All posts by Thomas L. Knapp

Op-Eds

“Sanctuary State” Suit: The Trump Administration versus California and Federalism

Leave a comment
English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration ...
English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arresting suspects during a raid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions find  California’s “sanctuary” laws inconvenient, and are asking the courts to rule in favor of their convenience rather than affirming the US Constitution. That’s the  takeaway from  United States v. State of California, a US Department of Justice lawsuit filed on March 6.

The case sounds like it’s about immigration — and the administration can be counted on to play up that perception in the secondary court of public opinion — but  it really isn’t. It’s about whether or not state and local governments are required to enforce, or assist in enforcing, federal law.

The California Values Act, one of the laws the administration is suing over, limits California law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration agencies. California cops will no longer detain or investigate people on suspected violations of federal immigration laws, or hand prisoners or prisoners’ information over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a warrant.

The exception to the rule under the CVA is that the names of persons convicted of violent crimes will be given to ICE before their release. But if you go to jail for 30 days for unpaid parking tickets, LAPD won’t be telling ICE about you.

If the federal district court adheres to US Supreme Court precedent, the Trump administration will lose on this.

In 1997’s Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot require local chief law enforcement officers to perform background checks on gun purchasers pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

The feds can do it themselves. Local law enforcers might assist, if state or local law allows or requires them to. But federal law can’t compel their participation, nor can Congress force state legislatures to pass laws requiring them to assist, because “[t]he Federal Government’s power would be augmented immeasurably and impermissibly if it were able to impress into its service — and at no cost to itself — the police officers of the 50 States.”

SCOTUS got it right back then. Hopefully the US courts will stick to the principle.

California may lose on another count, that of the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, which forbids employers to cooperate with ICE absent a court order or subpoena. It’s disgusting to think that an employer would snitch out his workers to a bunch of jackbooted thugs who think the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to them, but California probably can’t forbid it.

Whatever you think of federal immigration laws, they’re not the issue. The issue is federalism.

The FBI doesn’t hand out speeding tickets in Peoria because that’s the Peoria Police Department’s job, not the FBI’s.

Similarly, it’s not California’s job to spend its state and local law enforcement money doing ICE’s job for it.

 

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Capitol Punishment: Or, Keeping House is too Expensive

Leave a comment
English: The western front of the United State...
The western front of the United States Capitol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Politico reports on a letter to US Representative and House Ethics Committee chairwoman Susan Brooks (R-IN), from more than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, requesting an investigation into “the legality and propriety” of lawmakers sleeping in their offices.

Among their complaints are that the free lodging and associated perqs constitute a “direct violation of the ethics rules which prohibit official resources from being used for personal purposes,” and that the risk of seeing a naked politician creates a “hostile work environment” for House, um, housekeepers.

It’s hard to disagree with the latter, but before unpacking this let’s observe a moment of grief-laden silence for those poor underpaid members of Congress (base salary: $174,000 per year plus a quarter of a million for “office expenses” including travel) and their need to maintain two residences (one back home and one in Washington while Congress is in session).

Before leaving Congress last year, Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) proposed an additional “housing allowance” of $2,500 per month to help cover the costs of that second residence.

I have a better idea.

Marine Barracks Washington DC (“the oldest post in the Corps”) is a little over a mile from the Capitol. The six-acre complex presumably has, or has room for, housing to accommodate the 435 members of the House and their 100 colleagues from the Senate in the same manner as that accorded active-duty military personnel. I’ll leave the question of four-person rooms with private baths versus open squad bays and communal showers to the reader. I’m betting the Corps maintains a pretty good chow hall there, too. And it’s just a 25-minute walk from work!

But back to that $174,000 salary and lavish travel budget. It seems to me that’s more of a waste of taxpayer money than some extra janitorial costs at the Capitol offices.

I suggest capping congressional salaries (before federal income and payroll taxes are deducted) at the previous year’s national median income (after median federal income and payroll taxes are deducted). Call it an incentive to legislate in ways that keep wages high and taxes low.

As for travel, one coach ticket to DC from the airport in or nearest a congressperson’s district at the beginning of each session of Congress, and one ticket home when Congress adjourns or recesses, with a cap of three round trips per year. If they want to go home each weekend, they pick up the check themselves.

Members of Congress like to style themselves “public servants,” but the congressional lifestyle doesn’t look much like the lifestyles of the servants who clean their offices. What janitor gets $174,000 a year and essentially unlimited travel? Or has to try to un-see a naked politician?

Back to you, Congressional Black Caucus.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

More Korean War is “Worth it?” To Whom?

Leave a comment
Urban combat in Seoul, 1950, as US Marines fig...
Urban combat in Seoul, 1950, as US Marines fight North Koreans holding the city. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Speaking to CNN on the possibility of resuming hostilities in the nearly 70-year-old Korean War (in uneasy ceasefire since 1953), US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says “all the damage … would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security.”

Worth it, Senator Graham? To whom?

The last period of open war on the Korean peninsula cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million lives, including nearly a million soldiers on both sides (36,516 of them American) and 2.5 million civilians in the North and South.

What did the American taxpayer get in return for three years of fighting, tens of thousands of Americans dead, and nearly $700 billion (in 2008 dollars)?

Well, that taxpayer’s government got to decide who’s in charge of part of the Korean peninsula, which, last time I checked, is not a US state or territory.

And that taxpayer’s government got the opportunity to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more of that taxpayer’s money to garrison the North-South border along the 38th Parallel for 65 years. That excludes the off-peninsula costs of the US “security umbrella” covering other Pacific Rim nations.

And that taxpayer’s government got a convenient bugaboo to scare the bejabbers out of that taxpayer with any time peace threatened to break out.

Stability? Well, sure, if what we’re talking about is guaranteeing that the welfare checks continue to reliably arrive in the American military industrial complex’s mailboxes. But apart from that, continued saber-rattling on either side of some of the most militarized acreage on Earth — the so-called “Demilitarized Zone” — is pretty much the definition of instability.

National security? Not so much, if for no other reason than that North Korea never has represented and does not now represent a credible military threat to the United States. If it ever does come to represent such a threat, it will be because the US continues, at the urging of demagogues like Lindsey Graham, to involve itself in the affairs of people thousands of miles away who do not welcome such involvement.

So far, the Korean War hasn’t delivered any benefit of note to the American people, especially in the areas of “stability” or “national security.”

America’s long misadventure on the Korean peninsula has only been worth it to US “defense” contractors and the politicians they own. Yes, Senator Graham, I’m looking at you.

The sooner the US government notifies the South Korean government that America is going home, the better.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY