High court to weigh Arizona's voter-ID law

Jesus Gonzalez worked as a farm laborer and factory hand in Arizona. He lived in the United States for more than four decades. Earning citizenship, along with the right to vote, was a dream.

Government and political reporter Rebekah Sanders is on assignment in Washington, D.C., where she will cover Monday's oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. Follow her updates at azcentral.com.

So he couldn't believe it when, after finally taking the citizenship oath at the Yuma federal courthouse in 2005 and filling out his election paperwork, he received two notices from the state that his voter registration had been denied.

"I was angry," he would later tell a court. "After all of my hardship and struggles to finally become a U.S. citizen, I was still treated like a second-class citizen of this country. … We should all have an equal right to elect the people who make the decisions in our country. I want to have a voice in the United States."

An Arizona law that has inflamed passions on both sides of the immigration debate heads to the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments Monday. It could affect not just the sanctity of elections, but the fundamental right to vote.

The measure -- approved by Arizona voters a year before Gonzalez became a citizen -- aims to keep ballots out of the hands of illegal immigrants. Anyone registering to vote must provide documentation of U.S. citizenship.

In Arizona vs. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Inc., the Supreme Court will decide whether the state can require proof of citizenship in all cases of voter registration or just some. Courts already have allowed the state to demand proof of citizenship with state voter-registration forms. Now, the justices will consider whether the state can also impose such requirements on federal voter-registration forms.

A decision is expected this summer.

Opponents claim that under the law, thousands of eligible Arizona voters -- in particular the young, the elderly, minorities and naturalized citizens such as the now 63-year-old Gonzalez -- are prevented, or at least delayed, from registering to vote. Supporters, including those in other states that have adopted or considered similar measures, contend that enforcing the law is Arizona's right in order to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

The case is the second election-law dispute before the Supreme Court in less than four weeks. Arizona has a stake in both. Alabama's challenge on Feb. 27 to the landmark Voting Rights Act, which could free Arizona and other states from three decades of scrutiny by the Department of Justice over racial discrimination in election procedures, drew more national attention.

But experts and parties to the Arizona lawsuit say this case, too, could set precedent in how elections are conducted across the country.

Arizona argues that its constitutional election powers supersede those of Congress when it comes to verifying who is eligible to vote. The state says its law requiring proof of citizenship with voter registration should take precedence no matter what.

The case spotlights the tension between protecting election integrity -- which Arizona argues its law does -- and encouraging wider voter participation, which Congress sought to do with a simple, nationwide federal registration form that requires only a signature -- under penalty of perjury -- to confirm citizenship.

"This is about a state imposing restrictions that make voter registration more difficult. Whether it's justified or not, it puts an additional hurdle in the way of the process," said Justin Levitt, an elections-law expert at Yale and Loyola law schools. "This case is about how smooth voter registration can be."

If the Supreme Court sides with Arizona, critics say, thousands of Arizonans could be prevented unnecessarily from registering to vote. If the Supreme Court sides with opponents of the law, Arizona elections could become more complicated. Lower-court decisions caused confusion in the most recent election, when the state was forced to treat state and federal voter-registration forms differently.

Opponents of Arizona's law say Gonzalez's story exemplifies the need to overturn it.

Though Gonzalez is a citizen, mix-ups in the information the state asked for to prove his legal status hindered his registration and caused him to give up. He later sued, along with Native American, Latino, voter-registration and civil-rights groups.

Dual election process

Arizona's law, which Republican Attorney General Tom Horne will defend before the high court, was approved by voters overwhelmingly in 2004. The ballot initiative known as Proposition 200 was designed to combat illegal immigration.

Under the law, Arizona voters must show identification at the polls, and county recorders must reject any voter-registration form that lacks documentary proof of citizenship -- which can include a copy of a driver's license issued after 1996, a passport, birth certificate, naturalization number or tribal card.

As the case wound through the legal system, lower courts agreed that the state can require voters to present ID on Election Day.

But a divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said last year that while Arizona could demand proof of citizenship for state voter-registration forms, it could not do so for the federal voter-registration form created by Congress in 1993 as part of the National Voter Registration Act. Both forms are used to register voters in Arizona.

The ruling set up an unusual situation in the 2012 presidential election cycle.

Election officials across Arizona required proof of citizenship for some voters but not others, depending on whether they registered using the state or federal form. Election workers had to be trained in the dual system. And it forced some voters to cast provisional ballots, which are held aside and counted only after they are verified. Several races weren't decided for days as election workers counted thousands of provisional ballots.

"It caused a great confusion out there, because you could have two people coming in and if they grabbed the state form, you told them, 'You have to fill it out completely.' Yet if they picked up the national form, even if some information was missing, we had to take it," Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez, a Democrat, told The Arizona Republic. "I told Attorney General Tom Horne, 'This is what you get for having a bunch of damn lawyers arguing a point who don't understand our process. … Tell us to do all A or all B.'"

The confusion could continue. If opponents of the law win, the most extreme ramification could be that conservative state lawmakers, seeking to continue proof-of- citizenship requirements for state and local elections, set in stone a complicated dual-election system.

In that case, voters who register on the state form using citizenship documentation could be allowed to vote in all races -- for local, state and federal offices. But voters who use the federal form and don't show documentation might be restricted to only federal elections -- that is, for Congress and president.

Federal-form voters might walk into their polling place, look at their ballots and wonder why they see no boxes for the mayor's race, for example.

On the other hand, if the state prevails, Arizonans registering to vote might continue to be confused -- or hampered -- by having to show proof of citizenship.

A Native American woman born at home on the reservation and a grandmother born in 1910, before her state began issuing birth records, for instance, testified that they lacked birth certificates required to register to vote. And groups that conduct voter-registration drives said it was difficult to sign up new voters, like college students, who lacked the right documentation or didn't have it with them.

Sam Wercinski, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network, one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, said far more eligible Arizona voters are rejected under Arizona's law than the number of non-citizens caught illegally registering to vote.

"Let's have the scales of justice put out here. Which way are they going to tilt? Who's being affected more?" he said.

Voter fraud among issues

Supporters of Arizona's law are hoping the Supreme Court case will finally muzzle the opposition.

"This is a big moment," said Randy Pullen, architect of the 2004 campaign for the law and a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. "That's why we put it on the ballot to begin with. We hoped that it would become the cornerstone … and set a precedent to allow states to do similar things."

Four states -- Georgia, Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee -- have passed similar laws requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration, and at least 12 have considered it.

"That law basically changed the entire immigration debate in the country. It did exactly what we wanted it to do," Pullen said.

He believes the court should uphold Arizona's tougher voter-registration requirements because lower courts have found the potential harm to voters did not outweigh the state's need to protect election integrity.

Horne argues that election fraud would go unchecked without the proof-of-citizenship law. The lawsuit also includes Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett and 13 of the state's 15 counties.

The federal form is "an honor system that has no real protection," said Horne. "Someone who is willing to vote fraudulently would be willing to sign falsely. … Particularly in a state that is on the (U.S.-Mexican) border … we need information to confirm (that people registering to vote) are in fact citizens."

County prosecutors have few resources to go after election fraud, Horne said. Under the law, he said, election officials can catch fraud before it occurs. And that's a precaution the state has the authority to impose, he said.

Arizona has charged or prosecuted 19 non-citizens for illegally registering to vote since the law took effect in 2005 and kicked more than 200 off the voter rolls after they marked that they were non-citizens on jury-duty forms, according to state election officials. Some violators said they didn't know they shouldn't register, and critics have questioned whether actual citizens checked the non-citizen box just to get out of jury duty.

But if Arizona fails to prevent non-citizens from voting, eligible voters could lose trust in the election system and decline to participate in elections, Horne said. And close elections could be determined by a small number of fraudulent ballots, Horne says.

"If everybody knows it's easy to cheat the system, it diminishes their view of the system," he said. In passing Proposition 200, "Arizona acted reasonably."

Court's possible ruling

The case sets up a "state's rights" challenge to Congress' election authority.

Voting-rights advocates, who have been contesting the law almost since it was passed, argue that Arizona's requirements add barriers to voter registration that Congress intended to prevent. The federal form created through the National Voter Registration Act was meant to be accepted by all states as an easy way to register.

Bob Kengle, an attorney who represents several plaintiffs through the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said Congress settled the question of whether people should be required to show citizenship documents as part of the federal voter-registration process.

Members of Congress deleted that requirement in the bill, saying it would "seriously interfere" with the ease of mail voter registration.

But "the legislative history makes clear Congress was very aware of protecting against voter fraud," Kengle said. "It's like baseball and apple pie. Nobody will argue elections should lack integrity."

So Congress established federal criminal penalties for intentionally registering falsely, required the federal voter-registration form to display clear instructions not to register as a non-citizen and made voters sign under oath.

That should be sufficient, Kengle said. "The state thinks it has a better idea."

Daniel Tokaji, an Ohio State University election-law expert, believes the case against Arizona's law is nearly ironclad.

"There is precious little evidence of voter fraud," Tokaji said. "If you're not a citizen, you'd have to be crazy or ignorant of the law to go vote, because you're taking a huge risk for relatively little benefit. You could go to jail, lose any chance you have of gaining citizenship or even be risking deportation. Why would you take the chance of illegally voting?"

"In my view," Tokaji said, "this will be very hard for Arizona to win."

Levitt, the Yale elections-law expert, added that the Supreme Court is unlikely to rule Arizona's election power supersedes the federal government's, which could undermine the Constitution and threaten a host of federal election laws.

Attorneys from the Department of Justice have also weighed in against Arizona's law, arguing that Congress' power holds sway.

But Horne argues that Arizona's law does not conflict with Congress' election powers. The state's responsibility is verifying the eligibility of voters, he says.

When Arizona demands proof of citizenship with a voter-registration form, Horne says, it's like an airline requiring identification to confirm a traveler's ticket to board a plane. The airline isn't rejecting the ticket, rather it's verifying that the ticket belongs to the traveler.

Tokaji remains skeptical that Arizona's law could be duplicated around the country. These days, Republicans don't need the political fight, he said.

"This perceived immigrant bashing has had a negative effect on the Republican Party's electoral prospects," Tokaji said. "The last thing the Republican Party wants to do right now is to alienate Latino and, to a lesser extent, Asian- American, voters in the way voter- identification laws tend to do."

But Pullen, the law's campaign architect, remains confident Arizona will win.

"It's almost like if you have to lift one finger to register to vote, that somehow that's wrong," he said. "I think most Americans would reject that argument."

Gonzalez says he is hopeful would-be voters in Arizona will have an easier path to the ballot box.

"As U.S. citizens, we should all have the same rights, despite our country of origin," he told a federal judge. "I have paid taxes all my life, and have contributed to this country. I want to vote. I want to exercise this right because I feel that it is the best method to improve the lives of people in the United States, particularly Latino people.

"I hope that the law that I am challenging in Arizona will not be in effect in the future."

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Dems boo Arizona's GOP rock stars

Editor's note: National political reporter Dan Nowicki arrived in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 2 to cover the Democratic National Convention. He spent the week before in Florida, reporting on the Republican National Convention.

At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio were treated like rock stars everywhere they went. Media lined up for interviews, delegates begged for autographs, people asked them to pose for pictures.

But in Charlotte, where tens of thousands of Democrats gathered last week to nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for a second term, just the mere mention of the two generated a thunderous round of boos from the floor of Time Warner Cable Arena.

Delegates booed to express their disapproval of the pair's immigration policies, which are in sharp contrast to the plank approved by the Democratic National Committee that supports comprehensive immigration reform.

That's not to say Arizona didn't have its stars in Charlotte, even if its 80 delegates and six alternates were tucked away in the rafters of the arena (taken by some as a sign that national Democrats don't think the state is "in play" for Obama), rather than given a prime spot on the floor near the stage, as the state's 29 delegates were in Tampa.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords came close to stealing the show with her heart-tugging rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance on the closing night of the convention. It was her highest-profile public appearance since a would-be assassin shot her in the head nearly two years ago. According to Twitter, Giffords' brief on-stage role in the proceedings generated 3,278 tweets per minute.

And while her appearance came late, after all the speeches of the night and during the little-watched roll call of the states, CC Goldwater -- the granddaughter of the late Republican Sen. and 1964 GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater -- generated quite a buzz online and in the social-media realm when she cast Arizona's votes for Obama, saying, "My grandfather wouldn't recognize the Republican Party of today."

She also backed Obama in 2008 over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Arizona's delegation also got a surprise treat Wednesday when their section was visited by Kevin Johnson, the former Phoenix Suns star who is now the mayor of Sacramento.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said he was impressed by the keynote address delivered Tuesday by another mayor, Julian Castro, who like Stanton hails from a major Southwestern city that shares many of Phoenix's challenges. Stanton jokingly complained that Castro's San Antonio has been "picking off all our best people." San Antonio City Manager Sheryl Sculley came from Phoenix, as did Gloria Hurtado, its human services director, he said.

"I am a little envious of the mayor of San Antonio: He's younger, he's better looking and after last night it's obvious that he gives a better speech than I do," Stanton said Wednesday. "It's a little humbling."

There's always the 2016 Democratic National Convention for Stanton to shine.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. His column will return Sept. 23.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Supreme Court weighs fate of Arizona's immigration law

WASHINGTON – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she didn't know what she was starting when she signed her name to the state's landmark immigration bill just over two years ago.

2010 photo by Ralph Freso, AP

Edward Pina protests Arizona's SB1070 immigration-enforcement law in Phoenix.

2010 photo by Ralph Freso, AP

Edward Pina protests Arizona's SB1070 immigration-enforcement law in Phoenix.

"I knew that it was going to be momentous, but to this extent, I had no realization," Brewer said.

On Wednesday, she will be sitting in the gallery of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices consider the fate of Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which was considered the toughest state immigration enforcement law to date and served as the blueprint for five other states that followed suit the next year.

Supporters of the law say it was necessary because the federal government has failed to control the influx of illegal immigrants into the country, forcing states like Arizona to grapple with the security concerns and high costs of educating and caring for illegal immigrants.

Opponents say it unfairly criminalizes otherwise law-abiding people, opens the door for racial profiling of Hispanics legally in the country and forces state law enforcement to interfere with the intricacies of federal immigration policy.

By John Moore, Getty Images

Supporters of Arizona's immigration law SB1070 rallied at the state capitol building on July 31, 2010.

The Supreme Court's ruling, expected in June, could have far-reaching effects on the future of state efforts to combat illegal immigration, the daily lives of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants and, to some degree, the outcome of November's presidential election.

"This is the most important immigration case in a generation," said Warren Stewart, senior pastor at the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix.

The Supreme Court will decide on four provisions of Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law, known as SB 1070, that have been blocked by federal courts. They are:

Section 2(B): Requires state and local police to perform roadside immigration checks of people they've stopped or detained if a "reasonable suspicion" exists they are in the country illegally.

Section 3: Makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants not to possess their federal registration cards.

Section 5(C): Makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants to work, apply for work or solicit work in any way, including making a "gesture or nod" indicating they are looking for work.

Section 6: Allows state and local police to arrest illegal immigrants without a warrant when probable cause exists that they committed "any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States."

Source: USA TODAY research

Just a month after the court entered into the legal thicket that is health care in America, the justices will be taking up one of the nation's most vexing, political and cultural issues. Once again, the courthouse steps are expected to be crammed with people supporting both sides of the debate. The two gladiators of the health care debate will face off in a packed courtoom: U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli will argue for the federal government, and former solicitor general Paul Clement will defend Arizona.

This time, the court will be missing Justice Elena Kagan, who recused herself presumably because of her work as solicitor general under President Obama. That sets up the potential for a 4-4 tie, which would give the U.S. a victory since the injunction originally imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix, and upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, would stand.

The case is the culmination of growing frustration in states over the inability of Washington to agree on a way to handle the country's illegal immigrants — a consensus not reached since the Reagan administration. That has resulted in a complex web of state laws that have gone in wildly different directions.

By Tom Tingle, The Arizona Republic, via AP

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she didn’t know what she was starting when she signed her name onto the state’s landmark immigration bill just over two years ago.

Since Arizona passed SB 1070, Alabama adopted the toughest-in-the-nation mantle with its immigration law that required K-12 school officials to check the immigration status of all new students. On the other end of the spectrum, Rhode Island joined 12 other states that allow illegal immigrants to receive in-state college tuition. And somewhere in between, Utah adopted a law that adopts Arizona-style enforcement, but also provides for a permit for some illegal immigrants to legally work in the state.

A June court ruling will raise the immigration debate just as the presidential debate kicks into the home stretch. And with Obama's re-election campaign and the Republican Party both launching their Hispanic outreach programs last week to reach an expected 12 million Hispanic voters, the ruling could energize voters on one, or both, sides of the debate.

Obama's immigration record as president has been mixed. His administration has set records each year for the number of people it deports — nearly 400,000 last year. But it has focused deportation efforts on illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals, resulting in the highest percentage of deportees having criminal records last year (about 55%) in a decade.

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and likely Republican nominee, has called Arizona's efforts to combat illegal immigration by cracking down on businesses who hire them — but not the whole law — "a model" for the nation. He has also embraced the Arizona-inspired idea of making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they choose to "self-deport."

A victory in Arizona v. United States would solidify either candidate's argument, but could inspire severe backlash, or support, from the ever-growing Hispanic electorate.

"It will be a seismic shift in the Latino community," said Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress, which opposes the Arizona law. "It will be known to every Latino in this country."

Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports Arizona's law, said a victory for the U.S. would be a tragic endorsement of Obama's "we won't and you can't" immigration policy and fire up supporters of the state efforts.

"That will weigh heavily on voters' minds," Dane said.

Years in the making

Arizona's 2010 immigration law may have caught many by surprise, but the state had been heading in that direction for years.

In 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200, which barred illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits. The state passed an anti-human-smuggling act in 2005 to allow prosecutors to charge border-crossers with state crimes. And in 2007, Arizona passed a law aimed at denying work for illegal immigrants. All three laws were challenged by civil rights groups, but all were upheld by federal courts.

Then came Senate Bill 1070.

The law's stated goal for the roughly 400,000 illegal immigrants living in Arizona is "attrition through enforcement" and aims to "discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens." The law expanded the requirements for local and state police to check the immigration status of people, and created new state crimes punishing illegal immigrants.

Immediately after the law's passage, an untold number of illegal immigrants fled the state. Protests sprang up from Phoenix to Chicago.

The state was boycotted by a wide variety of entities, including the National Council of La Raza, the cities of Los Angeles, St. Paul and Boston, musicians including Rage Against the Machine and Kanye West, and even the Highland Park (Ill.) High School women's basketball team, which pulled out of a tournament in Scottsdale.

Activists unsuccessfully tried to get Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix. The outcry grew so loud that some called for a boycott of AriZona Iced Tea, prompting the company to issue a statement reminding customers that they were still based in New York.

The Center for American Progress, which opposes Arizona's immigration efforts, estimated that the tourism-dependent state would lose an estimated $388 million over three years as as result of the boycotts and negative publicity the law generated.

The Department of Justice joined a group of civil rights organizations in lawsuits seeking to halt the law from going into effect. At that time, in April 2010, President Obama called the law "misguided" and said the provisions "threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans."

Despite the vocal criticism, the law was viewed favorably by the people most closely affected by it: Arizonans. Sixty-four percent of residents supported the law, according to a Rasmussen poll conducted shortly after the bill was signed into law.

National polls also showed that a majority of Americans supported Arizona's efforts — 55% of Americans approved Arizona's law shortly after it was passed, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

On July 28, 2010, the day before the law was set to go into effect, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked the main portions of the law from going into effect, starting the appeals process that led it to the Supreme Court.

Portions of law enforced

Still, Carlos Garcia, a 29-year-old native of Mexico who lives in Phoenix, said the remaining portions of the law, combined with those passed before it, have created a culture of fear in the state for both legal and illegal immigrants.

Garcia is a U.S. citizen, but he says most of his relatives are illegal immigrants. In the two years since SB 1070 went into effect, four of his relatives have been arrested — two have been deported, two remain in the country.

"There's this perception that everything is OK because 1070 is enjoined," Garcia said. "But people continue to be racially profiled, continue to be detained, continue to be deported."

Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump said his agency is definitely enforcing the remaining portions of the law.

For example, Phoenix police used to prevent its officers from investigating the immigration status of crime victims and witnesses. Crump said the department was forced to remove that restriction because another portion of SB 1070 allows citizens to sue government agencies, including police departments, if they are enforcing federal immigration laws "to less than the full extent permitted by federal law."

The penalty is up to $5,000 a day.

"1070 doesn't allow a lot of interpretation," Crump said.

Russell McClurg, a barber in Apache Junction, Ariz., said the law is needed because the federal government had ignored the financial and security burdens thrust upon the state by an open border with Mexico.

"The only ones who seem to be sticking up for Arizonans are the Arizonans," said McClurg, 72. "You'd think the federal government would be more help, but they seem more interested in fighting us."

The clearest image of that battle came when Obama visited Arizona in January and met Brewer on the tarmac, where photographs showed the Republican governor pointing her finger at the president. Brewer later downplayed the scene, but her office has strongly defended the state's economic recovery since the immigration law was passed.

As of February, the state had added 42,6000 new, non-farm jobs over the previous year, and state revenues have increased 8.7% so far in 2012. The Arizona Office of Tourism found the state generated $17.7 billion in direct travel spending in 2010 — a 7.9% increase over the previous year. Brewer said there may have been a negative effect in the immediate aftermath of the law, but that the state has rebounded and the "Arizona comeback" is here.

"Businesses are coming. People are recruiting," Brewer said. "We should get a lot of kudos for what we've accomplished."

Arguments before high court

When the case goes before the Supreme Court, the justices will not be ruling on the entire law, but four provisions that were blocked.

That includes portions requiring police to check the immigration status of people during traffic stops and creating state crimes for illegal immigrants failing to carry proof of immigration or trying to solicit work.

In court filings, Arizona argues that the federal government has failed to adequately secure the border from illegal crossers, and that Arizona is bearing the brunt of that failure. The state says a third of the immigrants illegally crossing into the U.S. did so through Arizona and the "accompanying influx of illegal drugs, dangerous criminals and highly vulnerable persons, have resulted in massive problems for Arizona's citizens and government."

Arizona argues that it's not going beyond federal immigration laws, but only assisting the feds carry out their laws. Arizona attorneys point out that it's a federal misdemeanor for illegal immigrants to not possess their federal registration cards, and that creating a state law for the same crime is merely an attempt to help federal officials implement that law.

The Department of Justice counters that the federal government has gone to great lengths to crack down on illegal immigration. President Obama, continuing the policies of his predecessors, has continued funding enforcement along the Southwest border, resulting in more than 4,000 Border Patrol agents, 350 Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents and 40 Department of Homeland Security aircraft in Arizona alone.

And while some of the new Arizona laws may mirror federal laws, Justice attorneys argue that state and local police officers are not properly trained to implement them. Requiring them to understand complex federal immigration policies is unwise, they argue, and errors could lead to foreign relations problems.

"As the Framers understood, it is the National Government that has ultimate responsibility to regulate the treatment of aliens while on American soil, because it is the Nation as a whole — not any single State — that must respond to the international consequences of such treatment," the government's brief reads.

Predicting how the court rules could come down to a question of precedent versus politics, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Irvine School of Law.

Chemerinsky said the U.S. should prevail if the justices stick to court precedent. He points to a 1941 case, Hines v. Davidowitz, where the court struck down a Pennsylvania immigration law that bears similarities to Arizona's, including the requirement that immigrants carry federal registration papers. The court ruled that immigration enforcement requires important foreign policy considerations, meaning states could not "conflict" or "complement" federal immigration efforts.

"If I just predicted based on law, SB 1070 should be deemed preempted and it should be a lopsided decision," Chemerinsky said. "But the politics are so intense and the Court is conservative."

Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who has helped Arizona and other states craft their anti-illegal immigrant laws, disagrees with that assessment. He points out that Arizona is three-for-three in defending its recent laws in courts, and said that of all the laws, SB 1070 stands on the strongest Constitutional grounds.

He points to a 1976 Supreme Court ruling in De Canas v. Bica, in which the justices upheld a California law that created criminal sanctions against state employers who hired illegal immigrants. That precedent was backed up just last year, when the court ruled 5-3 in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting that Arizona could restrict business licenses for companies that knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

"What the court laid out was a roadmap," Kobach said of the De Canas v. Bica ruling. "If there's no conflict with any federal statue … then the state action is perfectly fine."

A debate over civil rights?

While the justices are expected to rule strictly on the four provisions in the law, many are viewing the case as a barometer of civil rights in America today.

"Despite the fact that this is, on legal terms, about the structure of government and specifically federal supremacy and the relationship between states and the federal government … this is clearly a civil rights case," said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is one of the groups that sued Arizona.

Arizona officials, including Brewer, have long insisted that SB 1070 is not an attack on Hispanics. The bill's authors have pointed out that the law specifically prohibits officers from engaging in racial profiling.

Brewer said she went to great lengths to ensure that SB 1070 did not violate any civil rights and expressly forbade racial profiling. She said the reaction by some, where she and Arizona legislators have been branded as racists, has led to many sleepless nights.

"I was born in the Southwest. I grew up in the Southwest, and anybody that has lived here knows what diversity is. It's not like all of a sudden we wake up one day and we're bigots," Brewer said. "We go to school with a diverse population, in our churches, they marry into our families — but if you want to shut down debate, what do you do? You throw out the race card."

Kobach considers the Supreme Court case his "final exam." Kobach, as a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and in his current role as a Kansas state official, has helped states write and implement anti-illegal immigration laws around the country.

Kobach helped Arizona legislators craft the three previous immigration bills that have survived judicial scrutiny. And now he sees the ruling on SB 1070 as the final piece.

If the court rules in Arizona's favor, then it will "vindicate the work I've been doing for many years."

If not?

"Then I'll have to go back to the drawing board," he said.

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