A Republic Under Assault

by Tom Fitton

  Add to that the 2012 Pew Research Center study noting that “approximately 2.75 million people have active registrations in more than one state.” On top of that, the study revealed, more than “1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as active voters.” Combine those figures with the number of aliens the Old Dominion study cites, and the Trump allegations may not be so far out of line.

  A full-scale, nonpartisan federal voter fraud investigation is long overdue. I’m not aware of any systematic federal investigation of voter fraud—ever. Initially, such an investigation would be a simple matter of analyzing voter registration databases against federal databases of aliens and deceased individuals. Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity team, headed up by Robert Popper, former deputy chief of the Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, would be more than happy to help.

  The Left wants to downplay the threat of aliens illegally voting. How many aliens illegally voting is too many? 30,000? 10,000? 1,000? 100? Even one may be too many if it is YOUR vote canceled out by an alien illegally voting!

  Voter ID and citizenship verification are needed more than ever to secure our elections.

  ASSAULT ON YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE—A CANDIDATE

  As the cliché goes: “All politics is local.”

  It’s also very partisan and often, very anti-Trump.

  In fact, across the country, local politicians, prosecutors, and judges are abusing their powers to target President Trump. Let’s call it the politics of sedition—abusing the law to overthrow a duly elected president.

  California’s version of this get-Trump scheme was to try to lawlessly keep him off the ballot in 2020. Simply put, the state tried to unconstitutionally demand that he disclose to the public his tax returns before allowing him to appear on the presidential primary ballot. Though the law didn’t name Trump, no one was fooled as to who it targeted. As with most leftist abuses, there was little concern about the collateral damage to citizens and voters.

  We stepped up and filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of four California voters to prevent the California secretary of state from implementing the state law requiring all presidential candidates who wish to appear on California’s primary ballot to publicly disclose their personal tax returns from the past five years (Jerry Griffin et al. v. Alex Padilla [No. 2:19-cv-01477]).

  The suit argued that the law unconstitutionally adds a new qualification for candidates for president. Our clients include a registered Independent, Republican, and Democrat California voter.

  Under the law, known as the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act, candidates who do not publicly disclose their tax returns are barred from having their names printed on California’s primary ballots. We argued that SB 27 imposes candidate qualifications beyond those allowed by the U.S. Constitution and impermissibly burdens a voter’s expressive constitutional and statutory rights. The lawsuit claimed violations of the U.S. Constitution’s Qualifications Clause, the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 1988.

  During the 2017–18 legislative session, then-governor Jerry Brown vetoed a previous version of this law, which California’s Legislative Counsel concluded “would be unconstitutional if enacted.” In vetoing the 2017–18 tax return law, Brown noted:

  First, it may not be constitutional. Second, it sets a “slippery slope” precedent. Today we require tax returns, but what would be next? Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power? A qualified candidate’s ability to appear on the ballot is fundamental to our democratic system. For that reason, I hesitate to start down a road that well might lead to an ever escalating set of differing state requirements for presidential candidates.

  Our complaint further alleged the political nature of the law, which is totally divorced from the states’ legitimate constitutional role in administering and establishing procedures for conducting federal elections:

  None of the interests proffered by the California legislature for requiring the disclosure of candidates’ tax returns is related to election procedure or administration. Rather, the stated interests incorporate particular, substantive judgments about what is most important for voters to know when considering a candidate, how voters should go about “estimate[ing] the risk” of a candidate “engaging in corruption,” and what might assist law enforcement in detecting violations of the Emoluments Clause and crimes “such as insider trading.”

  * * *

  Unless SB 27 is enjoined, states will assume the power to create their own qualifications for national candidates seeking to obtain a party’s nomination for president. This could lead to as many as fifty distinct and possibly inconsistent sets of qualifications regarding the only national election in the United States. Using rationales similar to California’s, states might come to demand medical records, mental health records, sealed juvenile records, driving records, results of intelligence, aptitude, or personality tests, college applications, Amazon purchases, Google search histories, browsing histories, or Facebook friends.

  In their zeal to attack President Trump, California politicians passed a law that unconstitutionally victimizes California voters. A state can’t amend the U.S. Constitution by adding qualifications to run for president, and, as far as we were concerned, the courts couldn’t stop this abusive law fast enough.

  President Trump also sued to stop the law—and we won!

  A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction at the request of Judicial Watch, President Trump, and other challengers to the law.

  California politicians, in their zeal to attack President Trump, passed a law that also unconstitutionally victimizes California voters and the Constitution. A federal court seems to agree and granted our request for a preliminary injunction that stops this scheme from interfering with the 2020 elections.

  In his decision, Judge Morrison C. England of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California observed that “there has never been a legal requirement that any candidate for federal office disclose their tax returns.” While he noted that SB 27 “was primarily intended to force President Trump to disclose his tax returns,” Judge England agreed with Judicial Watch that the law particularly harmed California voters by diminishing their ability “to cast an effective vote” and to select the “presidential candidate of their choice.”

  Judge England ruled that Judicial Watch was likely to succeed on every one of its claims. He stated that California’s scheme “tramples the Framers’ vision of having uniform standards” for candidate qualifications. He also found that the public had an “extraordinary” interest in “ensuring that individual voters may associate for the advancement of political beliefs and cast a vote for their preferred candidate for President.” And he agreed with President Trump that SB 27 was preempted by the federal Ethics in Government Act.

  The law was eventually killed for good by the California Supreme Court. The episode is a dramatic example of a rogue attack on our rights under the Constitution to select our own president. Our republic’s law was vindicated, but the blows against it continue, from inside our borders and from outside.

  SECTION FIVE OUR REPUBLIC UNDER ASSAULT… AT OUR BORDER

  A nation without sovereign and protected borders is no nation at all. It becomes a dangerous no-man’s-land where laws are irrelevant and good and decent citizens and lawful residents fear for their safety.

  Unfortunately, our borders are now under daily—and if the truth is allowed to be told, hourly—attack.

  Judicial Watch’s commitment to upholding the rule of law has led it to become the most effective litigator in the country supporting enforcement of our nation’s laws against illegal immigration. These laws are under sustained attack by a range of well-funded (many by radical billionaire George Soros) groups… and politicians in both parties… who are willing to sacrifice our national sovereignty in preference to
“open borders,” cheap illegal labor, and for raw political advantage. Today, we continue to successfully meet challenges to the enforcement of our laws against illegal immigration across a broad range of fronts, including:

  CHALLENGING ILLEGAL SANCTUARY POLICIES

  Judicial Watch is currently scheduled to go to trial against the city and county of San Francisco, challenging their deadly sanctuary policy, which prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. This taxpayer lawsuit arose out of the shocking death by shooting of Kathryn “Kate” Steinle on a San Francisco pier in 2015. The killer, an illegal alien from Mexico, had been released from custody on a drug charge by San Francisco police; even Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were seeking him to begin deportation proceedings.

  San Francisco’s sanctuary policy received national attention on July 1, 2015, when Steinle was gunned down at one the city’s most popular tourist spots, allegedly by Jose Ines Garcia Zarate (formerly known as Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez), an illegal alien who had been released from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department despite a request from ICE that he be detained for possible deportation. Though there was no doubt he shot Steinle, a San Francisco jury acquitted Zarate of murder.

  In its court filing opposing then-sheriff Vicki Hennessy’s effort to dismiss our lawsuit, Judicial Watch argued:

  Sheriff Hennessy’s refusal to share basic information about the release of deportable criminal aliens in her custody—the date, time, and place of their scheduled release—plainly frustrates Congress’ clear purpose in enacting section 1226(c). By refusing to share release information, Sheriff Hennessy allows deportable criminal aliens in her custody—aliens Congress plainly intended to be detained upon release from the custody of [law enforcement agencies] such as SFSD—to escape federal immigration officials’ grasp. Her restrictions enable aliens who have committed aggravated felonies or other crimes deemed sufficiently serious by Congress to warrant detaining them and denying them bond or conditional parole to remain at large pending removal. Not only might such persons pose a further danger to the community—which was one of Congress’ main concerns—but federal immigration officials must spend additional time and resources and assume unnecessary risk to themselves, the aliens, and others locating and apprehending them.

  In rejecting the attempt to end the lawsuit, presiding Superior Court judge Harold Kahn wrote there is “sufficient support at this stage of the case for Ms. Cerletti’s allegation that the Sheriff’s policy prohibiting or restricting release information about suspected priority aliens stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of Congress’ asserted purpose of enabling federal immigration officials to gain access to inmates who may have violated federal immigration laws.”1 Though there is a new sheriff, our lawsuit continues and is now in discovery.

  And we found a shocking disregard for the rule of law. The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department (SFSD) admitted to the following jaw-dropping numbers:

  As of October 17, 2019, SFSD was unaware of any instances in which SFSD staff gave ICE information about an individual’s citizenship or immigration status despite Title 8, Sec. 1373’s requirement that state and local govts not restrict sharing such information with ICE.

  Between April 11, 2016, and October 17, 2019, ICE sent SFSD 2,401 requests for notification about a prisoner’s release from SFSD’s custody.

  As of October 17, 2019, only six prisoners in SFSD’s custody satisfied the requirements of SFSD’s policy for when to respond to an ICE request for notification about a prisoner’s release. This doesn’t mean ICE will be notified about the prisoner’s release because, after it is determined a prisoner meets the requirements of the policy, the Sheriff reviews the prisoner’s file to determine, in the exercise of her discretion, whether ICE should be notified of the release.

  Then-sheriff Hennessy admitted in her deposition to our Judicial Watch legal team that of the six prisoners who satisfied the requirements of the sanctuary policy, the number of times ICE has been notified of the prisoner’s release was zero. However, only three of the six were released. The other three remained in custody and were unlikely to be released.

  What a public safety nightmare that breeds contempt all around for nation’s borders. We hope to go to trial as scheduled this year, but this being California, we will be lucky to get this issue fully adjudicated even with our dramatic evidence of sanctuary lawlessness.

  We’ve also focused on illegality in Santa Clara County, the heart of California’s Silicon Valley.

  We filed another taxpayer lawsuit. Santa Clara County Board Policy 3.54(B) requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to obtain a “judicial arrest warrant” in order for the county to transfer custody of an alien. Federal law, however, does not require “judicial arrest warrants” for federal authorities to detain aliens, especially for those who had been incarcerated or arrested by local authorities.

  Judicial Watch is asking the court to grant an injunction against the sanctuary policy because:

  It is an “illegal local regulation of immigration,”

  It is “preempted by federal law,” and

  It is “barred by the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity,” which prevents a state from intruding on the federal government’s sovereignty.

  On February 28, 2019, Bambi Larson, a Santa Clara County resident, was murdered inside her San Jose home. According to court documents, she suffered extensive and deep wounds consistent with a cutting tool. A few weeks later, Carlos Arevalo-Carranza was arrested and charged with Larson’s murder. Arevalo-Carranza reportedly had multiple prior convictions in Santa Clara County, including a conviction for burglary in 2015, convictions for battery of an officer, resisting arrest, and entering a property in 2016, and a conviction for false imprisonment in 2017.

  He also reportedly had multiple, prior arrests in 2015–18 in both Santa Clara County and Los Angeles County, including arrests for possession of drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine, prowling, and false identification. At the time of Larson’s death, Arevalo-Carranza reportedly was on probation for possession of drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine, false imprisonment, and burglary.

  ICE officials sent six separate requests to Santa Clara County, when Arevalo-Carranza was about to be released from its custody, asking that he be detained long enough for federal immigration officials to take him into custody for removal proceedings. Each request was ignored because of Santa Clara County’s sanctuary policies.

  In March 2019, San Jose officials reportedly “criticized so-called sanctuary policies they say prevented federal authorities from detaining a gang member in the country illegally before he allegedly killed a woman.” The murderer was a “self-admitted gang member,” with a “long criminal history in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles spanning five years.”

  Sanctuary policies are illegal and deadly. They encourage more illegal immigration and undermine our borders.

  The outcomes of these lawsuits will have national repercussions and may well create models for overturning sanctuary policies across America.

  While complete anarchy may be the goal of the Left, it is the enemy of every law-abiding citizen who believes in the values of our nation and the sovereignty of our borders.

  President Trump has taken strong action to control the assault on our sovereignty, but he’s faced dishonest opposition from anti-Trump activist judges and sanctuary politicians who placed politics over public safety.

  But the rule of law is continuously under assault from all quarters. The Supreme Court just ruled this summer that it is illegal for the Obama administration to end Obama’s illegal amnesty for so-called Dreamers! The Supreme Court undermined the Constitution by protecting, for now, Obama’s decision to provide amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA is unlawful, and the court interfered with the President Trump’s duty and absolute right to rescind it. />
  This is the Alice-in-Wonderland approach to judicial decision-making. Threats to the rule of law come not only from rioters and looters in the streets, but also from activist judges on the bench.

  Only Congress can amend the law, not President Obama nor the courts. One cannot help but conclude that this decision is driven more by politics than the rule of law.

  Judicial Watch has previously exposed how DACA is not only illegal but a threat to public safety. For example, we uncovered how the Obama administration granted DACA amnesty without the promised background checks.

  How about this idea for immigration reform: Enforce the law! Almost everyone who is here illegally should go home.

  Instead we have sanctuary cities and states where police and other officials are told not to cooperate with federal law enforcement trying to enforce the law. These sanctuary policies are illegal and dangerous.

  And I was glad to see the attorney general announce potential criminal investigations of politicians who aid and abet illegal aliens and abuse their offices to protect criminal aliens!

  One of the most crucial lessons taught to us by the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic is that it is essential that first, our borders be more secure than ever, and second, that we know exactly who is crossing them into our nation. The main reason of course is that if we have control of our borders, we can ensure that no one who is infected with this virus or any other disease can enter. I’d suggest that a “wall” and secure border are as essential to the public health as any requirement to wear a mask!