OPINION:
My, how far we’ve come. Used to be a time when the Constitution was the country’s rule of law, the Bible and its Judeo-Christian principles, the national moral compass.
Now? That prize goes to the ones with the loudest mouths, deepest pockets and — even more shamefully — most activist courts on their sides. I speak of the recent ruling against President Donald Trump’s try to withhold tax dollars to cities that willfully break border laws, of course.
Judge William Orrick on Tuesday sided with Santa Clara County, the city of San Francisco and with other jurisdictions in saying that stripping federal funding from communities that refuse to lose the sanctuary label could be a violation of the Constitution. He didn’t outright rule the Trump plan to strip funding from those cities unconstitutional — he rather said the cities could face “immediate irreparable harm” and that their constitutional challenge could in fact succeed, if it moves up the legal channels.
“It’s the 9th Circuit going bananas,” said White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, after the ruling.
Yep. Apt quip. Meanwhile, the White House, of course, is vowing further action, already moving the case to appeal. But it’ll be before the same bananas 9th Circuit, sadly.
So the left is emboldened, and is crowing — and no doubt planning more upheavals of America’s already fragmented system of law and order.
“This is why we have courts,” said San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera, ABC 7 reported. “To halt the overreach of a president and attorney general who don’t either understand the Constitution or chose to ignore it.”
Right. So where was Herrera and his ilk when Barack Obama was busily ripping the Constitution and overreaching his executive powers on climate change and environmental regulation, on the appointment of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on the petulant demand for public schools to open girls’ bathrooms to boys — or face Department of Justice lawsuit and loss of Education Department tax dollars? On the whole Obamacare isn’t a tax, oops, my bad, is a tax, line of court argument?
Right again. Sucking up the wins, completely unconcerned about the Constitution.
Well now the left’s found a real love for the 10th Amendment — you know, the one they said didn’t exist for immigration matters when Obama was in office, opening borders, and battling with states that wanted to claim their self-governing rights and close them.
From ABC 7: “The federal government can’t interfere with a state’s right to govern itself.”
This is just insufferable leftist deceit — a real pick and choose way of enforcing constitutional law.
As the White House said on Orrick’s ruling: “The rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our nation.”
Pretty much — yes indeed. But here’s the ignored question on this whole sanctuary city battle being waged between liberal-run cities and jurisdiction, and the Trump administration: Where’s Congress?
With a quick stroke of the pen, the Republican-dominated House and Senate could create and pass a bill with plainspeak language that states, most simply: No jurisdiction in the United States offering sanctuary to illegal immigrants may receive federal tax dollars.
Wouldn’t that give the Trump administration an actual law to carry out? It would. Instead, this Congress — this Congress that’s supposedly led by Republicans with utmost care and concern for enforcing border controls and protecting the national security of American citizens — is content to hang the president out to dry. This Congress, shamefully, is quite content to let Trump issue executive order after executive order, and then stand back and let the court battles wage — watching and planning reelection campaigns, rather than performing its duly elected duties and legislating for the conservative side.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.