that if they are in the last year (of presumably a much longer sentence) they will be less likely to behave violently, try to escape or do anything else that will tack anything onto their sentence. Unfortunately I don't see that as the case-- I've read plenty of stories about prisoners in the last year of their sentence doing things that earn them more time. Not all prisoners fit the stereotype of the patient older inmate scratching off numbers one by one on the wall of his cell. Many of them are impulsive or don't think things like that through very effectively. More ominously many are members of prison gangs or otherwise are more prone to be violent. Sending them into a county lockup will also give them a whole new pool of potential recruits. Besides all of that, some prisoners want to remain in prison because they can't function on the outside and they know that. So they will often commit crimes against guards or other inmates while in prison in order to buy themselves more time behind bars. These inmates are most likely to be dangerous in the last year of their sentence.
It is true that when prisoners get out of prison they often have no job prospects or any other way making a living except to return to a life of crime (a career path that is always available.) And we do need more job training programs, halfway houses and perhaps even an employment placement office for ex-convicts. But I'm not sure how having them finish their sentence in the county jail is going to help them when it comes time to find a job after they get out.
I am glad that under the leadership and at the recommendation of Mr. J.R. DeSpain, our county commission unanimously sent a letter to the Governor raising several objections to the plan. But ultimately it's not up to anyone in the county, but rather to bureaucrats in Phoenix. I hope that they and Governor Napolitano reconsider this decision and look for real solutions to prison overcrowding instead of handing the problem to the counties.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Republicans in legislature back up to their old tricks-- but a bad year for it.
Apparently our GOP legislative leaders are back at it. Every year they hold a closed door session, locking out Democrats to produce a budget. It's always one with draconian cuts. Then they either fail to get it passed as some Republicans see the cuts as too drastic, or they pass it and get it vetoed by Governor Napolitano. And every year she makes them look like fools (otherwise explain why her disapproval rating in a poll last year was an astronomically low 9%-- exceptionally low especially for a politician who has made her feelings known by vetoing record number of bills.) Then they have to slap something together in June that they can actually get passed and signed, and it looks like something slapped together at the last minute.
So here they are in their closed room preparing to come back with another sham budget and be made to look like fools again. Which would be humorous, except that this year the state faces real and very serious budget problems-- so the old political gamesmanship, just by virtue of the less time they will have to work on a real budget, is itself going to cost the state a lot of money and be damaging for some citizens.
Time to vote out these clowns and elect a legislature which believes in making use of every day the legislature is in session to seriously address the state's problems.
So here they are in their closed room preparing to come back with another sham budget and be made to look like fools again. Which would be humorous, except that this year the state faces real and very serious budget problems-- so the old political gamesmanship, just by virtue of the less time they will have to work on a real budget, is itself going to cost the state a lot of money and be damaging for some citizens.
Time to vote out these clowns and elect a legislature which believes in making use of every day the legislature is in session to seriously address the state's problems.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
What part of 'temporary' don't they understand?
Yesterday Governor Napolitano vetoed a bill passed by the legislature which would have made permanent a temporary property tax cut that was passed in 2006 and is due to expire in 2009.
As the Governor noted, economic conditions have deteriorated in Arizona sharply since 2006. Arizona's economy is much more tied to the housing industry than most, so the mortgage meltdown has had severe repercussions here. We face a combined $3 billion state budget deficit over the next two years, so adding another quarter billion to that next year by extending the property tax cut would be, as she noted, "the height of fiscal irresponsibility." Over-reliance on the sales tax has compounded the problem-- in a recession people spend less so sales tax revenues are down (whereas, for example, a property tax tends to be a much more reliable and stable source of revenue.)
Advocates for the Republicans in the legislature and some in the business community (who were the beneficiaries of the tax cut) have howled that she is 'raising taxes.'
That is a competely stupid argument.
If a supermarket sells a bottle of pop for $1.39, but runs a managers special in which they announce, "THIS WEEK ONLY-- $.99" for the bottle of pop, then they are doing their customers a favor for a week. If the sale ends on schedule and the price returns to $1.39 (the normal price of the pop) it would be ridiculous to storm up to the store manager and claim that by ending the sale on the day they said they would, they are raising prices. Yet that is what advocates of extending the tax cut are doing. Instead of being grateful for the three years they don't have to pay their property tax, they are instead complaining that when it expires on schedule, they will see a 'tax increase.' Maybe they would be happier if it hadn't ever been passed at all, I suppose.
This argument, of equating the scheduled end of a temporary reduction in taxes with a 'tax increase' is breathtaking in its stupidity. But we will hear exactly the same argument nationally over the next couple of years as the Bush tax cuts (you know, the ones that were supposed to give us such a great economic success story this decade) expire.
As the Governor noted, economic conditions have deteriorated in Arizona sharply since 2006. Arizona's economy is much more tied to the housing industry than most, so the mortgage meltdown has had severe repercussions here. We face a combined $3 billion state budget deficit over the next two years, so adding another quarter billion to that next year by extending the property tax cut would be, as she noted, "the height of fiscal irresponsibility." Over-reliance on the sales tax has compounded the problem-- in a recession people spend less so sales tax revenues are down (whereas, for example, a property tax tends to be a much more reliable and stable source of revenue.)
Advocates for the Republicans in the legislature and some in the business community (who were the beneficiaries of the tax cut) have howled that she is 'raising taxes.'
That is a competely stupid argument.
If a supermarket sells a bottle of pop for $1.39, but runs a managers special in which they announce, "THIS WEEK ONLY-- $.99" for the bottle of pop, then they are doing their customers a favor for a week. If the sale ends on schedule and the price returns to $1.39 (the normal price of the pop) it would be ridiculous to storm up to the store manager and claim that by ending the sale on the day they said they would, they are raising prices. Yet that is what advocates of extending the tax cut are doing. Instead of being grateful for the three years they don't have to pay their property tax, they are instead complaining that when it expires on schedule, they will see a 'tax increase.' Maybe they would be happier if it hadn't ever been passed at all, I suppose.
This argument, of equating the scheduled end of a temporary reduction in taxes with a 'tax increase' is breathtaking in its stupidity. But we will hear exactly the same argument nationally over the next couple of years as the Bush tax cuts (you know, the ones that were supposed to give us such a great economic success story this decade) expire.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Governor's move was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
A little while ago, I blogged on Governor Napolitano's decision to sign the very tough employer sanctions bill that the legislature passed after it was pushed primarily by hardcore anti-immigration GOP hardliners. I briefly alluded to the political impact of her decision, but as I've thought about it, I've realized how truly brilliant her move was, and how it warrants another post.
In Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Mr. Chekov and companion are surprised to meet Khan on a world they thought was deserted. Though Khan has not seen anyone from outside for years, he thinks at first that Chekov may have come to his world by intent. But then he realizes that they landed on the wrong planet, and he says, in an excited but subdued voice, strengthened by sudden realization of discovery and advantage, "You didn't expect to find me!"
And so it is here. I could almost hear the Governor saying with a feeling of victory under her breath as she read the sanctions bill, 'Ah, I see... you didn't expect me to sign this bill.'
After vetoing scores of the legislature's most draconian bills since taking office in 2002 (and making every single one of those vetoes stand) the Governor has largely muzzled the legislature's conservative leaders. They still try to pass a lot of bills that have veto-bait written all over them, mostly to embarrass the Governor or perhaps to get her on record (a record they can distort) for 2010 in the event that she runs for the Senate.
And I believe that was the case here. Governor Napolitano has said before that the way to deal with immigration is to get tough on people who hire undocumented workers. So the legislature decided to call her bluff and pass this piece of legislation so she'd veto it and then they could cite it when they went after her on immigration sometime in the future. Her past defense of vetoing immigration bills has been that it is a Federal responsibility (which is true, in fact.) But after last week's defeat of the Federal immigration bill they would be able to hit her with the failure of the Federal government to act.
Only, they were sure that she would veto it. After all, she invariably vetos any bill that is this draconian in its effects and she has always maintained decent relations with the business community in the state. So when they wrote the bill they didn't bother to exempt anyone who has a business license. They wrote in some ridiculous figures-- $100,000 to maintain a statewide database AND cover statewide enforcement of the law, and $70,000 to educate employers all over the state about it. County attorneys get $2.5 million-- spread among all 16 counties in the state-- which is supposed to cover the cost of hiring people to investigate and prosecute these cases. In other words they didn't think much through. Why waste time working very hard on a bill that is going to be vetoed anyway?
So they thought.
Then she signed it. And announced that she is likely to call a special session to deal with the glitches. So much for the 'part time legislature.' They will be back in August or September for what could be a very rocky session.
And she holds all the cards. In exempting infrastructure, there is little they can argue. They don't really want their constituents to freeze in the dark this winter when the electric company closes up shop. They don't want to be closing hospitals.
They will of course want to exempt private schools (at least those which are run as for profit businesses) so they don't have to comply with a law that the public schools won't have to worry about the consequences of. But right now, the private schools will be hit with the new law, and I have a feeling the Governor will demand a stiff price for exempting them (wonder how much of a split that one is causing in the GOP caucus, since some members are very committed to private schools and 'educational choice,' and are probably furious at their own leaders for getting them to vote for this package which has now come back and gored their own ox.) Getting rid of the flawed database requirement and going back to Social Security cards may be one price that she demands.
The funding is the other big issue here. $170,000 might pay for the computers the database is to be maintained from. It certainly won't cover the employees or resources necessary to educate and then enforce the law on employers statewide. For $2.5 million total, the county attorneys won't be able to investigate and prosecute more than a few really egregious cases. Only, the state budget has already been passed for this year. And at that, the slump in the housing market (to say nothing of what this bill will do-- certainly not cause a short term economic boom) is likely to bring revenue projections down. So she holds all the cards again-- she can simply insist that the legislature leave the already approved budget for this year alone, and find their own funding sources. In other words, they can choose between in effect gutting their own law (essentially keeping it on paper with no one out there enforcing it) or raising the revenue to fund it. She can point out the disaster that happened in the early 2000's when the state took money out of the rainy day fund, and the prospect of a near-term slowdown and refuse to accept that as a source of revenue. Bonds, as have been used in the past to finance things like school construction are generally backed by real assets, so she can refuse to allow the legislature to borrow by way of bonding for that reason. The Governor, who ran in 2002 on a pledge to ask for tax increases only as a last resort, has not once in five years asked for one. And she won't need to now. But she can close all the other doors and in effect force the GOP hardliners who control the legislature to either fail to enforce their own pet bill or raise taxes to pay for it.
On top of that, business leaders, while maintaining a cordial relationship with the Governor, have given Republicans-- even hard core loonies like Pearce-- their support, including their financial support. Of course the Governor has always protected them from some of the more ridiculous bills they passed, such as the law which she vetoed this week which would have required all businesses to buy storage lockers for customers to store their guns. In their Republican pipe dream, they can think about how great having a GOP legislature is while they shovel money at them without having to worry about some of the most odious requirement that they pass on to businesses. If it's too bad, Janet will take care of it. Only this time she didn't. Wonder how much they will donate to Pearce next time around? This bill drives a wedge between Republicans in the legislature and some of their most reliable supporters.
Certainly, had the Federal bill passed last week, Governor Napolitano would have had all the cover she needed to veto the bill. But since she didn't, she has dealt a blow to private schools, is forcing the business community to realize the true cost of supporting some legislators who represent the fringes, and may force Republicans to be the ones to raise taxes.
Not a bad political payout for a day's work.
In Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Mr. Chekov and companion are surprised to meet Khan on a world they thought was deserted. Though Khan has not seen anyone from outside for years, he thinks at first that Chekov may have come to his world by intent. But then he realizes that they landed on the wrong planet, and he says, in an excited but subdued voice, strengthened by sudden realization of discovery and advantage, "You didn't expect to find me!"
And so it is here. I could almost hear the Governor saying with a feeling of victory under her breath as she read the sanctions bill, 'Ah, I see... you didn't expect me to sign this bill.'
After vetoing scores of the legislature's most draconian bills since taking office in 2002 (and making every single one of those vetoes stand) the Governor has largely muzzled the legislature's conservative leaders. They still try to pass a lot of bills that have veto-bait written all over them, mostly to embarrass the Governor or perhaps to get her on record (a record they can distort) for 2010 in the event that she runs for the Senate.
And I believe that was the case here. Governor Napolitano has said before that the way to deal with immigration is to get tough on people who hire undocumented workers. So the legislature decided to call her bluff and pass this piece of legislation so she'd veto it and then they could cite it when they went after her on immigration sometime in the future. Her past defense of vetoing immigration bills has been that it is a Federal responsibility (which is true, in fact.) But after last week's defeat of the Federal immigration bill they would be able to hit her with the failure of the Federal government to act.
Only, they were sure that she would veto it. After all, she invariably vetos any bill that is this draconian in its effects and she has always maintained decent relations with the business community in the state. So when they wrote the bill they didn't bother to exempt anyone who has a business license. They wrote in some ridiculous figures-- $100,000 to maintain a statewide database AND cover statewide enforcement of the law, and $70,000 to educate employers all over the state about it. County attorneys get $2.5 million-- spread among all 16 counties in the state-- which is supposed to cover the cost of hiring people to investigate and prosecute these cases. In other words they didn't think much through. Why waste time working very hard on a bill that is going to be vetoed anyway?
So they thought.
Then she signed it. And announced that she is likely to call a special session to deal with the glitches. So much for the 'part time legislature.' They will be back in August or September for what could be a very rocky session.
And she holds all the cards. In exempting infrastructure, there is little they can argue. They don't really want their constituents to freeze in the dark this winter when the electric company closes up shop. They don't want to be closing hospitals.
They will of course want to exempt private schools (at least those which are run as for profit businesses) so they don't have to comply with a law that the public schools won't have to worry about the consequences of. But right now, the private schools will be hit with the new law, and I have a feeling the Governor will demand a stiff price for exempting them (wonder how much of a split that one is causing in the GOP caucus, since some members are very committed to private schools and 'educational choice,' and are probably furious at their own leaders for getting them to vote for this package which has now come back and gored their own ox.) Getting rid of the flawed database requirement and going back to Social Security cards may be one price that she demands.
The funding is the other big issue here. $170,000 might pay for the computers the database is to be maintained from. It certainly won't cover the employees or resources necessary to educate and then enforce the law on employers statewide. For $2.5 million total, the county attorneys won't be able to investigate and prosecute more than a few really egregious cases. Only, the state budget has already been passed for this year. And at that, the slump in the housing market (to say nothing of what this bill will do-- certainly not cause a short term economic boom) is likely to bring revenue projections down. So she holds all the cards again-- she can simply insist that the legislature leave the already approved budget for this year alone, and find their own funding sources. In other words, they can choose between in effect gutting their own law (essentially keeping it on paper with no one out there enforcing it) or raising the revenue to fund it. She can point out the disaster that happened in the early 2000's when the state took money out of the rainy day fund, and the prospect of a near-term slowdown and refuse to accept that as a source of revenue. Bonds, as have been used in the past to finance things like school construction are generally backed by real assets, so she can refuse to allow the legislature to borrow by way of bonding for that reason. The Governor, who ran in 2002 on a pledge to ask for tax increases only as a last resort, has not once in five years asked for one. And she won't need to now. But she can close all the other doors and in effect force the GOP hardliners who control the legislature to either fail to enforce their own pet bill or raise taxes to pay for it.
On top of that, business leaders, while maintaining a cordial relationship with the Governor, have given Republicans-- even hard core loonies like Pearce-- their support, including their financial support. Of course the Governor has always protected them from some of the more ridiculous bills they passed, such as the law which she vetoed this week which would have required all businesses to buy storage lockers for customers to store their guns. In their Republican pipe dream, they can think about how great having a GOP legislature is while they shovel money at them without having to worry about some of the most odious requirement that they pass on to businesses. If it's too bad, Janet will take care of it. Only this time she didn't. Wonder how much they will donate to Pearce next time around? This bill drives a wedge between Republicans in the legislature and some of their most reliable supporters.
Certainly, had the Federal bill passed last week, Governor Napolitano would have had all the cover she needed to veto the bill. But since she didn't, she has dealt a blow to private schools, is forcing the business community to realize the true cost of supporting some legislators who represent the fringes, and may force Republicans to be the ones to raise taxes.
Not a bad political payout for a day's work.
Governor surprises legislature, signs tough employer-sanctions bill
This week, Governor Napolitano citing the failure of the Federal government to address the issue, signed the new employer sanctions bill (House Bill 2779), which makes Arizona the toughest state in the nation against employers who hire undocumented workers. Employers will be mandated, starting in January, to check job applicants against an existing database which contains the names of workers authorized to work legally in Arizona. If a business hires someone illegally then the new law would put a business on probation for a first offense and permanently revoke their business license for a second offense.
On balance, I agree with the Governor. I've always said that the problem is not the undocumented aliens themselves, the large majority of whom after all have only done what generations of American pioneers have always done, and come looking for opportunity-- and the argument that they are 'illegal' could be reversed in a few minutes with the stroke of a pen adjusting the numbers of legal immigrants to something bearing a resemblance to the market based reality that we now see, with hundreds of thousands of Arizonans here illegally but also working. Rather the problem is with illegal employment, in that employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers often do so in order to gain a competitive advantage by exploiting laborers who cannot complain (for fear of deportation) about abusive work standards, below minimum wage pay, sexual harrassment and other types of exploitation. The new bill goes a long way towards protecting workers against that kind of stuff by putting those who engage in it at risk of losing their business.
There are some problems with the bill though. The Governor also cited the need to call a special legislative session in her signing message in which she identified five problems with the legislation. There is also one other that conservatives will certainly try to address, once they realize what they've just done to one of their own pet causes, private schools.
The first issue cited by the Governor is that there is no exemption for utilities, hospitals, nursing homes and other businesses critical to infrastructure. Clearly such an exemption will have to be written into the law since if a single mistake is made, it could, in a worst case scenario lead to large numbers of people going without electricity, gas or water for extended periods of time (though one benefit is it might make people understand a little better how life is for other Americans who still don't have basic utilities courtesy of fiscal conservatism, specifically when Ronald Reagan shut down the Rural Electrification Administration beginning in 1986 in order to save a few bucks.) Another result of this oversight, if it is not corrected is that it could cause hospitals to shut down with patients presumably being forced to walk out of there and go to other hospitals. One other area that the Governor did not specifically recommend but which needs to be dealt with-- state contractors. Though the state itself does not have a business license and so is effectively immune from making bad decisions under the law, if a state contractor, say providing prison guards or working on a state highway project were suddenly shut down by this provision the results could still be disastrous.
On the other hand, it appears that the proponents of the bill (led by anti-immigrant Godfather Russell Pearce who wrote the legislation) probably expected a veto, because it also doesn't exempt private schools, many of which do have a business license. This added requirement on private schools will help level the playing field (since the state presently makes public schools jump through all kinds of hoops that many private schools do not have to jump through.) And you can be sure that there are advocates of public schools, especially teachers unions, who will now have and will certainly use this as a weapon to bludgeon private schools with and maybe put some out of business.
Her fourth point is my second one: the concern that the law could be discriminatory. Certainly it is true that employers are less likely to take a chance on people whose names suggest they might be immigrants from parts of the world where that is controversial (especially Latin America, the Middle East and China.) And this is a legitimate concern. There are many legitimate workers, legal immigrants, or people who were in fact born right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. named Pedro or Mohammed. But most businesses are still more likely now to want to hire Peter and Moe. True, the supply of jobs is large enough that there will still be some openings when the supply of Peters and Moes is used up (in fact that is why we have so many undocumented immigrants in the first place) but asking that Pedro and Mohammed move to the back of the line means that they are still less likely to be hired, and if they are they will be hired for the jobs that Peter and Moe turned down in favor of a better one that is no longer available.
Further, the database that employers are supposed to check prospective hires against is unreliable. This week, the Arizona Republic reported that there is a 4% error rate in the database. This means that tens of thousands of legal workers, even U.S. citizens, may discover all of a sudden that they can't work in Arizona. This represents 1 out of every 25 legal workers in the state (think of it this way-- if you work at, say, a small to midsized company that employs 200 people, what would you think if eight of them were suddenly told they were fired and could not even get another job in the state, because a computer someplace didn't list them as authorized to work? Heck, you might even be one of the eight.
Clearly this database is flawed. My own suggestion would be to throw it out and go back to the traditional way of checking eligibility-- with social security cards, etc. Yes, this is subject to fraud, and yes some errors will still be made, but the documented error rate of the present system in the past is actually less than in the state database, and continuing to use the present system will be no more discriminatory than it is today. The main thrust of the bill was the employer sanctions, and getting rid of the database and continuing to require verification of documents as grounds for deciding who to hire would have nothing to do with that. In any case, it appears as though opponents of the database plan to take it to court, so even if the legislature doesn't fix this one, I'd be really surprised (and dismayed) if the database was used next January 1 as scheduled.
Another problem that the Governor cited had to do with the fact that a single bad hiring decision at one location could put a business with multiple locations out of business. Personally, I am not all that upset about this-- if only because as regular readers of this blog know, I don't think much of the way Wal-Mart, in particular conducts its business, and having been guilty of hiring illegal aliens in the past, this law may have its intended effect and limit the ability of Wal-Mart to knowingly exploit its workers in a major way. The prospect of having to shutter every store in the state should be sufficient to make Wal-Mart comply with the law (protecting its own, as well as its competitor's employees). However, I'd think that the prospect of even having to close them one at a time would be good enough to make Wal-Mart comply with the law. And I would agree, that to force for example, a statewide chain (or a national chain with many outlets in Arizona) to close all its locations because the manager at one of them screwed up is a bit Draconian. I have to admit though, that the thought of Wal-Mart not only being forced to close every store in Arizona, and then never being able to open another one, almost made 'Draconian' sound good (though clearly if that happened tens of thousands of people would be thrown out of work in a day, so I still don't favor it covering all locations.)
A third problem that the Governor cited (the fourth one I am addressing) is simply the lack of funding. Again, it appears that the authors of the bill expected a veto, so they put only token amounts into it to cover enforcement and education for the whole state. So during the special session the Governor will ask them to pony up the funds. And here is an interesting twist: She now has the high ground on the issue, and may insist that the funds be provided without taking them from elsewhere in the state budget (which has already been allocated.) She might even force the legislature to raise taxes for the first time in years-- and without even specifically calling for a tax increase, just in effect telling them they need to find a way to fund it.
The fifth change she recommended had to do with an incorrect citation of Federal law, and I doubt if changing it will be controversial.
As I said, looking at the private school issue and the funding issue, I am sure that Pearce and the GOP legislature expected the Governor to veto this bill (as she vetoed a record 43 bills last year, and could be expected to veto pretty much anything that Russell Pearce wrote,) presumably so they could use it against her in the future. Instead it seems as though she played chicken with them and won, so it will be interesting to see during the special session that she calls how they plan to address these and the other issues that she raised.
On balance, I agree with the Governor. I've always said that the problem is not the undocumented aliens themselves, the large majority of whom after all have only done what generations of American pioneers have always done, and come looking for opportunity-- and the argument that they are 'illegal' could be reversed in a few minutes with the stroke of a pen adjusting the numbers of legal immigrants to something bearing a resemblance to the market based reality that we now see, with hundreds of thousands of Arizonans here illegally but also working. Rather the problem is with illegal employment, in that employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers often do so in order to gain a competitive advantage by exploiting laborers who cannot complain (for fear of deportation) about abusive work standards, below minimum wage pay, sexual harrassment and other types of exploitation. The new bill goes a long way towards protecting workers against that kind of stuff by putting those who engage in it at risk of losing their business.
There are some problems with the bill though. The Governor also cited the need to call a special legislative session in her signing message in which she identified five problems with the legislation. There is also one other that conservatives will certainly try to address, once they realize what they've just done to one of their own pet causes, private schools.
The first issue cited by the Governor is that there is no exemption for utilities, hospitals, nursing homes and other businesses critical to infrastructure. Clearly such an exemption will have to be written into the law since if a single mistake is made, it could, in a worst case scenario lead to large numbers of people going without electricity, gas or water for extended periods of time (though one benefit is it might make people understand a little better how life is for other Americans who still don't have basic utilities courtesy of fiscal conservatism, specifically when Ronald Reagan shut down the Rural Electrification Administration beginning in 1986 in order to save a few bucks.) Another result of this oversight, if it is not corrected is that it could cause hospitals to shut down with patients presumably being forced to walk out of there and go to other hospitals. One other area that the Governor did not specifically recommend but which needs to be dealt with-- state contractors. Though the state itself does not have a business license and so is effectively immune from making bad decisions under the law, if a state contractor, say providing prison guards or working on a state highway project were suddenly shut down by this provision the results could still be disastrous.
On the other hand, it appears that the proponents of the bill (led by anti-immigrant Godfather Russell Pearce who wrote the legislation) probably expected a veto, because it also doesn't exempt private schools, many of which do have a business license. This added requirement on private schools will help level the playing field (since the state presently makes public schools jump through all kinds of hoops that many private schools do not have to jump through.) And you can be sure that there are advocates of public schools, especially teachers unions, who will now have and will certainly use this as a weapon to bludgeon private schools with and maybe put some out of business.
Her fourth point is my second one: the concern that the law could be discriminatory. Certainly it is true that employers are less likely to take a chance on people whose names suggest they might be immigrants from parts of the world where that is controversial (especially Latin America, the Middle East and China.) And this is a legitimate concern. There are many legitimate workers, legal immigrants, or people who were in fact born right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. named Pedro or Mohammed. But most businesses are still more likely now to want to hire Peter and Moe. True, the supply of jobs is large enough that there will still be some openings when the supply of Peters and Moes is used up (in fact that is why we have so many undocumented immigrants in the first place) but asking that Pedro and Mohammed move to the back of the line means that they are still less likely to be hired, and if they are they will be hired for the jobs that Peter and Moe turned down in favor of a better one that is no longer available.
Further, the database that employers are supposed to check prospective hires against is unreliable. This week, the Arizona Republic reported that there is a 4% error rate in the database. This means that tens of thousands of legal workers, even U.S. citizens, may discover all of a sudden that they can't work in Arizona. This represents 1 out of every 25 legal workers in the state (think of it this way-- if you work at, say, a small to midsized company that employs 200 people, what would you think if eight of them were suddenly told they were fired and could not even get another job in the state, because a computer someplace didn't list them as authorized to work? Heck, you might even be one of the eight.
Clearly this database is flawed. My own suggestion would be to throw it out and go back to the traditional way of checking eligibility-- with social security cards, etc. Yes, this is subject to fraud, and yes some errors will still be made, but the documented error rate of the present system in the past is actually less than in the state database, and continuing to use the present system will be no more discriminatory than it is today. The main thrust of the bill was the employer sanctions, and getting rid of the database and continuing to require verification of documents as grounds for deciding who to hire would have nothing to do with that. In any case, it appears as though opponents of the database plan to take it to court, so even if the legislature doesn't fix this one, I'd be really surprised (and dismayed) if the database was used next January 1 as scheduled.
Another problem that the Governor cited had to do with the fact that a single bad hiring decision at one location could put a business with multiple locations out of business. Personally, I am not all that upset about this-- if only because as regular readers of this blog know, I don't think much of the way Wal-Mart, in particular conducts its business, and having been guilty of hiring illegal aliens in the past, this law may have its intended effect and limit the ability of Wal-Mart to knowingly exploit its workers in a major way. The prospect of having to shutter every store in the state should be sufficient to make Wal-Mart comply with the law (protecting its own, as well as its competitor's employees). However, I'd think that the prospect of even having to close them one at a time would be good enough to make Wal-Mart comply with the law. And I would agree, that to force for example, a statewide chain (or a national chain with many outlets in Arizona) to close all its locations because the manager at one of them screwed up is a bit Draconian. I have to admit though, that the thought of Wal-Mart not only being forced to close every store in Arizona, and then never being able to open another one, almost made 'Draconian' sound good (though clearly if that happened tens of thousands of people would be thrown out of work in a day, so I still don't favor it covering all locations.)
A third problem that the Governor cited (the fourth one I am addressing) is simply the lack of funding. Again, it appears that the authors of the bill expected a veto, so they put only token amounts into it to cover enforcement and education for the whole state. So during the special session the Governor will ask them to pony up the funds. And here is an interesting twist: She now has the high ground on the issue, and may insist that the funds be provided without taking them from elsewhere in the state budget (which has already been allocated.) She might even force the legislature to raise taxes for the first time in years-- and without even specifically calling for a tax increase, just in effect telling them they need to find a way to fund it.
The fifth change she recommended had to do with an incorrect citation of Federal law, and I doubt if changing it will be controversial.
As I said, looking at the private school issue and the funding issue, I am sure that Pearce and the GOP legislature expected the Governor to veto this bill (as she vetoed a record 43 bills last year, and could be expected to veto pretty much anything that Russell Pearce wrote,) presumably so they could use it against her in the future. Instead it seems as though she played chicken with them and won, so it will be interesting to see during the special session that she calls how they plan to address these and the other issues that she raised.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Janet goes to Iraq-- and starts sounding like a neo-con.
I have to say I was very disappointed with Governor Napolitano's trip to Iraq.
I don't have a problem with her going, to visit Arizona National Guardsmen.
But her comments seem to mirror the kind of garbage we've heard coming out of Iraq for years, citing 'progress' and expressing support for the latest folly, the President's troop surge. In that regard, she might as well have been George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice or any of the other names we've heard spouting the line about how everything is going according to plan for the past four years (hint: if it had gone according to plan during the past four years, we'd be out of there by now.)
Politically, it is not hard to see where the Governor is going. In 2010, she will be term-limited out, and John McCain, who will be older than the hills by then and who will likely be weakened by a failed Presidential run (just look at how fast he is dropping in GOP primary polls) will be up for re-election. If McCain does not then retire, or even if he does, she would be all but guaranteed of the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate.
In terms of the Iraq war, McCain has taken a very hardline stance. So even if people are turned off by her pro-Iraq war stance, it's not like she has much ground to lose on the issue.
But it still bothers me. In four years, we have accomplished the objectives of Iran more than anything else, and I'm sure the Governor is smart enough to realize that.
I don't have a problem with her going, to visit Arizona National Guardsmen.
But her comments seem to mirror the kind of garbage we've heard coming out of Iraq for years, citing 'progress' and expressing support for the latest folly, the President's troop surge. In that regard, she might as well have been George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice or any of the other names we've heard spouting the line about how everything is going according to plan for the past four years (hint: if it had gone according to plan during the past four years, we'd be out of there by now.)
Politically, it is not hard to see where the Governor is going. In 2010, she will be term-limited out, and John McCain, who will be older than the hills by then and who will likely be weakened by a failed Presidential run (just look at how fast he is dropping in GOP primary polls) will be up for re-election. If McCain does not then retire, or even if he does, she would be all but guaranteed of the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate.
In terms of the Iraq war, McCain has taken a very hardline stance. So even if people are turned off by her pro-Iraq war stance, it's not like she has much ground to lose on the issue.
But it still bothers me. In four years, we have accomplished the objectives of Iran more than anything else, and I'm sure the Governor is smart enough to realize that.
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