Illinois cannot defy federal law
I spent a week recently in New York, and during that time one of the hottest topics in the news was their governor, Eliott Spitzer, wanting to enact legislation that would allow illegal aliens to have driver's licenses.
To my amazement, when interviewed for the cameras, the average citizen on the street overwhelmingly opposed this idea. Not only does this legislation support identity theft, but it's the first step in legitimizing the status of people who in reality are criminals. While many say this is a misdemeanor, so we should turn the other cheek, I would remind everyone that DWI is a misdemeanor too, so should we turn the other cheek on that as well?
I wonder how many people in our state know that as of Sept. 25, the state of Illinois is being sued by the federal government. It seems that our governor, in pandering for votes from both the illegals and business, put through legislation that would allow businesses to circumvent Homeland Security's requirement for verifying the identification presented when applying for a job. I also do not recall reading this news in the Daily Herald.
Another aspect that makes Illinois' legislation interesting is all of the noise illegal alien supporters made when municipalities like Carpentersville wanted to enact their own legislation - they claimed that this area of the law belonged to the federal government, not municipalities. Where are they now? I guess that when the legislation is in their favor, local or state rule is OK.
What would the cities and states that do not want to conform to the federal law do if the government pulled all of their funding until they became compliant - I believe the government threatened to do this to get states to conform to the federally mandated highway speed limits.
Besides the fact that our legal system requires state law to conform to federal law, it seems to me that about 140 years ago we fought a war over whether or not states were responsible for following federal law, and the federal government and the rule of law prevailed. Did we not learn anything from this?
Lee Goldberg
Vernon Hills