The first decision likely to spring to mind when thinking of Arizona and the U.S. Supreme Court is the 1966 landmark Miranda v. Arizona. While that case probably won’t be surpassed in terms of impact any time soon, the Grand Canyon state is the source of three major high court cases this term that are capturing national attention.
The three cases include challenges to Arizona’s immigration requirements for employers, a state school choice program and the state’s clean elections law. Also looming on the horizon is the Obama administration’s challenge to the state’s controversial law that gives police broad powers to stop those they suspect are in the country illegally.
So what the heck is going on in Arizona? “Arizona is indeed trying to fill the Supreme Court’s docket,” chuckled Clint Bolick, director of the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. The institute is a self-described independent government watchdog committed to expanding free enterprise and liberty.
Bolick is co-counsel with the center’s Nick Dranias on the election petition — McComish v. Bennett. A companion case, Arizona Freedom PAC v. Bennett, is being handled by the public interest law firm that Bolick co-founded in 1991 — the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va.
“I think there are two explanations, and one is dominant,” Bolick suggested for the influx of Arizona cases. “Arizona is taking the concept of states being the laboratories of democracy very seriously on multiple fronts.
“We have a legislature that is risk-taking and innovative. For conservatives in particular, the realm of the possible is greater in Arizona today than any other place.” And, he added, when the Obama Administration is taking legal positions counter to conservative-libertarian beliefs, someone has to step forward to articulate those beliefs. “I think we’re doing that in all sorts of ways.”
Read the rest.
Aug 212010
