25 Jun 2012 Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Racist and Bigoted Claims Against Arizona
Section 2 of Arizona Law Upheld by United States Supreme Court
“The Argument that SB 1070 Came About Due to Bigotry Was So Lacking the Justice Department Didn’t Even Include this Argument in Its Briefs,” Says National Center’s Horace Cooper
“Making Racially-Charged Claims… and Then Not Substantiating in Court is Reckless And Lawless”
Washington, D.C. – The National Center for Public Policy Research issued the following statement concerning today’s ruling by the Supreme Court in the Arizona immigration case upholding Section 2 while striking down three provisions of Arizona law SB 1070.
Section 2, which requires police to conduct immigration checks on individuals they arrest or merely stop for questioning whom they suspect are in the U.S. illegally was upheld by all 8 Justices participating in today’s decision.
“Claims by the Obama Administration that Arizona’s immigration enforcement effort would lead to ‘racial profiling’ are specious,” said Horace Cooper, Adjunct Fellow. “It is telling that the provision that the White House demagogued the most went unchallenged even by Obama appointees to the Supreme Court.”
“The argument that SB 1070 came about due to bigotry was so lacking the Justice Department didn’t even include this argument in its briefs against the law,” Cooper argues. “Cynically, they trumpeted the issue with the American people setting up a false claim against the state of Arizona that they knew or should have known had no merit.”
Cooper notes that the Obama White House has frequently made charges of racism or sexism about cases pending before federal courts only to abandon those arguments when the case is actually heard.
“Making racially-charged claims in the public arena and then not substantiating in Court is reckless and lawless,” Cooper concluded.
Cooper, a legal commentator who taught constitutional law at George Mason University, is the author of a commentary supporting Section 2 of SB 1070, “See Something, Say Something: New York City Versus Arizona,” published by the National Center for Public Policy Research in 2010; as well as numerous other recent and pending papers analyzing the constitutional underpinnings of various claims made by the Obama Administration on Voter ID, drug tests as a prerequisite for receiving welfare benefits, the HHS contraceptive mandate, the NTSB cell phone while driving ban and more, as well as recent Supreme Court decisions, most recently, last week’s public employee union political spending case, Knox. V. SEIU.
Horace Cooper is an adjunct fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, a member of the African-American leadership group Project 21, and a legal commentator. He taught constitutional law at George Mason University in Virginia and was a senior counsel to U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey. He is a frequent radio and television guest and guest-host, most recently guest-hosting the nationally-syndicated G. Gordon Liddy Show on June 22.
The National Center for Public Policy Research is a conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank established in 1982. It is supported by the voluntary gifts of over 100,000 individual recent supporters. In 2011 it received over 350,000 individual donations. Two percent of its revenue comes from corporate sources. Contributions to it are tax-deductible.
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