Pennsylvania Constitutional Amendments Considered — Leo Knepper of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania sent us the below discussion of proposed state constitutional amendments. They are aimed at limiting the use of emergency declarations by the governor and replacing state-wide elections of judges to the Supreme, Commonwealth and Superior courts, with election by district. This would weaken the power the corrupt Philadelphia and Pittsburgh machines have over the judiciary.
They are desperately needed as the governor and the state courts behaved more like those of a banana republic in the last year rather than one that respects rights.
Frankly, the entire Constitution should be rewritten.
“Full time” legislators ought to be replaced by part-time ones compensated solely by per diem with a term of no more than 20 days. Legislative districts should no longer be allowed to include a partial county. More than one county, yes. Partial counties no.
According to Capitol Hill insiders, Joe Biden’s first matter of business will be to pass immigration amnesty legislation. Biden promised to, as he described his intentions, “introduce” an immigration bill within his administration’s first 100 days. And without wasting a moment, the president-elect’s advisors met last week with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair Rep. Raul Ruiz, and other House amnesty proponents, to develop a strategy to move forward. In December, signaling their party’s intention for the 117th Congress, Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) introduced a bill with the short title of the “Seasonal Worker Solidarity Act of 2020.”
Biden’s staff is still ironing out further details, but if he’s is serious about his 100-day timeline, then a bill that legalizes deferred action for childhood arrivals, (DACAs) would be his path of least resistance. The DACA population is relatively small; the Migration Policy Institute puts the total as of June 2020 at about 650,000. And the Pew Research Center’s push-polling on DACAs found that 74 percent of Americans favor legalizing DREAMers, a 2012 program that President Obama initiated through an Executive Branch memorandum.
Strategically, moving forward on a full amnesty will be tricky for the new administration. First, workable guidelines must be developed. No one knows how many illegal immigrants currently reside in the U.S., with estimates ranging from 12 million to 30 million. Amnesty advocates and the legacy media use the smaller total. Others, including Arturo Sarukhan, the former ambassador to the U.S. from Mexico, cite 30 million as more accurate.
A related immigration puzzle pertains to the caravans gathered at the border overheard to be chanting “Biden, Biden.” Latest reports indicate that large numbers of Hondurans have already headed North, and anticipate arriving at the Southwest Border before January 20, Inauguration Day, and just in time, they hope, to cash in on amnesty.
Social media is instrumental in forming the caravans, and even if migrants are turned away initially, they invariably regroup to try once more. To date, the Biden team has shown little interest in border enforcement, and instead has outlined an expansive plan to increase immigration at all levels. Biden intends to “promptly undo” the asylum accords that President Trump has negotiated with Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as to eventually end the Remain in Mexico policy which has been effective at curtailing amnesty fraud.
Other changes that President-elect Biden would like to implement include lifting the H-1B visa cap, which would serve well his Silicon Valley masters, and importing more low-skilled workers who would compete with American citizens with less than a college education for scarce jobs. About 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed.
Millions of Americans oppose amnesty, for understandable reasons. Amnesty means that the federal government will pardon illegal immigrants for breaking U.S. immigration laws and using false Social Security numbers or other fraudulently obtained state identification cards that enable them to gain employment and unlawfully remain in the country.
Biden’s immigration agenda is exceptionally aggressive, especially for an incoming president whose victory edge in key swing states was narrow. In Pennsylvania, Biden’s margin over President Trump was 50.0 percent to 48.8 percent; in Arizona, 49.4 percent to 49.0 percent; in Georgia, 49.5 percent to 49.3 percent, and in Nevada, 50.0 percent to 48.0 percent. And with the 2020 House of Representatives election a far-cry from the big blue, plus-20 seat wave that Democrats predicted – instead, the GOP gained about 12 seats – President-elect Biden may be well advised to start off slowly with his immigration agenda lest he begin his tenure with big border backfires.
On January 20, President Trump will be gone from office. But newly elected President Biden should remember that gone doesn’t mean forgotten, especially among those faithful 75 million voters who want to keep Trumpism.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
In 1924, Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster founded what is today America’s third largest publishing company. Simon & Schuster’s first foray into publishing was crossword puzzle books. Simon’s aunt was a crossword puzzle enthusiast, so the newly formed company wisely decided to fill the nation’s puzzle book void. Nearly a century later, Simon & Schuster made the curious, from a corporate perspective, woke decision to cancel Sen. Josh Hawley’s book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” for what the company described as “his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.” Stated more precisely, Simon & Schuster objects to Hawley’s support of President Trump, and indirectly charged him with inciting the Washington, D.C. riots.
Hawley is one of 75 million Americans who have well-founded doubts about the November election’s validity, and his book’s topic – Silicon Valley’s censorship of other-than-woke opinions that now include President Trump permanently – troubles Americans. Simon & Schuster, apparently, would rather silence Hawley than publish a book that would appeal to a large chunk of 75 million potential book-buyers. Above all, Congress, the media, Silicon Valley and corporate America’s goal is to relentlessly malign the not-so-suddenly friendless President Trump who, in his eyes, has been abandoned by Vice President Mike Pence, his three Supreme Court appointees, congressional Republicans, his Attorney General and others.
For all the preaching that the incoming Biden administration spouts about moving on and uniting America, its actions belie its rhetoric. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to impeach or use the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office. The latter failed. If Congress’ impeachment also fails, the never-Trumpers’ wishful thinking goal then becomes to impeach the president after he leaves office, which the Constitution doesn’t permit, or perhaps to rely on the New York district attorney’s office to uncover financial crimes the Trump Organization committed.
In the meantime, President-elect Biden is ignoring the nation’s disaffected 75 million, a curious strategy for a candidate who won, perhaps fraudulently, key swing states by the narrowest margins. As for the reported 80 million that voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, most of them cast anti-Trump rather than pro-Biden ballots. With the mid-term 2022 election just 22 months away and with President Trump increasingly unlikely to make a Grover Cleveland-like bid to become the second president elected to nonconsecutive terms, a significant portion of the 80 million will have their eyes firmly focused on the incoming administration’s agenda.
Immediately facing the newly inaugurated President Biden will be his student debt and immigration pledges. During his campaign, Biden promised to cancel up to $10,000 in student debt, which exceeds $1.5 trillion outstanding, and to extend the COVID-related payment pause scheduled to expire this month. But Pelosi, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) want the debt forgiveness tab increased ‘‘with a pen” to $50,000, and thereby let taxpayers absorb the bill. Many Americans perceive waiving student loan obligations as abdicating individual responsibility and grossly unfair to students and parents who played by the rules and paid off their debt as it came due. A better solution: let the rolling-in-dough universities who encouraged student indebtedness take the hit.
On immigration, President-elect Biden already faces intense pressure to deliver on his vow to introduce an amnesty bill within his first 100 days in office. With Democrats controlling all three government branches, amnesty may look like a no-brainer, but history says differently. In 2008, President Obama had a Democratic-controlled Congress, but amnesty, toxic as always, went nowhere. And Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, was defeated legislatively countless times before President Obama issued an Executive Branch Memorandum to temporarily legalize the program. Passing any form of amnesty is a tough nut.
President Trump had many shortcomings, including his abrasive personality. Presidents Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama were smoother, but elitist. Voters wearied of the smooth talkers’ globalist agendas and – ergo – the Trump presidency. Democrats would love to remove President Trump so that he will be barred from a 2024 candidacy. If the Democrats have their way, President Trump will have no Cleveland-like second go-around!
Presidents Trump and Cleveland have character similarities; they’re both truculently honest. During his administration, President Cleveland was called “ugly-honest” and was admired for the enemies that he made, namely corrupt politicians. President Trump’s foes include career swamp dwellers, corporate America, Wall Street, Big Tech, China, America-last Democrats and RINOs. His friends, not in high places but 75 million strong, want to Make America Great Again. Evaluate President Trump by the enemies that he made, and the friends that he kept.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government . . . ”
Those words proclaimed by the thirteen original colonies on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia began the great experiment in self-government that became the United States of America. In 2020 the government of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania laid waste to the “unalienable Rights” enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. Being “destructive of these ends,” it is now time for We the People to exercise our right to alter that government.
The transgressions of Governor Tom Wolf and his administration are too numerous to restate here, but suffice it to say he assumed extra-constitutional powers supposedly to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. His administration has refused to provide information justifying many of their draconian orders and instead has relied on an activist state Supreme Court to run roughshod over a legislature that tried valiantly to restore balance.
As a result, the time has come for Pennsylvanians to take back control of our state government – in fact, control of our lives – from a system of checks and balances that failed us during the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news is, if the legislature acts promptly and appropriately, we can do so in a matter of months. The vehicle for restoring both our rights and our state’s system of checks and balances are three proposed constitutional amendments designed to reign in a governor with dictatorial tendencies, and a rogue state Supreme Court.
Amending the Pennsylvania constitution is a two-step process. First, the proposed amendment must be approved by both houses of the General Assembly in two consecutive legislative sessions. Then, the amendment must be approved by voters in a statewide referendum.
The legislature approved the proposed constitutional amendments in the session that ended in November. The new session of the General Assembly has now commenced. With Republicans in firm control of both the House and the Senate approval of the amendments is likely to come within weeks. That would set up a May referendum for voters to give the amendments final approval.
Two of the amendments center on the exercise of emergency powers by the governor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Wolf has abused that authority by claiming the power to sign or veto any legislation aimed at ending his emergency powers. Despite clear language in the law, the activist state Supreme Court sided with the governor, rendering the legislature powerless to end the emergency declaration.
One amendment would require legislative approval within 21 days of any invocation of emergency powers by the governor. The other eliminates the requirement for a termination resolution to be presented to the governor. Taken together, the amendments would solidify the legislative intent of the current emergency powers law by placing a legislative check on the governor’s authority.
Another proposed amendment would end the statewide election of appellate court judges and justices and instead have members of the Commonwealth, Superior, and state Supreme courts elected by region. This would accomplish two goals: first, it would dilute the power of special interests who expend large sums of money to influence statewide elections by concentrating on voters in heavily populated regions of the state.
Second, and more importantly, the regional election of appellate court judges would result in the election of jurists more closely reflective of the diverse regions that constitute the state. We currently elect members of the legislature – state House and Senate members – by district to ensure equal representation in that branch of government. To elect judges and justices the same way would be both consistent and fair.
As the May referendum on these proposed amendments approaches, look for entrenched special interests spearheaded by a governor who is loath to relinquish power to unleash attacks on the measures. The current system of checks and balances has failed because of their actions. The time has come for the people of Pennsylvania to dismiss their protests and to “institute a new government” protective of our rights.
Lowman S. Henry is chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal and American Radio Journal
Biden’s Choice: His Silicon Valley Masters or U.S. IT Workers
By Joe Guzzardi
From the instant that President Joe Biden takes office, he’ll be under heavy pressure from his base to undo President Trump’s immigration-related Executive Orders. But in most cases, reversing what President Trump has done will be easier said than done.
Among the greatest challenges to Biden’s administration will be its response to President Trump’s December 31 extension of his earlier temporary ban on some employment-based visas. During his first 100 days in office, Biden will be pushed hard to override President Trump’s Executive Order with his own that ends the pause.
Powerful Silicon Valley forces including Facebook, Google and Twitter – major contributors to Biden’s election – will seek their reward in the form of more H-1B, L-1, H-4 and J-1 visas. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his tech allies are certain to hammer away at their age-old and discredited messaging that more foreign workers are essential to their financial survival and that no qualified Americans are available. Inside the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, assuming the Senate confirms his nomination, will reinforce Silicon Valley’s anti-U.S. shut-out of American IT workers and Big Tech’s self-serving claims.
In June, as the coronavirus pandemic was battering the economy, and forcing employers to furlough or fire workers, President Trump issued his employment-based visa pause. The President’s early summer order expired December 31, but defending American workers, Trump issued an extension set to lapse in March 2021.
Explaining his extension, Trump wrote that COVID-19’s effect on the U.S. labor market and on American communities’ health is an ongoing national concern. The current number of new daily worldwide cases announced by the World Health Organization, President Trump wrote, continues at unacceptably high numbers, and the U.S. labor market remains weak, with communities vulnerable.
Because of President Trump’s extension, Biden will immediately find himself between a rock and a hard place. First, Biden’s central campaign issue was ending the coronavirus pandemic. Biden harshly criticized President Trump for what he perceived as the president’s ineffectiveness in controlling the virus. But admitting more foreign nationals from countries that haven’t successfully tamed the virus is risk-laden for the incoming Biden administration. Importing COVID-19 infected migrants, a strong possibility without rigorous health vetting, would be a devastating beginning for the new president.
Second, grim employment statistics make a strong case for maintaining President Trump’s ban, a task that will be tough for Biden when Silicon Valley approaches him to collect its IOUs. Nearly 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Adding thousands more overseas workers to the more than one million annual lifetime employment-authorized lawful permanent residents creates a nearly insurmountable hurdle for U.S. job seekers.
Not only does Biden plan to expand the long list of existing visas, he’s committed to a program that would allow any executive of a large or midsize county or city to petition for additional immigrant visas provided employers in those regions certify that there are available jobs, and no American workers are available to fill them. In the Biden administration, any immigration policy is possible, even one as outrageous and dangerous as this hairbrained scheme that would be crippling to low-skilled American workers.
On the upside, a temporizing variable may restrain Biden. The 2022 House of Representatives race is already underway, and Democrats took an unexpectedly heavy hit in November. The touted “Blue Wave” never hit shore; the GOP added about 12 seats to its caucus, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi barely held on to her leadership post. Even in far-left California, Republicans flipped three seats.
The 2020 House results should serve as a warning to the incoming Biden administration that the nation isn’t prepared for a radical overhaul, immigration included. Over-immigration ranks high among Americans’ concerns, and Biden should tread lightly. He risks losing the House in 2022, and assuming he’ll seek it, the presidency in 2024.
Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
As a kid growing up in post-World War II Los Angeles, the Rose Bowl was the year’s single most anticipated event. In sports, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn; the Lakers in Minneapolis; and the Rams had only recently relocated from Cleveland. The thought that professional ice hockey might one day be played in sunny Southern California was too preposterous to take seriously. In some circles, but not the under-16 age group, the Academy Awards were Los Angeles’ annual highlight. Kids would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to Oscar-winning films like “From Here to Eternity” or “Around the World in 80 Days.”
When my parents announced on Christmas Day that one of my gifts was tickets to attend the January 1, 1955, Rose Bowl game with my Dad, my excitement couldn’t be contained. That year, the Rose Bowl matchup pitted the No. 1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes against the #17 University of Southern California Trojans. While few gave the Trojans a chance, bowl games were always the perfect setting for major college upsets.
Fans of the then-Pac 8 eagerly anticipated watching the Big-10 conference representatives, considered more powerful than their West Coast rivals. The undefeated 8-0 Buckeyes, led by Hall of Fame coach Woody Hayes and Heisman Trophy winning running back Howard “Hopalong” Cassidy, faced the 6-3 Trojans who finished a dismal sixth in the Pac-8. Under the Rose Bowl era’s early rules, Pac-8 winner UCLA couldn’t represent the conference in back-to-back years.
Ask anyone who’s lived in Los Angeles to predict January 1 weather, and their replies will be the same. No matter how foul the weather is on the days leading up to the Rose Bowl or how awful during the following days, by kickoff, skies will be sunny, and the temperature warm. But for the first time in more than three decades, January 1, 1955, was not only rainy, but a torrent. No sooner had my father’s eyes opened on Rose Bowl morning than, as sheets of rain fell outside, he tried to beg off. Dad pleaded with Mom to intercede on his behalf. No dice, Mom said, the Rose Bowl is your son’s Christmas present, and he’s looked forward to the game for a week.
Off to Pasadena my father and I set; he somber, and me excited. With 90,000 fans sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, umbrellas were useless. The temperature was no day at the beach, either; it hovered in the mid-50s. As rain dripped down our cheeks, we sat through the entire lopsided game that, from the beginning, Ohio State dominated, 20-7. Here’s how the Cleveland Plain Dealer described the game: “Through mud, slime, murk and driving rain, Ohio State’s dauntless Buckeyes today reached the all-time zenith of the University’s football history. Ploughing through muck in the fog and semi-darkness, the Buckeyes vanquished Southern California, 20 to 7, in the worst weather conditions of Rose Bowl history.”
As bad as the day had been for my father, it was about to worsen. Finally drying off post-game in the family Ford, Dad turned the ignition key, and we heard the awful grinding sound that dead batteries emit. Driving from our house to Pasadena with his headlights on, Dad forgot to turn them off once we parked. Realizing that we would be stranded for at least a couple of hours, my father let out a string of profanities that turned the parking lot blue. Stadium security summoned AAA, and, eventually, redemption in tow truck form worked its way through the tens of thousands of vehicles trying to exit. Our long drive home was in stony silence. Years passed before my family could laugh about Rose Bowl 1955.
I left Los Angeles long ago, and on return visits I saw Rose Bowl games under Chamber of Commerce skies. But nothing will ever replace in my memory that rain-drenched January 1. As I look back on New Year’s Day more than 65 years ago, I realize that I’ve developed a deeper affection for my loving father who resisted going to the rain soaked-Rose Bowl, but in the end, took me anyway. As he did in 1955, and continued to do until the day he died, Dad always kept the promises he made to me.
As President Trump weighs which course he may walk as his White House days grow short, he’s considering two paths.
The first is to watch from a distance, and not interfere with the incoming Biden administration. Biden’s early appointees, namely Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas and phony-baloney climate envoy John Kerry are Obama-era retreads. Given that eight years of the Obama administration – which prominently included Klain, Mayorkas and Kerry – helped elect President Trump, the president’s thinking may be that Biden’s agenda will play out favorably for the 2024 GOP candidate. The president’s second option would be to issue a slew of Executive Orders designed to keep his America First policies alive and kicking for as long as possible.
Option One is President Trump’s wisest course. Klain, Mayorkas and Kerry have track records that will not create national unity, no matter how vigorously Biden calls for Americans to join together in his support. Klain was a Silicon Valley and tech monopoly lobbyist who at the outset of the pandemic condemned President Trump’s China travel ban and disparaged Americans who have “needless fears” about the disease – wrong and wrong again.
In retrospect, Klain’s remarks are staggeringly partisan and cataclysmically misinformed. In 2016, Klain joined TechNet, one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful lobbying groups. Klain will push to end employment-based visa caps, especially on the H-1B, a long-time goal that Google, Microsoft, Apple and other tech titans have sought to further displace U.S. workers.
The last thing that America needs, but will soon get, are powerful America Last lobbyists at Biden’s side. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that at least 40 Biden transition team advisors were or are, like Klain, registered lobbyists. Represented on Biden’s team are Uber, Visa, Capital One, Airbnb, Amazon and the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation executives. In 2019, lobbyists lavished nearly $3.5 billion on behalf of expanding foreign labor, more than twice their 1999 outlay.
Mayorkas is infamous for creating deferred action for childhood arrivals, DACA, an Obama-era program that without congressional approval grants affirmative benefits to unlawfully present aliens. In a 2017 PBS interview, Mayorkas proposed expanding DACA from its current 800,000 to an unspecified total that could reach into the millions.
From 2009 to 2013, Mayorkas oversaw U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency responsible for legal immigration. Mayorkas also intervened on behalf of connected Democrats to secure EB-5 citizenship-for-sale visas for wealthy international investors. A DHS Inspector General’s report found that Mayorkas intervened “outside the normal adjudicatory process,” and “in ways that benefited the stakeholders.”
Finally, perhaps for comic relief, Biden will add Kerry to his team. A failed U.S. Senator, a 2004 presidential loser and an inept Secretary of State, Kerry is an incessant climate nag whose actions belie his preaching. Kerry’s estimated net worth exceeds $3 billion, a fortune that enabled him to purchase a $12 million, 18-acre Martha’s Vineyard ocean front mansion not far from the Obama’s estate. Although Kerry labeled climate change as “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,” his preferred personal travel mode is private jets, limos and luxury yachts.
Above all else, Biden, Klain, Mayorkas and Kerry share a commitment to increasing legal immigration from the current 1 million-plus annually, granting amnesty and encouraging illegal immigration. Biden’s policies will add millions of work-authorized persons to the labor pool and create a hiring bonanza for cheap labor-addicted employers. Millions of American voters rejected President Trump, but they’ll be surprised at the transformed America that Biden’s presidency is guaranteed to create.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
All eyes are on Georgia, and the Jan. 5, special U.S. Senate election. On Dec. 5, President Trump will travel to Georgia to campaign for GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Perdue and Loeffler face off against, respectively, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
President Trump will be flying into the maelstrom that is Georgia politics. Rumors abound about dirty voter rolls, ballot harvesting, rigged Dominion Voting Systems servers and illegal alien voters during the November presidential race that gave the edge to former Vice President Joe Biden. In Georgia and other major cities indifferent to election integrity, election fraud is easy to pull off. Georgia Department of Driver’s Services issues licenses and official ID cards to unlawfully present aliens that are similar to the ones given citizens, and are often presented as evidence of voting eligibility. Many in the Republican Party anticipate more of the same illegal interference in the special election.
With the future of U.S. Senate control at stake, Georgia could be decided by the four candidates’ immigration stances. Since Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed businesswoman Loeffler to the Senate to replace retiring Johnny Isakson, she has aligned herself with President Trump on immigration. Loeffler’s Senate voting record is solidly America First, especially on bills that would reduce illegal immigrants’ presence in the labor market, of key importance to Georgia’s unemployed and underemployed citizens. Warnock supports higher immigration levels, and less enforcement.
Although Perdue cosponsored the 2017 RAISE Act that would mandate E-Verify and slowly reduce legal immigration, he’s since drifted away from his America First commitment. Ossoff wants to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, as well as weaken Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. Warnock supports cashless bail that would put potentially violent criminals back on the street. The platforms of Ossoff and Warnock are bad news for concerned Georgians who should, for public safety reasons if no other, prefer Perdue.
Since 1992, Democrats have lost all eight runoffs including two for U.S. Senate seats. But, in part because of lax immigration enforcement, Georgia has drifted to the blue. Migration Policy Institute research found that Georgia is home to more illegal immigrants than lawful permanent residents.
As alarming evidence of Georgia’s leftward shift, Republicans lost two sheriff jobs to Democrats who have vowed to end cooperative agreements with ICE. The Cobb County winner has said he wants to suspend all ICE dealings. The Gwinnett County winner will cancel the county’s 287 (g) agreement that allows its deputies to initiate the deportation process for removable aliens booked into local jails. For Gwinnett Country, the consequences could be devastating. This year, Gwinnett ranks third among U.S. counties in migrants flagged for deportation. The vast majority of those deportees come from 287 (g) implementation. The winning sheriffs decided that 287 (g) had no meaningful purpose, since, in their view, many illegal immigrants committed only minor offenses. In effect, eliminating 287 (g) creates a sanctuary county. The new sheriffs know, but don’t care, that federal law requires the removal of illegal aliens.
In his Washington Times op-ed, Georgia immigration law enforcement advocate and Dustin Inman Society founder D.A. King wrote that Cobb and Gwinnett were once solidly Republican, but demographics have turned the counties blue. Gwinnett’s demographic change is reflected in its previous voting patterns. Today, 25 percent of its residents are foreign-born; in 1980 less than 2 percent were foreign nationals. Mitt Romney won Gwinnett by almost 10 points in 2012. But just four years later in 2016, the shift began. Hillary Clinton won Gwinnett, and Democrat Stacey Abrams trounced Brian Kemp in Gwinnett in the 2018 gubernatorial election by a walloping 14-point margin.
TargetSmart, a Democratic-managed voter analysis firm, found that between 2016 and 2020, Georgia’s Hispanic voters in the presidential election increased 72 percent, while traditional voter involvement decreased. Contemplating the two runoffs, a representative from the Abrams-founded New Georgia Project said, “Demographics is the fire,” a grim assessment that Perdue confirmed to CNN. Perdue projected that, because of Georgia’s Democratic influx, he’ll need to win “twice the number of votes” than he did previously to win re-election. “The demographic moves against us,” Perdue said, “but we can still win this if we get out and make sure that all of our voters vote.”
Kemp is a complete immigration flame out. His 2018 campaign promised to get tough on illegal immigration, but he’s done little. Under his watch, Kemp has seen Georgia’s illegal immigrant population reach nearly 400,000, climb to seventh nationwide, and surpass Arizona’s total.
Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: the runoff results will determine the fate of Georgia, the Senate and the nation for decades. Warnock and Ossoff victories would give the Democrats Senate control which in turn would mean amnesty, defunded police departments and huge tax increases. January 5 is the last call for Georgians to stand up against the powerful America Last agenda that Warnock and Ossoff represent.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org
For the roughly 70 million disappointed America First voters, dark clouds have already formed over Capitol Hill. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s Attorney General and Department of Homeland Security Secretary candidates, rumored to be on his short list for those critically important posts, have political philosophies far afield from the mainstream.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is a leading contender to become the U.S. Attorney General. Before replacing AG Kamala Harris in Sacramento, Becerra was a 17-term U.S. Representative who represented Los Angeles, and at one time chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. During his tenure as California’s A.G., Becerra has sued the Trump administration over 100 times. Becerra’s primary anti-President Trump litigation targets have been immigration related, and are issues that are well within the administration’s legal authority – primarily federal law enforcement, sanctuary cities, amnesty, refugee resettlement, the southwest border wall and deferred action for childhood arrivals.
Becerra advocates for decriminalizing illegal immigration, and once said that unlawfully present foreign nationals don’t act “violently or in a way that’s harmful to people. And I would argue they are not harming people indirectly either.” Such a statement is an emotional defense of illegal immigration and ignores the well-documented crimes, many of them violent, that aliens have committed in California, and the U.S. worker job displacement that their presence represents. Illegal immigrant workers are covered at taxpayer expense by all the protectionsstate and federal law provide statewide for all employees. California employers have hired an estimated 1.6 million aliens, the majority of which work in nonagricultural industries. In addition to his previous 100-plus lawsuits against the Trump administration, Becerra has promised to sue over any lame duck executive orders the White House may issue.
The irony is that Becerra and Gov. Gavin Newsom have repeatedly violated 8 U. S. C. §1324, a felony to “encourage or induce an alien to come to, enter, or reside” unlawfully in the U.S. For decades, the toothless federal government has allowed California and its local authorities to violate immigration law, and go unpunished. Should Becerra ascend to the U.S. Attorney General’s office, expect even more tolerance of illegal immigration.
In another sobering announcement, Biden’s transition team appointed Ur Mendoza Jaddou and Cecilia Muñoz to its staff. Jaddou was once U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services counsel under then-President Barack Obama, and is currently the DHS Watch Director at America’s Voice. America’s Voice is one of Washington, D.C.’s most influential pro-immigration lobbies, and advocates for giving the nation’s illegal immigrant population, estimated from 11 million to 30 million people, a full path to citizenship. The establishment media cites the 11 million, but a more knowledgeable source, Mexico’s former ambassador to the U.S., puts the total at 30 million.
Before serving in the Obama White House, Muñoz spent two decades as the National Council of La Raza’s Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation. La Raza, now called Unidos US, has promoted loose borders and amnesty legislation since 1968.
Becerra, Jaddou and Muñoz are surely jockeying for a high-level Cabinet appointment. But even if Biden selects others, those three will have significant influence over the final choices. Immigration expertise isn’t required to predict the Biden team’s disastrous consequences on border security and enforcement. Among the first of President Trump’s America improvements to go may be his Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) wherein Mexico agreed to hold asylum seekers from countries other than Mexico until U.S. federal immigration courts adjudicated their claims.
When nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and figured out that often-fraudulent asylum claims wouldn’t automatically mean release into the U.S. interior, they returned home. Analysts foresee a huge border surge that the coronavirus, deteriorating Central American economic conditions and the presumed lax Biden border policies have precipitated. Until President Trump, previous administrations had been unable to effectively manage border surges.
Biden’s immigration agenda is good for cheap labor-addicted employers, Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires who want no cap on H-1Bs, as well as other employment-based visas. The population increases that open borders create lead to more job competition, more school overcrowding, more urban sprawl and, for all but the 1% elite, a diminished quality of life. In Biden’s White House, corporate money will come first; Americans will finish last.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
There were many winners and losers on the ballot Election Day, but the name of the biggest loser didn’t appear on the ballot: Governor Tom Wolf. Wolf along with national Democrats invested tens of millions of dollars in a futile attempt to flip control of the Pennsylvania General Assembly only to see the GOP actually tighten its hold on both chambers.
The stakes were high. Republicans have held majorities in both the state Senate and House for the first six years of Wolf’s governorship, and will do so during the last two. While the governor will continue to work his will via executive orders, any chance for enacting his legislative agenda has vanished.
More importantly, the GOP will have the biggest say in the redrawing of congressional district lines. Republican senatorial and legislative candidates were outspent four-to-one as money from a wide array of national Leftwing groups poured into Penn’s Woods in an attempt to gain control of the redistricting process.
Democrats had good reason to be optimistic about their chances. In 2018 a blue wave crashed over the Philadelphia suburbs substantially reducing Republican majorities in both chambers. Polls, wildly inaccurate again this cycle, presaged a strong Democratic vote statewide.
Chances for flipping control of the state Senate had already dimmed after state Senator John Yudichak of Luzerne County left the Democratic Party to become an independent and caucus with Republicans giving the GOP a 29-21 margin. Democrats had high hopes of ousting at least four Republican incumbents; instead, the only GOP loss came in Delaware County where state Senator Tom Killion came up short in his re-election bid.
Republicans off-set that loss as Devlin Robinson ousted state Senator Pam Iovino in Allegheny County. Another Allegheny County seat, that of long-time incumbent Democrat Jim Brewster also appears poised to fall into Republican hands.
Tom Wolf and his national allies poured millions into state House races with spending topping $1 million in some districts. The expected blue wave turned red as the GOP has garnered a net pick-up of at least four seats – including the ousting of House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody of Allegheny County.
Although Joe Biden has scored a contested win in his bid for Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, Democrats lost two of three statewide constitutional or “row” offices. Incumbent state Treasurer Joe Torsella lost in an upset to Republican Stacy Garrity, while Tim DeFoor became the first person of color to win a statewide office as he was elected Auditor General. It is the first time since 1956 Republicans will hold both of those offices simultaneously.
Democrats had high hopes of flipping at least one congressional seat in Pennsylvania concentrating their efforts on mid-state Congressman Scott Perry, the seat having been touted as one of the five most vulnerable in the nation. In the end, Perry soundly defeated outgoing state Auditor General Eugene Depasquale keeping the seat in GOP hands.
So why the Democratic carnage?
Credit must be given to President Donald Trump whose campaign made Pennsylvania a top target in the process, dramatically increasing the turn-out among Republican voters. Trump’s messaging painting Democrats as radical Leftists out to reshape America into a socialist nation clearly motivated base voters.
Do not, however, underestimate the voter backlash against Governor Tom Wolf and his draconian, inconsistent, and inept policies in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Voters who have been told to abide by the governor’s orders to stem the spread of COVID-19 went to the polls as cases of the virus spiked.
Business closures and unemployment have run rampant throughout the commonwealth this year due to the governor’s policies and by Election Day those policies appeared to have had no impact on the pandemic. Wolf has refused to work together with the Republican-controlled legislature which repeatedly passed legislation aimed at easing the worst of the governor’s draconian policies only to see those bills vetoed.
Legislative Democrats voted in virtual lockstep with the governor. Even when a few went astray, they returned to the fold when override votes were taken, allowing Wolf to consistently prevail. Voters clearly saw what was happening. On Election Day they rewarded the Republicans who stood with them with new terms while turning Democrats out of office.
And so, Tom Wolf set the stage for an embarrassing defeat – squandering millions in campaign cash and ending Democratic hopes of controlling congressional redistricting in Pennsylvania in the process. Voters, as they usually do, had the final say and it was a resounding vote of no confidence in the governor and his legislative allies.
Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal and American Radio Journal
Wolf Led Democrats to Electoral Disaster Wolf Led Democrats to Electoral Disaster
