And it's a big sign! 4 foot by 8 foot and three quarter inch thick, to be exact.
This is the second post about two ballot measures that are coming to my rural county in northwest Oregon.
My first post, about measure 5-190 (the one on Dkos-where I introduce you to Columbia County, Oregon and the measures), can be found here.
The scans that I have made of the measures and the applicable Oregon state law can be found on My Own Humble Blog here,at columbiablues.com.
This post is about measure the sister measure, 5-191.
Welcome to my little corner of the wedge issue world.
Now, jump the fold with me!
In my last post dealing with measures 5-190/191, I never even got to 5-191 because there are so many things wrong with 5-190 that I fried my brain pointing out some of them (just some-if you have others, post a comment and let me know. I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface!). It also ran pretty long, because I added my scans of both measures plus the applicable Oregon state law. I won’t put you through that again-you can see those scans (and read the post) here. I’m so done with 5-190. For now.
Let’s look at 5-191.
Remember, both of these measures apply to Columbia County, Oregon only.
Measure 5-191 would require construction companies to post a sign at their site proclaiming "Legal Workers Only" and...well, let’s just take a look at the text.
* That a "punitive charge" of $10,000 would be added to the cost of a construction permit if any undocumented workers were found to have worked on the site.
* That a "stop work order" would go into effect until:
1. The punitive charge was paid; and
2. All undocumented workers were removed from the site.
* The telephone numbers of the Building Department, Sheriff’s Office, and new 800 number of the Social Security verification pilot project would also be part of the sign.
* Specifications of the sign would be 4 foot by 8 foot three quarter-inch plywood with words in minimum four inch high bold print.
Now, I don’t think that the Building Department can do much about what might very well be an anonymous phone call complaining about the skin color of some of the workers. It’s not their job. So the call has to be directed to the Sheriff’s Office. And I’ve talked about how it would be illegal for the Sheriff’s Office to get involved because of ORS 181-850, so let’s talk about this:
the new 800 number of the Social Security verification pilot project would also be part of the sign
Now, the closest thing that I could find in all my googling is the Basic Pilot Program, also known as the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program. It is now known as the E-Verify program, run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) using Social Security Administration (SSA) information and overseen by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
So, I’m going to go out on a limb here, since nobody seems to be able to tell me exactly what the measure refers to, and assume that E-Verify is what they’re talking about.
This is the first of several problems; The law doesn’t seem to have the correct name of the program-if that’s the program they’re referring to. That means that after the election (should it pass), the first thing that would have to be done is that the law will have to be changed (how would this happen? Could the Columbia County council do it, or would we need a new election? Most likely a judge will require the law to be changed-or scrapped). I’m saying this because there are going to be lawsuits the moment the law gets passed. Which the county will have to defend (probably from general funds). At least that’s what I would do: Sue the County’s ass off the moment they told me I had to put this stupid sign up. Then I’d make ‘em pay my legal bills.
Problem number 2; E-Verify is voluntary. Not every company uses it. In fact, according to Willamette Week, U.S. Senator Gordon Smith’s company, Smith’s Frozen Foods, doesn’t even use it. Why? Well, it turns out that they didn’t like the Program very much. Again, why? Well, that brings us to ...
Problem number 3; The Social Security database is notoriously inaccurate. According to it’s own Inspector General, the;
SSA’s Office of Inspector General that found that there are 17.8 million discrepancies in the SSA’s records relating to lawful American workers. The report also found that 70 percent or 12.7 million of those inconsistencies belong to native-born (as opposed to naturalized) U.S. citizens.
Wow. That’s a lot of "discrepencies" for "lawful American workers". And most of them seem to be related to "natural-born U.S. citizens" . According to the SSA IG (15 page report, but really cool if your a dork like I am) there are 435 million SS numbers in the database (the DHS has it at 444 million and the USCIS has it at 425 million. They can’t even agree on the number of people, or numidents as they’re called, that they’re tracking). So, lets use the IG’s numbers. They translate into a 4.1% error rate overall and 2.9% for a guy like me-born in The Good Ole, Good Ole with a funny French name. A 3% chance that you won’t get hired because of a bureaucratic mistake? I’ll leave that to your imagination. The IG even warned against making the law mandatory because;
millions of numberholders whose Numident records may need to be corrected. Our review showed that the Numident records for these individuals have discrepancies in the numberholders’ names, dates of birth, citizenship status and/or As Congress considers legislation requiring mandatory verification of all U.S. workers’ employment eligibility through a system such as the Basic Pilot, we believe it should also consider the significant workload that may result from the death indications that would result in inaccurate feedback from the Basic Pilot.
Of course, all this is really a moot point because the E-Verify law stipulates that it can only be used to vet new employees, not existing workers.
That’s Federal, folks. And although I've only had a public education, not private or homeschooling, I think I remember something about Federal law trumping County law. If so, that makes the whole imperfect plan illegal.
One more thing about E-Verify: By definition, it’s internet only. I couldn’t find the 800 number. I did find a bunch of other cool 800 numbers, but they cost $1.99 a minute and I learned that lesson in the seventh grade...
In doing the research on these two measures, I’ve come across a lot of information that I haven’t even touched upon. Look for my next post on the cost of all this for other municipalities and what it might cost Columbia County, as well as the Arizona law which 5-190, at least, seems to be cut and pasted from. I’m also starting to get a grasp on Immigration law (Federal, not County). It’s something I’ve never really paid attention to, but it’s becoming too important to ignore. These local laws, as insidious and divisive as they may be, would not be an issue if the Feds would get their shit together. And that means everything from immigration reform to border control to foreign policy to trade policy (let’s talk NAFTA, CAFTA and WTO).
And it seems that my excellent hometown newspaper, the South County Spotlight, has news about this. It seems the county's legal counsel agrees with me! Although for entirely different reasons (hey, they're lawyers-I'm just a guy) they say these measures are most likely illegal.
Also, I've just heard that Arizona has just won it's case on some of the same issues. I haven't verified this yet, so I can't comment...except that...Arizona's law is a state law that went up against Federal law. This is a local law in direct contradiction to state law. So, a little different.
One last thing. I really want to make sure that I give props to the people Fighting The Good Fight-That’s the Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity.
Go over, check out their site and give 'em some love...