Supreme Court Arizona ruling: Who won?

By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com

When you have an election, it is usually clear who won and who lost. As with every rule, there are exceptions. The 2000 U.S. presidential election is one of those exceptions. In that election, Al Gore obtained several hundred thousand more votes than George W. Bush. In any other modern democracy, that would have meant Gore won; end of story. But a combination of factors – the archaic, undemocratic institution of the Electoral College, myriad dirty tricks in the key state of Florida, and a right-leaning Supreme Court – handed Bush a victory that was richly underserved.

But the 2000 presidential election was a fluke. In general, an election yields a winner and one or more losers. That’s true even in fledging semi-democracies like Egypt, where an Islamist candidate just defeated the contender favored by both military and civilian elites.
When it comes to decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, however, victory is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Consider some of the media headlines and the various statements by leading politicians in the wake of last Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s draconian immigration law:  

“Supreme Court reins in Arizona immigration law, but leaves key provision in place” (Fox News).

“Supreme Court Strikes Down Key Provisions of Arizona Immigration Law” (Vermont Public Radio).

“U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Much of Arizona Immigration Law” (Voice of America).

“Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on immigration ruling: We won” (CNN).

“Supreme Court upholds part of strict Arizona immigration law” (Boston Herald).

“I am pleased that the Supreme Court has struck down key provisions of Arizona’s immigration law. What this decision makes unmistakably clear is that Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform. A patchwork of state laws is not a solution to our broken immigration system – it’s part of the problem. At the same time, I remain concerned about the practical impact of the remaining provision of the Arizona law that requires local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they even suspect to be here illegally” (President Barack Obama).

“Jan Brewer: Arizona to enforce ‘show me your papers’ policy ASAP” (Los Angeles Times).

“Mitt Romney reiterated his support for the right of states to carry out immigration enforcement but did not offer his opinion on the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to strike down three contested provisions of a controversial Arizona immigration law. Instead, Romney accused President Obama of failing to make headway on immigration reform” (CBS News).

So which side won this fight and what will be the consequences of the ruling?

Clearly, with a Supreme Court so highly tilted to the right as this one and with a track record of hostility vis-à-vis the Obama administration, it could have been much, much worse. Had all parts of the Arizona law been upheld, it would have encouraged many other states to design their own draconian immigration rules. This ruling provides only a narrow window for states inclined to enact copycat laws. The Court affirmed that immigration is fundamentally a federal responsibility, not a plaything to be toyed with by states afflicted by xenophobia and, more specifically, Latino-phobia.

Politically, the ruling is good news for the Obama administration. It won on three of the four contested parts of the law. A .750 average is outstanding in any sport. For an administration that has been handed many more defeats than victories by this Supreme Court, it is just short of miraculous.

The fact that the Court let stand an obnoxious part of the law, which empowers police to ascertain the immigration status of a person who has been detained for a non-immigration offense when there is reasonable cause to believe the individual is in the country illegally sticks in the craw and somewhat tempers the celebration. It also allows Jan Brewer to cry victory and threaten enforcement as soon as possible.

But Brewer is delusional. This was no victory for Arizona xenophobes, the Republican Party, or their presidential candidate.

Obama won. An across-the-board defeat would have reinforced the view among many Latinos that Obama, who received massive support from the Hispanic community in 2008, is at best impotent when it comes to defending their rights. The fact that this time the administration went to bat for them and hit at least a triple if not quite a homerun while Romney was reduced to issuing a seemingly equivocal statement but which in essence reaffirms his support for the right of states to make immigration law to suit local prejudices greatly clarifies who stands with the Latino community and who does not. Obama’s statement disagreeing with the Court regarding the one provision it let stand removes all doubt.

That’s not the only reason that this ruling is bad news for Mitt Romney. Since he won the nomination, Romney has tried to induce amnesia among Latinos and other immigrants regarding his rabid anti-immigrant stance during the Republican primaries. His main tactic has been to change the subject to other issues, blaming Obama for the high rate of unemployment, especially high among Latinos.

That Romney talking point had not been working even before the Arizona ruling. Polls consistently showed Obama leading Romney by a big margin among Hispanics.

Latinos, whether they are undocumented or fourth-generation native-born Americans, rightly read anti-immigrant rhetoric as an easily broken code for racism. That the symbolic significance of this issue for the Latino community transcends an individual’s immigration status was demonstrated most dramatically almost twenty years ago in California. There, Republican Governor Pete Wilson succeeded in passing the notorious Proposition 187, which aimed to deny almost all public services to undocumented immigrants.

It was a Pyrrhic victory. Latino voters, who being citizens would not be adversely affected by the measure, nonetheless voted massively against it. And they have punished the California Republican Party ever since. To boot, the courts threw out almost all the provisions of Proposition 187 as unconstitutional.

Republicans like Jan Brewer and Mitt Romney seem unable to get the message. Like the scorpion riding on the back of the turtle across the river that killed his amphibious lifeboat and drowned, they can’t help themselves. It is their nature. Or, more to the point, it is the nature of the base of their party, which has been the beneficiary of the support of the most racist sector of the U.S. electorate since the Democrats became champions for civil rights way back in the 1960s. This time that trait make cost the Republicans the White House.