SEIU and AFL-CIO Challenge thte Arizona Anti-Immigration Initiative
Friday, August 6, 2004 at 12:41PM
TheSpook
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]
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