Surprise / Supreme Court Sides Against Chamber of Commerce!

Though it's only because it dislikes immigrants more than it likes business.

The Supreme Court's five conservatives are siding with conservative ideology against business interests here, but Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting is an interesting case for other reasons as well. The ruling handed down today concerns an Arizona law that 1) sanctions employers that hire undocumented immigrants and 2) requires them to use the federal "E-Verfiy" program. Congress does not permit individual states to pass their own sanctions against employers who hire undocumented immigrants, but Arizona wrote its law in a way that, on its face, only suspended or revoked the licenses of businesses once they were found guilty of hiring illegal immigrants. The Court held 5-3 that both elements of the Arizona law did not violate federal pre-emption.

The majority's argument, in essence, is that the Arizona law in consistent with commonly understood definitions of "licensing," and because it was tailored to the requirements of federal law, it should be upheld. Breyer's dissent argues that construing "license" so broadly "undermin Congress’ efforts (1) to protect lawful workers from national-origin-based discrimination and (2) to protect lawful employers against erroneous prosecution or punishment." Sotomayor's dissent argues that "hen viewed in context, the saving clause can only be understood to preserve States’ authority to impose licensing sanctions after a final federal determination that a person has violated IRCA by knowingly employing an unauthorized alien."
http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=05&year=2011&base_name=supreme_court_sides_against_ch