2/9 ATLAW Blog – Tabled driver’s licence exam bill may keep litigation at bay

Tabled driver’s licence exam bill may keep litigation at bay

5:19 pm, February 9th, 2011

Georgia may have avoided litigation similar to that seen in Alabama a decade ago when the House of Representatives tabled a bill Wednesday that would mandate driver’s license exams be given only in English.

Georgia currently offers the driver’s license test in more than a dozen languages, including Spanish, Korean and Japanese.

Among House Bill 72’s opponents was the American Civil Liberties Union, whose representatives argued requiring an English-only exam would violate Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. James Mills, R-Gainesville, said driving is not a constitutional right but a privilege. Mills also argued that English is the state’s official language and drivers should pass an English-language exam to ensure they can read road signs printed in English.

In 1990, Alabama amended its constitution to make English its official language. Shortly after, lawmakers moved to give the driver’s license test only in English. In the mid-90s, a woman named Martha Sandoval filed a class action suit challenging the Alabama Department of Public Safety’s policy, saying it was discriminatory and violated regulations that prohibited agencies receiving federal transportation funds from using discriminating methods.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama enjoined the policy, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the ruling. However, the Supreme Court decided in April 2001 that there was no private right of action.

“That meant the Supreme Court said individual plaintiffs don’t have standing to challenge [a similar policy],” said Azadeh Shahshahani, national security and immigrants’ rights project director of the ACLU of Georgia. “But that doesn’t mean it would prohibit the Department of Justice from weighing in.

“If this legislation is to pass in Georgia, the ACLU plans to file a civil rights complaint with the Department of Justice,” Shahshahani said as the bill was being debated on the House floor Wednesday afternoon.

Other opponents said they believed passage of Georgia HB 72 would have been bad for international business and that it unfairly targeted legal immigrants. (The bill excluded immigrants on temporary visas, but it placed a 10-year limit on temporary licenses.)

Before tabling the bill, the House adopted an amendment proposed by Rep. B.J. Pak, R-Lilburn, that swapped the English-only exam with an updated sign test including the most frequent English words displayed on digital signs, according to the Associated Press. Mills called for a motion to reconsider, saying the amendment gutted his bill, but the motion was defeated.

Shahshahani said the ACLU of Georgia will continue to monitor the bill because lawmakers “might resurrect it again.”

2/10 The Red and Black (Athens) – Legislators push for immigration changes | The Red and Black

Legislators push for immigration changes | The Red and Black

February 10, 2011 by ROBBIE OTTLEY
Filed under Blogs, You Ottley Know

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Jim Galloway opened his Sunday column this week by saying, “One doesn’t need to keep Sherlock Holmes on retainer to uncover a hot bill in the state Capitol.” He’s talking about the Georgia General Assembly’s Senate Bill 40 and House Bill 87, both of which represent the state’s strongest serious effort yet to address the issue of illegal immigration. Galloway devoted four more posts this week to the topic, another giveaway that the two pieces of legislation will be among the most important in this session.

SB 40 was introduced by Sen. Jack Murphy (R-Cumming), who remains under federal investigation into his role in the failure of Integrity Bank. HB 87 comes courtesy of Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City). Both bills include variations on the most controversial part of Arizona’s SB 1070, passed last year: language authorizing law enforcement officers to “attempt to determine the immigration status” during “any stop of a criminal suspect” upon “reasonable suspicion” that the suspect is an illegal alien.

The two bills also seek to strengthen relatively weak requirements preventing state government agencies from hiring illegal immigrants. HB 87 goes a step further by allowing citizens to sue state agencies if they violate these laws. HB 87 also includes criminal penalties for “encouraging” illegal immigration, so as Galloway says, keep an eye on what you say about the Dawgs whilst in Cabo. Both bills also require that all state businesses use the federal E-Verify system, a computer registry that helps to ensure that employees are legal residents. The E-Verify system is encouraged now, but not required for businesses that don’t contract with state and local governments.

More than anything else, it’s the E-Verify requirement that is driving a wedge into one of the Republicans’ key constituencies: the business community. One of the many, many reasons that the issue of illegal immigration is so complicated in this country is the value that illegal immigrants provide to the nation’s economy. Agriculture particularly benefits from undocumented workers, and though SB 40 would give the state’s agriculture an exemption from the E-Verify requirement, HB 87 would not. The president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council said yesterday that the requirement would put “another layer of government on an already challenged workforce.”

Over at the conservative-leaning Peach Pundit Monday, Ron Daniels pointed out another potential problem with the two bills. Last summer, the day before SB 1070 was to go into effect in Arizona, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking it, and the bill will likely continue to make its way through the courts before it goes into effect. Daniels worries about a “protracted legal battle” putting more pressure on the state’s government, and argues that legislators should wait for the Arizona bill to be decided before passing anything resembling SB 40.

Rep. Rich Golick (R-Smyrna) offered a rejoinder to Daniels’ argument today. The Legislature won’t “wait for eight Supreme Court justices to make up their minds.” These bills are pretty comprehensive, and serious efforts unlike what we’ve seen in the General Assembly to this point. The debate over these two bills is sure to be contentious, particularly if pro-business and small-government Republicans stall the bill. Regardless, we’re gonna be talking about this one until April and beyond.

[Hat tips – Jim Galloway, Peach Pundit]

2/9 WALB News 10 – Some employers worry about new immigration bill – Live, Local, Late Breaking news, weather, and sports

Some employers worry about new immigration bill – Live, Local, Late Breaking news, weather, and sports

Posted: Feb 09, 2011 4:38 PM EST

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 4:38 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 4:41 PM EST

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Farmers worry about proposed state law 2:05

 

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By Jim Wallace – bio | email

ALBANY, GA (WALB) -  South Georgia farmers and construction companies are worried about a proposed state law targeting illegal immigration.

They say it could drive legal migrant workers away from Georgia and could cause major economic problems for businesses that rely on seasonal labor.

Laney Wooten seldom hires seasonal labor, but he worries that if Senate Bill 40 becomes law, immigrant farm laborers, both illegal and legal, would avoid Georgia totally..

“I feel like it would be devastating to the farm industry, because it’s going to make the legal immigrants that are working, scared to come into Georgia. It’s going to be unfriendly to them,” Wooten said.

Senate Bill 40 would require businesses to make sure all new hires are authorized to work in the United States, by requiring checks on the federal database E-verify.. Businesses would be fined for hiring illegal immigrants, and could even lose their business license.

LRA Constructors Co-owner Ben Barrow already uses E-verify, but says private business should not be saddled with this responsibility.

“It’s a long line of governmental regulations that interfere with private business. Business that’s trying to make a living,” Barrow said.

The Georgia Farm Bureau, the largest lobbying group for the state’s number one industry, told Georgia legislators that tough new legislation aimed at the illegal immigration problem could damage the struggling state economy.

“It shouldn’t be put on the back of the farmer or the businessman to patrol, whether they are legal or they are not. That’s a federal issue,” Wooten said.

And business owners worry that a badly written bill could cause an increase in construction and food costs.

“Every time you add another layer of requirements or bureaucracy, or whatever you want to call it on a business, it causes their expenses to go up. And their end product to the consumer also goes up,” Barrow said.

State Senator Jack Murphy, who proposed the bill, said that businesses are going to have to figure out a way to make sure all their employees are legal. The Georgia Farm Bureau said legislators need to make sure there is a temporary work program so seasonal farm laborers can come work at jobs Georgia agriculture depends on.

The Georgia Farm Bureau represents 400,000 families working in the nearly $69 Billion state agriculture industry.

Their officials say illegal immigration is a federal issue, not a state or local issue.

2/9 Athens Online: Editorial: Lawmakers are compromised on immigration || OnlineAthens.com

Editorial: Lawmakers are compromised on immigration || OnlineAthens.com

Published Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Buzz

Georgia’s state lawmakers are ready to take a hard line on illegal immigration, except when they’re not.

Senate Bill 40, now in that chamber’s Judiciary Committee, would require contractors working with governmental entities to provide information on any subcontractors working for them, and would require those subcontractors to use a federal database with regard to the immigration status of their employees. The bill would further require all private employers operating under a state or local business license to verify the immigration status of newly hired employees.

Public contractors and subcontractors found in violation of the proposed law would be prohibited from bidding on, or entering into, any new public contracts for a year, and would be subject to fines of up to $1,000 per day for each day of violating the law.

Private employers would receive a warning for an initial violation, and could be subject to a fine of up to $10,000 for a second violation. Beyond that, a private employer could lose their business license for up to two years.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, don’t bet on the final version of Senate Bill 40 looking anything like the bill currently up for consideration.

At a Monday hearing attended by representatives of the state’s agricultural and commercial construction industries, the bill’s sponsor – Sen. Jack Murphy, R-Cumming – started the proceedings by noting the bill is “a work in progress,” according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report.

Murphy also “said he intended to meet with the business groups and others as he ‘redefines and tightens up the language’ in the bill,” the Atlanta newspaper reported. He followed that up with an assurance that the “bill you have before you is not the bill that we will probably ultimately come out with.”

Subsequently, a Georgia Agribusiness Council official all but said that illegal workers are a necessary part of the state’s economy. “When … we talk about requirements for … verification, I see a shrinking of Georgia’s agricultural economy,” the council president said, according to the Journal-Constitution.

Similarly, an official with the Georgia branch of Associated General Contractors of America urged lawmakers “to be very cautious … and not put business in harm’s way while trying to address a real problem,” the Atlanta newspaper noted.

After the hearing, Murphy seemed far more emphatic on immigration legislation, telling the Journal-Constitution, “Do we want immigration reform or do we not want immigration reform?”

In asking that question, Murphy perhaps unknowingly framed the issue with which he and his legislative colleagues will be wrestling. Certainly, any number of Georgia residents want immigration reform. But just as certainly, any number of Georgia employers don’t want immigration reform. Thus, lawmakers find themselves neatly hemmed in by voters, whose ballots they need to stay in office, and the business community, whose money they need to campaign for office.

So, how will these competing interests be addressed by the General Assembly? Here’s one possible scenario:

Murphy and like-minded lawmakers will talk a tough game about immigration reform while the bill moves quietly to the House, and then languishes in a House-Senate conference committee. Then, in the waning hours of the legislative session, as lawmakers work at a furious pace to get their work done by midnight on the final legislative day, the bill will be resurrected and then amended and amended again, until finally it is passed – in a version that no lawmaker fully understands, but that will almost certainly be weighted in favor of the businesses whose representatives showed up for this week’s hearing.

Why? Because Georgia lawmakers seem to be serious about immigration reform, except when they aren’t.