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Governor OKs tough employer sanctions Governor to decide employer sanctions billArizona chamber joining challenge to employer sanctions law Employer-sanctions law has major flawsNapolitano signs employee sanctions bill Arizona businesses face tough new law

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The Arizona campaign to dry up employment opportunities for illegal immigrants by cracking down on employers has reached the equivalent of a screaming match. It will ultimately lead to complicated court challenges and in retrospect be seen as a major turning point in the state's political life.

The state's new employer-sanctions law is at center stage in this battle. The law says the state can suspend and ultimately revoke the business license of a company that knowingly and intentionally hires workers who are in this country illegally.

The law, sponsored by Rep. Russell Pearce, the Mesa Republican who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and signed into law by Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, in effect puts the state in the business of enforcing immigration laws that are typically the jurisdiction of the federal government.

But both Pearce and the governor believe the law can withstand any legal challenges because it is built on the state's right to regulate businesses through the issuance of licenses. In effect, this line of thinking holds that what the state gives, the state can take away.

Despite that confident attitude, Pearce and his supporters have been promoting an initiative called Legal Arizona Workers (LAW), which is another employer-sanctions measure but one that would become part of the state Constitution. In addition, it comes with a bigger hammer than the state law that Napolitano recently signed.

Under the law the governor signed, a business basically gets one strike. The first time it is cited for hiring illegal immigrants, its license is suspended; the second time, its license is revoked.

The constitutional amendment has no strikes. You get caught hiring illegal workers, your business goes dark.

According to the LAW Web site (http://www.legalarizonaworkers. com/), "If an employer knowingly employs an unauthorized alien, the act requires that the employer's business license be permanently revoked."

A powerful group of business leaders, including Jim Click of Tucson, is filing suit to challenge both the new state law and the ballot initiative.

Automobile dealership owner Click was quoted in the Arizona Republic as saying, "I've got my whole life invested in this business. What if my service manager turns his head, or fakes it (when hiring a worker)? I lose my license? Is that fair? I don't think so."

Many of those objecting to the bill are, like Click, major contributors to Republican political campaigns. These contributors are in the peculiar position of seeing that they were feeding a monster that can shut down their businesses and seriously damage the state's economy.

Republican and Democratic legislators who were present during the debates over Pearce's bill are a little put out by the complaints from business owners. Where were they, the legislators ask, when the bill was making its way through the Legislature?

Strangely, there are no good guys in this battle. Most Democrats, who have vociferously complained that immigration legislation is too focused on law enforcement at the border, couldn't help but support a bill that is aimed at those who in effect lure the illegal workers into the state.

This particular fantasy holds that if there were no jobs for them to fill, the illegal immigrants would stop coming.

On the Republican side, all those who have been chanting, "What part of 'illegal' do you not understand?" could hardly walk away from a bill, introduced by one of their most prominent colleagues, that shuts down those businesses that "knowingly and intentionally" hire illegal immigrants.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans knew that Pearce would continue pushing for a constitutional amendment even after his bill passed and was signed by the governor. Pearce said he couldn't guarantee anything if the LAW coalition wanted to push forward with the ballot initiative.

Pearce has the governor and every outraged business owner over a barrel. Under pressure from angry voters, the governor signed Pearce's bill thinking the Legislature might reconvene and deal with its flaws, but it appears nobody in the Republican leadership is inclined to make any changes to the bill.

Pearce, meanwhile, holds out the threat of a ballot initiative to amend the constitution if anyone tries to dilute the bill he managed to get through the Legislature.

The new employer-sanctions law goes into effect Jan. 1, about a week before the next Legislature convenes. Several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who voted for it hoped the next Legislature would modify it before it goes into effect.

But if the ballot initiative passes — and we have no doubt it would — the change in the state's Constitution would take precedence over anything the Legislature does to modify Pearce's original bill.

The resolution of this issue cannot be left to the politicians who tied the state in a Gordian knot. Only the courts can cut this knot, and thanks to the opportunism that motivated the Legislature and the governor, a great deal of time and money will go out the window before the law is clear enough to result in a single prosecution.