Bay Area activist working to put Arizona-style immigration law on California ballot

[pampango]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

A Republican activist is raising signatures to place an Arizona-style immigration law on the California ballot in 2012.

The proposition would require all state and local police officers to investigate the immigration status of those they stop if they have reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally. It would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work while concealing their immigration status. In addition, it would make it a state crime for an employer to hire an undocumented immigrant, whether the hiring happens intentionally or negligently.

"Since we're never going to get something like this passed through the Democrat-controlled Legislature, it's going to be we the people who are going to make it happen," he said at a Bay Area tea party rally recently, according to a video of the rally at the initiative's website.

The 37-year-old recently moved to San Mateo County but has been a political activist in the region for many years and served as the chairman of the Sonoma County Republican Party. He is writing a book about the tea party movement. As a student at Santa Clara University, he was a volunteer on the 1994 campaign to pass Proposition 187, another statewide measure that sought to crack down on illegal immigrants but became tangled in legal challenges.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16693931?nclick_check=1

[Bette Noir]

1. Have at it. This sort of thing drives Latino turnout, making Dem victories easier,

since Repubs have already alienated Latino voters with this sort of nonsense over the last couple of decades.

Such geniuses.

[primavera]

2. My worry is with the judiciary

These sorts of initiatives are so patently unconstitutional, I used to not worry too much about them, confident that the courts would simply wipe them out anyway. But with this Supreme Court, they're re-writing the Constitution on a daily basis...

[NBachers]

3. "Support Federal Immigration Law Initiative"

Please- I avoid the professional signature-gatherers like the plague. If I support an initiative, I'll sign up online if possible.

Don't be hoodwinked by someone who's trying to prey on your good nature and political activsim. Don't sign anything unless you read what you're signing, and you're familiar with the proposition.

Many times, after you sign, they'll start flipping pages and tell you you've got to sign this one, and this one, and this one too. They're just more hidden propositions with deceiving names. Don't fall for it.

I used to be in favor of this proposition business; I thought it was true democracy. But it's a mess. I wish it didn't exist at all.