SEIU and AFL-CIO Challenge thte Arizona Anti-Immigration Initiative

Voters will not get an accurate description of an anti-illegal immigration initiative in a pamphlet provided to them by the state, according to a lawsuit filed late Wednesday  in Arizona Supreme Court. By law, the Legislative Council,  legal advisers to the state legislature, must issue a pamphlet summarizing the initiatives on the upcoming ballot. Arizona law also requires that the summaries be impartial; the suit argues that Proposition 200's summary is not. The Service Employees International Union,  AFL-CIO and the Center for Immigrant Democracy argue that the analysis written for Proposition 200 is partial because it buries the information about criminalizing a public employee's failure to report immigration violations. "It needs to be up front so that voters know they are creating a new criminal action here," Weissglass said. If the proposition is voted into law, a public employee could face misdemeanor charges punishable by up to four  months in jail and a fine up to $750. In fact, the pamphlet, which has not yet been printed, does mention the proposed misdemeanor in line 40  of a 48-line  summary. [more]