Although I haven't written very much lately about Farmers Branch, Texas and its nativist elements and anti-immigrant actions, I have regularly kept up with that nasty situation. But the good news about that mess is that yesterday United States District Judge Sam A. Lindsay has found that Farmers Branch Ordinance 2903 is preempted by the Supremacy Clause and issued a temporary restraining order (available here as a pdf file) that restrains and prohibits the City of Farmers Branch, and its officers, agents, servants, employees, representatives, or attorneys "from effectuating or enforcing Ordinance 2903." Ordinance 2903 (available here as a text document) requires landlords and property managers of apartment complexes in Farmers Branch to document the U.S. citizenship or “eligible immigration status” of certain tenants prior to allowing the tenants to lease an apartment.
Here's Judge Lindsay's official conclusion: All in all, the court concludes that only the federal government may determine whether an individual is legally in the United States. Farmers Branch, rather than deferring to the federal government’s determination of immigration status, has created its own classification scheme for determining which noncitizens may rent an apartment in that city. Farmers Branch has failed to adopt federal immigration standards. The Ordinance adopts federal housing regulations that govern which noncitizens may receive housing subsidies from the federal government, not federal immigration standards that determine which noncitizens are legally in this country. Because Farmers Branch has attempted to regulate immigration differently from the federal government, the Ordinance is preempted by the Supremacy Clause.
Judge Lindsay's ruling is a very well-reasoned opinion and I don't think anyone, not even the Farmers Branch City Attorney, is at all surprised by his ruling.
Nor should anyone be surprised to see or hear some folks rant on about how Judge Lindsay's order denies the citizens of Farmers Branch, who just voted two to one in the May 12 election in favor of Ordinance 2903, to democratically run the affairs of their city as they see fit. Such "will of the people" arguments are nonsense, of course, because voter-sanctioned acts that fly in the face of our Constitution and other laws can't be legally sustained. As many courts have now ruled, the power to regulate immigration is unquestionably and exclusively a federal power, and that's as it should be.
A more interesting development in Farmers Branch, though, is a new law suit that argues minorities are underrepresented because of the at-large city council system in Farmers Branch. As reported yesterday by the Associated Press, the lawsuit seeks creation of single-member districts, in which a city council member is elected to represent a specific section of the city. We have single-member city council districts here in Bryan, which is the electoral system I prefer, but as best as I can tell the majority of Texas municipalities use the at-large system. Given that Latino's comprise close to 40% of the population of Farmers Branch, I'd say they are entitled to elect a member to their city council that they prefer, but unless they've got some pretty strong evidence to support their argument, I suspect they'll have a tough time convincing a court to throw out their current at-large system.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Farmers Branch
Blogging takes dedication, discipline and talent
I've learned that, for me, posting regularly on a blog takes a lot of dedication, discipline, and talent. I'm not one of those folks who can sit down at a keyboard and just type away with their thoughts flowing coherently, with only minor editing needed for publishing. That's not a new revelation to me; in my earlier life as a labor union rep I always struggled writing arbitration post-hearing briefs by their due date. I've always done much better with oral argument than with writing, but still, I do like to write--just as long as it's at my pace. Also, a blog is like writing an arbitration post-hearing brief in that you better have your facts straight. Research, fact gathering and fact checking has eaten up a lot of my time blogging. I must admit, though, that the time I spend on those tasks is exaggerated to a goodly degree because of my becoming distracted when stumbling upon other topics that grab my attention while doing the background work. More discipline here on my part would help in the goal of regular postings, but I'm not there yet.
But the biggest factor in keeping a blog up to date is having the time to do so--and lately I haven't had as much free time as I've enjoyed in the past. For the past two months I've been helping long-time friends remodel an old farm house on their property in Hempstead, TX, a little ranch community of 6,500 that is about a 40-minute ride down the road from me. My friends commenced this project a little earlier this year and it consists of tons of demolition work, shoring up foundation beams, bumping out a few perimeter walls, adding site-built roof trusses and roofing, adding a partial wrap-around porch, converting a front room into a bedroom with a new bathroom, reconstructing a kitchen from scratch, redoing plumbing and electric, new flooring, residing, maybe some HVAC and attic work, ...and the list goes on.
Anyway, barring anything unforeseen, I'll probably continue helping my friends out on this project for the next couple of months, which will also probably mean I won't be doing as much blogging as I'd like. So, if you two regular readers of my blog think it worthwhile, please bear with me and let's see if I can't do better at this blogging stuff.
