Redstate

Posted at 8:17pm on Jun. 25, 2008 Lou Barletta for Congress

By Paul J Cella

Lou Barletta is one of the good guys. An unsuccessful baseball player but very successful businessman, he entered local politics in his hometown of Hazelton, PA, as a Republican in a very Democratic place. Then in 2000 he was elected mayor, above all on his commitment to bring prosperity to his town, which he did, earning several state-wide awards in the process.

Mayor Barletta came to national prominence when he shepherded through a series of city ordinances designed to resist the mischievous and impoverishing effects of illegal immigration. These ordinances included provisions imposing a $1,000-per-day fine on landlords who rent to illegals, revoking the business license of any employer who hires them, declaring English as the official language and barring city employees from translating documents to another language without approval.

A federal judge overturned most of these ordinances in 2007, on the grounds that immigration is a federal matter. The ordinances, he wrote, “disrupt a well-established federal scheme for regulating the presence and employment of immigrants in the United States.” Whether the judge was aware of the bitter irony that the ordinances would be quite unnecessary if the federal government was not itself “disrupting” the “well-established” “scheme” of federal maintenance of America sovereignty, namely by its studious neglect of immigration law, is a question that remains unanswered.

Read on and contribute here.

Posted in 2008 | congressional races | Immigration | Lou Barletta | Paul Kanjorski — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »