Top Iowa GOP Candidates Back Unconstitutional Proposal To Deny Education To Immigrants
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 8th, 2010 4:38 am by HL
Top Iowa GOP Candidates Back Unconstitutional Proposal To Deny Education To Immigrants
Last week, both former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (R), who is presently running to get his old job back, and Iowa GOP Lt. Governor candidate Kim Reynolds endorsed an unconstitutional proposal to deny public schooling to undocumented children:
Republican lieutenant governor candidate Kim Reynolds said Saturday that children who are undocumented immigrants should be denied access to public education. But she stopped short of offering a specific plan on how to make that policy a reality.
Reynolds was asked about immigration policy while attending the annual Latino Heritage Festival in Des Moines. Her running mate, former Gov. Terry Branstad, recently told WHO-AM’s Jan Mickelson that the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyer v. Doe — which said the children of illegal immigrants must be allowed access to public education — should be overturned.
While discussing the issue on Saturday, Reynolds said she agrees with Branstad’s position but would not go as far as to say that they would act directly against the law as it stands if they are elected this fall.
“Well, the Supreme Court has ruled, so that we need to operate within the law – what the law is right now – but would probably disagree with that and look at maybe changing that, or working towards it,” she said in an interview with The Iowa Independent. “But right now it is the law and we need to go by what the law is.”
In his interview with Mickelson, Branstad suggested that his unconstitutional plan to deny education to many children is necessary to save money, but it’s tough to imagine a more short-sighted way to cut costs. Children who are educated have the opportunity to become well-compensated workers, who will then pay back the cost of their education in taxes. Conversely, children who are denied an education are dramatically more likely to wind up incarcerated, and thus wind up costing the state even more in the end.
Moreover, it’s not clear how Branstad and Reynolds would work towards “maybe changing” the Supreme Court’s nearly 30 year old decision in Plyer, but recent history provides them with a model for such an effort — willfully flouting the Constitution. State anti-choice activists have enacted blatantly unconstitutional restrictions on abortion in an attempt to goad the right-wing Supreme Court into overruling Roe v. Wade. If Branstad and Reynolds plan to take a shot at Plyer, their most likely option is to simply thumb their nose at the Constitution and hope that the justices don’t thumb back.
Such a constitutional assault would hardly be out of character for today’s GOP. As ThinkProgress previously reported, top GOP officials have embraced everything from repealing the Constitution’s grant of birthright citizenship, to declaring Medicare, Social Security and the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters unconstitutional. (HT: Iowa Independent)
