April 7, 2006

Name for This?

None dare call it sedition.

    Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that The City will not comply with any federal legislation that criminalizes efforts to help illegal immigrants.

    The mayor also denounced a bipartisan congressional proposal that would beef up border security and allow as many as 12 million illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

    Newsom, who has not been afraid to wade into controversial national issues such as gay marriage, appeared with a group of elected officials on the steps of City Hall to support immigrants, “documented as well as undocumented.”Newsom also signed a resolution sponsored by Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, and passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, urging San Francisco law enforcement not to comply with criminal provisions of any new immigration bill.

    “San Francisco stands foursquare in strong opposition to the rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C.,” Newsom said. “If people think we were defiant on the gay marriage issue, they haven’t seen defiance.”


What are the state's rights / federalism issues involved in something like this? I have no idea where to even begin.

Immigration Internecine Posted by AlexC at April 7, 2006 5:27 PM

I bet his eyes were closed when he said it!

Posted by: jk at April 7, 2006 6:07 PM

Well,...maybe this is why that city Supervisor stated that the US doesn't need a military. If it were sedition, Bush would be within his rights to sic the Army on SF!

Posted by: TrekMedic251 at April 7, 2006 7:15 PM

JK, I'd like to know if he was smelling his own farts.

I'm thinking I'd like to rent of the planes you see at the beach pulling an advertisement.

I'd fly it over the Mexico-California border.
In spanish it would say, "The city of San Franscisco welcomes you! Kids stay free!"

Posted by: AlexC at April 7, 2006 9:26 PM

So when a mayor says his city's government won't abide by a some portion of pending legislation, that's sedition, huh? What is it when a president signs a bill into law and adds an addendum that he is not obliged to obey the requirements of the law?

Posted by: LatteSipper at April 9, 2006 12:43 AM

I'll concede that it is not sedition to abjure enforcement of a law that doesn't exist yet.

We have a very complicated power sharing arrangement between cities, states and federal government that is constantly tested and adjudicated. You'll find most of us siding against the Feds on Federalism grounds (Raich v Gonzales is second only to McConnell v FEC for worst SCOTUS decision of my lifetime).

But when the laws are settled, we expect both sides to honor them. Mobile, Alabama cannot outlaw abortions, Coeur d' Alene cannot allow chattel slavery. Cities like SF (and Boulder?) that refuse to recognize the Patriot Act or prosecute Federal laws are, well, um, seditious.

Posted by: jk at April 9, 2006 11:12 AM

Yet that appears not to apply to our beloved president. Bush signed the Patriot Act extension with much fanfare, then the Whitehouse quietly issued a signing statement in which Bush said he was not bound by elements of the law. Shouldn't he have vetoed the law if felt there were elements he couldn't abide by?

Posted by: LatteSipper at April 10, 2006 12:13 PM | What do you think? [6]