As for Mr. Young, I generally delight in our rare moments of agreement, especially on points of law, but I continue to find it repellent that he deems it necessary to refer to other commenters with demeaning nicknames. Perhaps I feel particularly vulnerable here since, unlike AWC, I am grossly physically unattractive. On the other hand, Mr. Young seems not to be entirely on the clear in this department himself and forbearance might be not only a mark of courtesy and politesse, but also of self-preservation.

(http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/02/local_governments_should_enact.html):

“Kris Kobach, who served as former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration and border security, said there are several areas in which states may pass laws, such as sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants, restricting access to secondary education, and not allowing undocumented immigrants to have driver licenses.”

It would appear that procurement laws sanctioning employers of illegal aliens ARE legal…it is, perhaps, just a matter of getting the right language. Obviously, the constitutionality is not the problem. I would love to discuss this with you NoVA…perhaps we sit down and do that one day, as we have previously discussed.

I don’t thing it’s unusual, however, for a non-lawyer local official to be fairly unschooled in this area of the limitations on local authority (it has arisen mainly in the area of the National Labor Relations Act, with local officials attempting to suck up to union bosses), so I would NOT endorse his comments regarding Supervisor Stirrup and the fact that he may be oblivious to such issues.

What shocks is the fact that a lawyer such as Delegate Paul Nichols would be so oblivious to the constitutional problem as to introduce such a proposal at the state level. I realize that it is not his area of practice, but that is little excuse for someone schooled in the law.

Of course, it’s hardly surprising that the Old Whithered Wench would be so ignorant as to ignore the legal and practical issues. God forbid that legalities and logic should get in the way of her irrationally visceral style of public policymaking. That kind of studied ignorance is one reason why her influence is limited to the blogosphere.

I take you at your word that Mr. Stirrup thinks he is being unselfish with this. I further think, however, that the attraction of the issue to politicians is not that they risk a great deal by tossing around really bad ideas about the role of local and state governments in a federal system. I think those bad ideas are very very popular and there’s very little risk in adopting them publicly. Thus, however unselfish it might be for Mr. Stirrup to advocate wildly popular ideas, it concerns me that many local pols (most of them in my own party) abandon the national ethic, conservative principles, and fiscal responsibility just to shag a few votes.

And I have constructively outlined (more than once) a comprehensive federal approach, combined with enforcement of local regulations not specifically targetted at illegal immigrants, that, unlike a lot of these local windmill sallies, would actually alleviate the negative local impacts of the current situation. My program is at least as constructive as much that I see here and has the advantage of perhaps actually making things better.

I’d hate to cause annoyance, especially to you. My purpose is to elevate people’s thought process about tough policy issues. Let’s talk about it.

Have you considered that John Stirrup has UNSELFISHLY championed this issue for his constituents because that’s what they are begging him to do? Have you considered using your immense knowledge to offer suggestions to improve the resolution rather than taking a page out of Jimmy Young’s book of discourse (without the simpleton gutter language, of course)? I never thought that I’d be this disappointed in you.

Re your suggestion that the County only deal with businesses in the county, well, that’s a nice bit of caveman economics that, if followed throughout the nation, would get us back to the stone age pretty quickly. We might as well trade for shiny beads.

Though I do NOT support the Chambers position and feel they are completely out of touch on this issue, businesses operating legally should have no problem making time to provide proof of citizenship.

I would not paint Marty Nohe’s position with exactly the same brush as the Chamber since I agree that illegals operating small mom and pop service businesses either don’t know they need the license or opt not to get one out of fear they will be arrested and deported in the process.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that it is a bad idea. The discussion stems from Turn PW blue suggesting a few changes that don’t paint us into a corner when dealing with bids. Larger companies with overseas workers who are not documented legal workers might be a problem legally is what he was suggesting.

Additionally, it is critical to remember that due to government spending laws, the low bid must be accepted. That low bid might not always be in Prince William County or even in Virginia.

We do still have to obey existing laws: those rascally little complications!

It seems wise to make these corrections in the proposal now, rather than later. Will you be contacting Mr. Stirrup with the suggestions you have made? Anything dealing with govt bids needs all the shoring up it can get.

I *NEVER* said or meant to imply that Lockheed was hiring illegals. I just used Lockheed as an example of a multinational corp that I know does some business as a PWC vendor. In a later example I used Dell.

As Pat.Herve clarified on my behalf, I simply asked whether 100% of Lockheed’s (or Dell’s or any other multinational corp doing business with PWC) employees would be able to have their legal status verified via E-Verify. The answer is “no,” but not because they hire illegals. Rather because they have employees in foreign locations who are native to those locations and have never set foot in the US (and thus would not be in E-Verify).

Turn did not say that Lockheed was hiring illegal immigrants.

What he did say is - Are all of Lockheed Martins employee’s US Residents? The answer is No, as they do hire employees worldwide. As written, it seems like this resolution would preclude PWC from having a contract with Lockheed Martin.