Counterclaims of Governor Brewer and Arizona in SB1070 Litigation Dismissed

United States District Judge Susan Bolton, who entered a preliminary injunction against portions of Arizona's controversial SB1070 in July 2010, dismissed the counterclaims filed by Arizona and Governor Jan Brewer in a 22 page Order late Friday.

The Arizona/Brewer counterclaim asserted five claims and Judge Bolton rejected each one, although she found that Arizona had standing to raise the claims.

 Arizona's Count One, failure and refusal to achieve and maintain “operational control” of the Arizona-Mexico borde, Count Three, abdication of statutory responsibilities (enforcement of the federal immigration laws), and Count Four, declaratory relief regarding State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (“SCAAP”) reimbursement obligations were each denominated as "statutory claims." 

The constitutional counterclaims - - - Count One, the failure and refusal to protect Arizona from invasion and domestic violence under Article IV, Section 4 and Count Five, declaratory relief under the Tenth Amendment - - - were analyzed as subject to issue preclusion given Bolton's previous order, but the Judge also further considered the claims.  As to the "invasion and domestic violence" counterclaim, Judge Bolton found that the claim was nonjusticiable because it was a political question and cited the "six factors" from Baker v. Carr (1962):

[1] a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department;
[2] a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it;
[3] the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion;
[4] the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government;
[5] an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made;
[6] the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.

Bolton emphasized the lack of "judicially discoverable and manageable standards" for determining what constituted an invasion and domestic violence. 

Regarding the Tenth Amendment counterclaim, Judge Bolton found that Arizona was not being "comandeered" :

Arizona does not point to any federal immigration policy that mandates or compels
Arizona to take any action. The complained of expenditures arise entirely from Arizona’s
own policy choices and independent constitutional obligations and are not incurred as a result
of any federal mandate. These state costs do not give rise to a claim under the Tenth
Amendment.

While the ruling was not unexpected, it further focuses attention on the petition for writ of certiorari filed by Arizona and Jan Brewer, seeking review of the Ninth Circuit opinion which upheld Judge Bolton's preliminary injunction against SB1070.

RR