Smells Like an Election Year
From KnoxNews.com:
NASHVILLE - A proposal to make it a crime for illegal immigrants to accept pay for work done in Tennessee is headed for floor votes in both chambers of the General Assembly.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted unanimously today to advance the proposal to make it a misdemeanor for illegal immigrants to accept pay.
The measure sponsored by Sen. Joe Haynes, a Goodlettsville Democrat, could lead to fines of $500, up to six months in jail and require illegal immigrants to forfeit any earnings they receive.
Haynes says the Legislature is prevented from enacting tougher penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants because the state must defer to federal laws on the matter.
While I’m for measures to penalize illegal immigration, I think this is a moronically backwards way of doing so. Why aren’t we going after the employers? How is it even feasible to enforce this (”I can’t ask if you’re here illegally, and I’m not profiling, but hypothetically if you were here illegally, have you been working and getting paid? Because if you have I need to give you a fine. No? Okay. Here’s a driver’s license and a voter registration card — sorry to have troubled you.”)?
How is it that lawmakers are getting paid to come up with junk like this? My six year old son could draft a better document.
Sigh. I digress. Here’s why it’s stupid: Haynes says that the state has to defer to federal laws on employers. I call bull-feces.
Tennessee regulates labor and workforce on a state level, as evidenced by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce. That’s right — an entire department devoted to enforcing Tennessee State Labor Laws. But Mr. Haynes says they can’t do anything about employers. Their hands are tied, poor kids. They’d like to be able to regulate the workforce, they just can’t.
This is just a sad, sad attempt by state Democrats to make themselves look more conservative before November. There are a number of bills being introduced this year for that exact purpose (my own representative, Jim Hackworth, has his name attached to an “interesting” abortion bill). However, those bills don’t stand up to close scrutiny by the informed.
Fortunately for the Dems people don’t seem very interested in being informed this election cycle. They prefer to be inspired.
3 Responses to “Smells Like an Election Year”
By Floyd on Mar 11, 2008 | Reply
You’ve got it wrong. The state legislature passed bills last year fining employers for hiring illegal immigrants. The federal government said they can’t do that because federal law doesn’t allow states to go after people that employ illegal immigrants. But federal law doesn’t say anything about the employees. The legislature’s website also says the bill passed today was introduced last year.
By David on Mar 11, 2008 | Reply
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but, isn’t this ABORTION bill “unconstitutional” in light of Planned Parenthood vs. Sundquist, decided by the TN Supreme Court in 2000? Hackworth has (and I’m guessing most or all of the other sponsors of this bill have) fought efforts to bring SJR127 to the house floor for a vote. SJR127 would allow a bill like this one to pass TN constitutional muster. These other reps. are either completely ignorant, or shamelessly pandering for pro-life votes.
Hackworth is not ignorant of this matter, since we discussed it at length in the 2006 race. This is a stunt to deceive pro-life voters.