No candidates will be speaking!
The initial law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer last week, required police to determine a person's immigration status if officers formed a reasonable suspicion about their legality during any "lawful contact." That led to suggestions by some legal experts that police would be obligated to scrutinize even people who asked for directions.
Lawmakers on Thursday night changed the language to require scrutiny only of people who police stop, detain or arrest. They also changed a section of the bill that barred officers from "solely" using race as grounds for suspecting someone is in the country illegally; opponents had argued that that would allow race to be a factor. The legislators removed the word "solely" to bar race from being used by officers enforcing the law.
"It absolutely clarifies what the intent was," said Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Brewer, who supported the changes and is expected to sign them into law. "It's undeniable now that this bill will not lead to racial profiling." More....
Arizona's immigration law has been an immediate hit with the Republican base, but some of the party's top strategists and rising stars worry that the harsh crackdown may do long-term damage to the GOP in the eyes of America's Hispanic population.
And the party's long-term thinkers worry that the Arizona law is merely a quick political fix which may create a permanent rift with the fastest growing segment of the U.S. electorate.
"It's like a virus that you get and you don't feel like you're unhealthy for the first few days, but after that you have a fever and you're really sick," says Matthew Dowd, former President George W. Bush's chief strategist in 2004. "You can't win a national election and you can't win certain states without the Latino vote. And Republicans already had a problem."
"I think there is going to be some constitutional problems with the bill," top Bush strategist Karl Rove said during a stop on his book tour. "I wished they hadn't passed it, in a way." (AZ Central)
Even Sal Russo, the longtime California Republican political operative who helps fund the Tea Party Express, acknowledges that the Arizona law creates problems for the party.
"I think Republicans do a poor job of communicating to non-traditional Republican voters," Russo said. "We've done a poor job in reaching out beyond the Republican base, and I think that's been part of the problem. (AZ Central)
Dear Fellow Tea Party Patriots,
We are getting a lot of emails from inside of Arizona asking for support of their state's new law and from outside of Arizona expressing their opinion about the new law.Do you support Arizona's new immigration law and believe in the right of each state to protect its own citizens from the effects of illegal immigration? If so, go to our petition site and sign the petition by clicking here.
After signing the petition, share the link with everyone on your Facebook pages and email lists. Finally, please use the 'I Support Arizona' image on your Facebook and Twitter profiles.
For further information, click here for a link to the text of the bill.
We discussed this topic in our last meeting. It was nearly unanimous that we should be supportive of the new AZ law. With stress being put on this not being an attack on any one race of people... simply put -- NO immigrants should be given "special status" over others. We will welcome ALL legal immigrants willing to be become American citizens.
The United States House of Representatives is set to vote on H.R. 2499, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act, as early as this week. This bill would mandate a non-binding expression by the voters of Puerto Rico as to their wishes with regard to retaining their commonwealth status or becoming a state or becoming an independent nation, but in conjunction with other legislation already introduced inside Puerto Rico, the commonwealth status of the island could be eliminated as early as this year.
Three times in the past 43 years Puerto Ricans have voted against becoming the 51st state in the Union, the last time being 11 years ago. But this time the bill is rigged to eliminate the commonwealth option and grant either full statehood, or total independence. Sen. Jose Hernandez-Mayoral of the island's minority Popular Democratic Party said, "Behind this innocuous bill lies a fully thought out assault on Congress to designate the island the 51st state." "With the commonwealth option out of the ballot, statehood is finally, albeit crookedly, assured a victory."
Every revolution needs icons. The Tea Party movement may have mushroomed because of its reluctance to anoint a leader, but leaders have emerged nonetheless. In February 2009, Jenny Beth Martin was one of about 20 people who took part in the original conference call (convened via Twitter hashtag) in response to Rick Santelli's now famous rant. Her commitment to building the burgeoning movement has made her one of its breakout stars.
Martin, 39, is a co-founder and the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, an umbrella organization that claims 1,800 local affiliates with some 15 million members. She serves as co-chair of her hometown Tea Party in Atlanta, and she helped lead the 9/12 movement's march on Washington in September. It was only as she watched protesters trickle down Pennsylvania Avenue to promote Tea Party principles, she says, that "the enormity of the movement hit me."
The former Republican consultant is an unlikely beacon — a mother of young twins, she blogs about clipping coupons, her household menu plans and her family's battle with bankruptcy, which had Martin cleaning houses to make ends meet when the Tea Party began brewing. "I have a tendency to raise my hand to volunteer too often," she says of the decision to launch the Tea Party Patriots. Her peers are glad she did.
