The outcome of two lawsuits in the past week demonstrated the stark differences between Democratic and Republican party leadership and underscored that the party of so-called “fiscal responsibility” is anything but.
Both lawsuits came in response to audacious actions by state governors. But while Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stunt will cost taxpayers around $4 million and result in significant challenges to state and federal laws regarding abortion rights and gun rights, Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s stunt will cost around $200 million and accomplish quite literally nothing except for the visible destruction of a national forest.
The California case originated in July, when Newsom signed Senate Bill 1327 into law. The bill bans the manufacture, sale and distribution of certain assault weapons and .50-caliber machine guns in California (which was already illegal), allows members of the public to sue gun manufacturers who produce weapons that are illegally distributed in California in a private right of action, and shifts legal fees to those manufacturers if they fail to win on any element of their case.
Newsom admitted that the bill was a stunt at the time. He designed it to model a Texas abortion law that effectively bans all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, grants a private right of action against those seeking and providing abortions, and shifts legal fees to lawyers who defend those seeking or providing abortions.
More simply, both laws ban an act, deputize private citizens to enforce the ban and block defendants from fighting back in court by making it prohibitively risky and expensive to defend themselves. Both laws are unconstitutional and should be struck down — which was precisely the point Newsom was trying to make and the outcome he hopes to achieve. Newsom even included a provision that automatically repealed the California law should the Texas statute ever be struck down or repealed.
So when U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez — a hero in conservative circles for his staunch support of the Second Amendment — issued a ruling this week declaring a portion of SB1327 unconstitutional, Newsom thanked him.
“We have been saying all along that Texas’ anti-abortion law is outrageous. Judge Benitez just confirmed it is also unconstitutional,” Newsom said. “The provision in California’s law that he struck down is a replica of what Texas did, and his explanation of why this part of SB1327 unfairly blocks access to the courts applies equally to Texas’ SB8. There is no longer any doubt that Texas’ cruel anti-abortion law should also be struck down.”
Only the Supreme Court can decide if Newsom’s gambit will lead to a checkmate, but in just a few months, and with just a few million dollars, he created a credible challenge to the rapid erosion of women’s rights in the United States.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Arizona, Ducey tried to pull off a Jedi mind trick of his own, but is looking more like the stormtrooper who hit his head on the doorway.
After years of federal inaction at the southern border, Ducey took matters into his own hands in October and started erecting a wall of cargo containers. While he claims it was a serious plan to stop illegal migration into the U.S., his decision to focus the wall on a stretch of federally owned land makes his claims dubious. The land sits in the middle of the Sonoran Desert — inside the protected Coronado National Forest where almost no illegal border crossings occur due to the harsh and dangerous conditions.
Given the rugged landscape and the inflexibility of cargo containers, the “wall” is also completely ineffective. There are large triangular gaps where changes in elevation make it impossible for the containers to line up properly. Not to mention that the tops are wide and flat, making it quite simple to climb a ladder on one side, stand safely on the top, move the ladder and climb down the other side. It’s starting to look like a prerequisite to be a Republican office holder in this country is to be a clueless loon whose very best ideas are laughably inane. Immigration is a serious issue that requires serious minds, not performative pratfalls by clueless leaders more interested in a tweet than governing.
Yet despite these obvious design flaws, Ducey moved forward with the project, spending more than $80 million in taxpayer money to construct just a small portion of what he conceived of as a massive border wall. In the process, he destroyed hundreds of square miles of protected national forest land as semitrucks carrying hundreds of cargo containers and heavy equipment used for assembling the wall rumbled across a previously pristine desert landscape.
As if that wasn’t wasteful enough, the contract Ducey authorized for the construction of the wall didn’t include any provisions for tearing it down if the project was abandoned or declared illegal, which was essentially a certainty given that it was built illegally on federally protected land.
This week, Ducey agreed to abandon the project and voluntarily tear down the already-constructed portion of the wall — presumably attempting to avoid a lawsuit filed by his own constituents living along the border — that could have resulted in court-ordered full restoration of the landscape and ecosystem. But even without a court-ordered restoration, Ducey just put Arizona taxpayers on the hook for an additional estimated $100 million in demolition fees.
Ducey’s incompetence echoes that of his Republican counterpart in Florida, Ron DeSantis, who faces multiple lawsuits and even a potential criminal investigation for his botched attempts to fly immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. DeSantis is accused of defrauding the migrants and is facing difficult questions over how more than a million dollars in taxpayer funds disappeared.
Talk is cheap but Republican showmanship is not. Americans should stop listening to the rhetoric of supposedly “fiscally responsible” Republicans and start paying attention to their absurdly wasteful actions.
— The Las Vegas Sun
