Well, their elected officials are apparently hypocrites. Boycotts against Arizona, making their cities ‘sanctuaries’ for illegals, the list goes on. In violation of explicit California law, no less.
I present to you Exhibit A (or 834b, as the case may be): California State Penal Code Section 834b reads rather remarkably like Arizona’s former Revised Senate Bill 1070. Funny how elected officials, who must swear an oath to uphold both California state and United States federal law, are so eager to dismiss their oaths. And, eager to dismiss their constituents; 50% of Californians support the Arizona law, even though it was (possibly deliberately?) mis-represented in a poll conducted by the LA Times. That’s a lot of supporters. Glenn Reynolds of the Daily Mail blogs details some of the salient questions along with the responses; he points out that even allowing for a margin of error, the fact that there is a 7% majority supporting it, means that over half of all California residents support it. What I find completely mesmerizing about this is the fact that obviously, a majority of Californians are completely ignorant of the fact that their own state has a VERY similar law. And, that California police DO, in fact, enforce this law (or did until budget cuts).
I also read recently that as many as 22 other states are considering enacting legislation similar to Arizona’s (and, one might add, California’s). This is what comes of allowing big business to influence federal law, a la Reaganomics. What we have now is a potential deal breaker as far as states’ rights over federal rights…stay tuned. I promise that as the economy worsens this will get ummm….interesting.