A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
The Denver Post, June 25, on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and immigration:
The inherent advantage Democrats have in appealing to a key voting demographic was made clear last week as President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney addressed the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials’ annual conference.
In the primary, Romney talked about policies that would force illegal immigrants to “self-deport.”
On Thursday, those of us looking for the Republican to veer toward the middle were disappointed. He delivered a speech that was short on specifics and hinted only at the prospects for larger reform while being overtly critical of Obama’s recent executive order to cease deportations of young people in this country illegally who are pursuing an education or military service.
We’re on record as supporting the president’s new policy—and polls show a majority of voters support it too—as well as the broader DREAM Act legislation, which provides a path to citizenship for kids who serve in the military or obtain a post-secondary degree.
Romney vowed to veto the DREAM Act legislation during his primary campaign. In remarks Thursday, he didn’t try to walk that statement back.
Instead he said he would “put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president’s temporary measure.”
He didn’t offer specifics.
Among the issues he specifically addressed were support for electronic verification for employers and finishing a high-tech fence along the border. He vowed to “staple a green card” to the diplomas of foreign students who obtain advanced degrees and promised some sort of path to citizenship for immigrants who serve in the armed forces.
Those steps are fine. But he ignored the larger issue of what to do with illegal immigrants who already here.
Count Denver City Councilman Paul Lopez, who was attending the convention, as unimpressed.
“His solution to the 11 million undocumented people in America is to make life so miserable for Latinos that they self-deport,” Lopez, a Democrat, told The Miami Herald.
We didn’t hear Romney’s promises of misery, but we had hoped that this might be a point where he started to lead his party back toward the middle. He should be outlining specific policy proposals rather than simply saying he would address the problem “in a civil but resolute manner.”
Ultimately, the key issue in this election is going to be the economy, and Romney no doubt hopes to make that the issue. But he can’t continue the GOP’s hardline stance on immigration reform and expect to win Latino voters. And their support will be key in several key swing states, including Colorado.
In closing, we give you one of the most poignant points from Romney’s remarks on Thursday—a point with which we are in complete agreement.
“We can find common ground here, and we’ve got to,” he said.
He should keep those words in mind as November approaches.
Editorial:
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The Daily Sentinel, June 26, on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona’s immigration law:
Most Americans no doubt learned that the U.S. Supreme Court this week struck down key provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law on a 5-3 vote. Or they may have heard the court upheld one of the most significant portions of the law.
Depending on their political perspective and views on immigration, they may curse the court for its liberalism and its acceptance of the claims of the Obama administration. Or they might blast the court for its right-wing ways and its willingness to uphold states’ rights, even if they lead to racial profiling.
But Americans of all political persuasions should applaud the court’s careful consideration of this issue and its refusal to simply accept what either side was saying as gospel.
In fact, the Roberts Court, like its predecessors, is doing exactly what is expected of the judicial branch of government. It has acted as a neutral arbiter of what passes constitutional muster, not as a partisan cheerleader.
Evidence of this is in the vote split. While the main decision was the 5-3 vote, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and frequent swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy both sided with the more liberal members of the court to reach the majority.
Also, the three dissenting justices each wrote separate opinions, explaining that they dissented on different parts of the main decision, and for different reasons.
Moreover, on the significant part of the Arizona law that was upheld, rejecting the Obama administration’s claims, the vote was 8-0 (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself). Not exactly a partisan divide there.
That part of the law requires state law enforcement officers to “make a reasonable attempt” to check the immigration status of people they stop or arrest for other legitimate reasons, if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in this country illegally.
Since Congress requires federal immigration authorities to respond to any state request to verify a person’s immigration status, that provision in the Arizona law simply follows the system Congress established, the court said.
However, the court sent a warning to Arizona authorities, saying there could be further litigation if the law is used to allow harassment or unreasonable detention of people for minor crimes—such as jaywalking—to check immigration status.
The court found other provisions of the law—creating new crimes for immigrants who fail to carry appropriate documents or who seek work when they are here illegally— were pre-empted by federal immigration law.
We don’t know what the high court will decide tomorrow on health care reform. But, based on the Arizona immigration ruling and previous cases, we can expect more of what The Wall Street Journal called the “very careful jurisprudence” of the Roberts Court, not hyper-partisanship.
Editorial:
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STATE:
Aurora Sentinel, June 21, on the mass arrest in the search for a bank robber:
Looking at individual details of how Aurora police handled a June 2 mass arrest in their attempt to snag a bank robber, it’s hard to find undeniable fault with holding about 40 people for a couple hours, even handcuffing many of them.
It’s in looking at the big picture that the notion of stopping—in essence arresting—dozens of people who truly happened to be in the wrong place at the right time puts the situation in focus. It’s bad policy and needs to be prohibited.
Aurora police ignited a firestorm of controversy when officers reacted to bank robbery like they never have before. It started when a robber wearing a bee-farmer’s mask burst into the Wells Fargo Bank at East Hampden Avenue and South Chambers Road. He took cash that had been loaded with a GPS tracking device and fled the bank. That’s what led police to believe the robber was in one of a couple dozen cars eastbound on Iliff near Buckley, about two miles from the bank.
All the officers that Aurora could muster on a Saturday afternoon, including the SWAT team, pounced on the area, stopped about 20 cars, and police began going car to car looking for the robber. Guns drawn, they forced drivers, children and passengers from their cars. They handcuffed a lot of men and some women, detaining people for up to two hours.
Police found their suspect and took him, eventually letting everyone else go.
The scheme and the following press conferences, where police Chief Dan Oates defended the operation, have created a storm of controversy, with many saying police went too far in their zeal to catch a bank robber. There have been repeated calls for someone outside Aurora to determine whether police violated Fourth Amendment rights of some motorists, searching and stopping them without good cause.
Everyone’s happy the bad guy didn’t get away this time. Every time a robber is caught, it can’t hurt to impress some other would-be crook not to try it.
But police and city lawmakers must ask whether the price is too high to use antics like this to catch any kind of criminal. In the case of robbers, the answer is an overwhelming ‘no.’
Here’s why: In looking at the spirit and letter of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there’s no doubt that lawmakers were intent on preventing the government, including police, from stopping people and trying to determine if they’d committed a crime, unless there was compelling evidence that a specific person had committed a specific crime. The law and the courts have made it clear for a couple hundred years: no fishing trips. That’s exactly what this was. Police were certain that one in a couple dozen cars was carrying a robber. While that might be a good argument for funneling traffic through some kind of checkpoint, police undoubtedly went too far in handcuffing —arresting— people while trying to sort the whole thing out. That’s not who we are as a country, and that’s not who we should be as a city.
Even more important, police essentially brought out the constitutional equivalent of howitzer to stop a one-man army. The controversy may have been decidedly different had the criminal the police sought been a mass murderer or terrorist. While a legal argument might still be made against police seizing people while hunting for a crook who has shown unspeakable treachery, the position of Aurora police would at least be strengthened by pulling out all the stops to trap a heinous fiend. Not so with a bank robber who may have acted pretty scary, but who in the end left everyone uninjured.
Aurora council members should have a public discussion about the incident, taking comment from police and legal experts, as well as the public. Lawmakers need to hear from their constituents about allowing police to use such broad powers, even if it’s rare. Police may well have gotten their crook during this scene, but they let their sense of restraint and purpose get away. City council needs to restore confidence in a system that this has damaged.
Editorial:
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Reporter-Herald, June 23, on the need for health insurance for firefighters:
As firefighters enter their third week fighting the High Park fire, and a grateful public continues to express its thanks for their efforts, it may come as a surprise that many federal wildland firefighters do not qualify for federal health insurance. Classified as seasonal employees, they are ineligible for the insurance.
But one wildland firefighter and Colorado resident, John Lauer, is trying to change that. He created an online petition—already signed by more than 100,000 people—at change.org asking that President Obama give the seasonal wildland firefighters health coverage.
“Because wildfire is more common from May to October, most of us are seasonally employed. More than 90 percent of us return year after year and we often work the equivalent of a full year in six-seven months. Despite this—and despite putting our lives on the line every day—we still don’t have the opportunity to buy into a government health care plan even at the most basic level,” his petition says.
“I’ve seen crew members’ families go into debt simply trying to start a family, because they have no coverage,” Lauer said.
His petition notes that simply being a firefighter brings health risks. “In the past 12 years, 179 wildland firefighters have been killed in the line of duty, and the conditions of the firefighting environment have been linked to cancer and permanent lung damage,” he explained.
Seasonal firefighters clearly need an affordable, year-round health plan for themselves and their families.
But realizing that asking legislators to agree on any kind of health care reform leaves firefighters in for a long wait, Lauer’s petition seeks something simpler.
“We want federal legislation that gives us that option, but we know that Congress can be slow moving. That’s why we are asking President Obama to extend health coverage benefits to seasonal wildland firefighters,” he said.
Congress and the president should recognize the responsibility they have to these brave men and women and act to extend them health benefits. But in the meantime, the president should go ahead and extend health benefits to the seasonal firefighters.
Seeing how hard these firefighters work, and the danger they put themselves in, there can be no debate that they deserve health coverage.
Editorial:
