Given the sad state of our economy, the bad investment climate, and the danger posed by profligate federal spending and ever-increasing government regulation, American entrepreneurs have to plan very carefully about where to locate new plants, stores, and other facilities when they expand an existing business or start a new one. If you are a business owner facing such a decision, here are 10 places where you should not invest your money or locate your business: Philadelphia, California, West Virginia, South Florida, Madison County, Illinois, St. Clair County, Illinois, McLean …
Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven, Connecticut, wants the state legislature to allow the estimated 11,000 illegal aliens who live in New Haven to vote in municipal elections. Approving that proposal would not only condone illegal behavior, but would be fundamentally unfair to citizens and legal immigrants who go through the lengthy process of obeying the law and becoming citizens. Heritage published a study in 2008 on the threat already posed by non-citizens who register and vote illegally. It is also quite ironic coming from DeStefano, the same mayor whom …
People who are supposed to be teaching our children civics want to deny them the protection of the Constitution. It’s known as the candy-cane case. And it’s all about religious discrimination. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments today [May 23, 2011] in Morgan v. Swanson. The case demonstrates just how badly political correctness has corrupted our public schools and illustrates the extremes to which radical school administrators will go to impose their ideological, anti-religious views on our children. The lawsuit was filed by the families of …
In a decision that should cheer those who believe in the rule of law and want to see our federal immigration laws enforced (despite all of the efforts of the Obama Administration to prevent that from happening), the Supreme Court today accepted Arizona’s petition for certiorari in the lawsuit filed against the state’s immigration law by the Justice Department. That means that the Supreme Court will make the final decision on whether Arizona’s law (SB 1070) is constitutional. SB 1070, which has served as a model for other states such …
The Heritage Foundation and the State Government Leadership Foundation are hosting an exciting event on December 7 at Heritage on the Electoral College and the proposed “National Popular Vote” (NPV) plan. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and the chief election officials of five states, Secretaries of State Beth Chapman (Alabama), Tre Hargett (Tennessee), Delbert Hosemann (Mississippi), Kris Kobach (Kansas), and Matt Schultz (Iowa), will discuss the advantages of the Electoral College and the political, practical, and constitutional problems with the NPV. As our Heritage Legal Memorandum explains, the NPV …
It’s official. The Supreme Court will consider challenges to Obamacare stemming from the Eleventh Circuit decision striking down the law’s individual mandate. In that case, 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) partially won their suit, claiming that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) should be voided as unconstitutional. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that the mandate — considered by many to be the linchpin of the overhaul of the U.S. health system — was unconstitutional. But the court declined to strike down the law in its …
The “National Popular Vote” plan (NPV) is a scheme that would effectively abolish the Electoral College without going through the formal (and politically difficult) process of amending the Constitution. The NPV proposes an interstate compact in which participating states agree in advance to automatically allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote (the highest vote getter, even if only a plurality), disregarding the popular vote results in their states. The NPV supposedly would go into effect as soon as “states cumulatively possessing a majority of the …
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal today with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of a federal district court’s decision refusing to issue an injunction against major portions of Alabama’s new immigration law. On September 28, Judge Sharon Blackburn upheld most of Alabama’s law, including a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of individuals stopped, detained, or arrested when they have a reasonable suspicion that the individual is unlawfully present in the United States. The inherent right of state and local police officers to make immigration …
In August, three voters in Wake County, North Carolina, were charged with voting twice in the 2008 presidential election, apparently for President Barack Obama. In April, a member of the executive committee of the NAACP in Tunica County, Mississippi, was convicted on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots and sentenced to five years in prison. She voted in the names of six other voters, as well as in the names of four dead voters. There are pending indictments of city council members and an ongoing grand jury investigation of …
There is more good news today in the fight against illegal immigration at the state level (and bad news for the Obama Administration’s policy against enforcement of immigration laws). This afternoon, federal district court Judge Sharon Blackburn in Alabama issued an opinion refusing the Obama Administration’s request that the court enjoin (that is, prevent from going into force) large portions of the comprehensive and controversial Alabama immigration law (H.B. 56). Recall that the Obama Justice Department (DOJ) had filed a complaint against the State of Alabama in federal court seeking …
