CONSERVATIVES UNITED 03/22/2015

Arizona Hasn’t Seceded from the Union, But It Is Declaring Its Independence from Obama

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Last week the Arizona House of Representatives passed House Bill 2368, which if signed into law, would guarantee that Arizona could not fund any executive orders issued by President Obama. The sponsor of the groundbreaking bill is Republican Representative Bob Thorpe of Flagstaff.
IJ Review reports:

According to the state legislature’s fact sheet, there are only two provisions to the bill:
– Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with an executive order issued by the President of the U.S. that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.
– Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with a policy directive issued by the U.S. DOJ to law enforcement agencies in this state that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.
In a scathing–yet somewhat sarcastic–Arizona Republic column, author Laurie Roberts writes,
“[Arizona] leaders are marching ever closer to declaring our independence from the United States of America.”
However, the bill was apparently so uncontroversial in the Arizona House that, according to Roberts, only one representative spoke against it on the floor: Democrat Bruce Wheeler from Tucson.

The legislation passed easily along party lines. The vote was 36-24, and the bill moved to the state Senate. Critic Roberts called the bill:

…One of a series of kooky measures aimed at declaring [Arizona’s] independence from federal gun laws, from the Affordable Care Act, from the Environmental Protection Agency, from the Department of Justice, from Barack Obama and from just about anything else associated with the state’s most detested f-word. Federal, that is.

The Arizona House also passed House Bill 2643, a measure directed at Obamacare. The bill would prohibit the state from “using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with the Affordable Care Act.”
The Obama administration is currently attempting to obtain a waiver of a federal injunction placed against the President’s amnesty program on February 16th, by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen. The judge ruled in a suit brought against the administration by 26 states, in protest of the Obama plan to offer deportation relief to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. Another court hearing is scheduled for March 19th.
Last week, however, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to invalidate the hold and allow Obama to go forward with his program, saying “The district court’s order is unprecedented and wrong.”