Posts on Mississippi

An anti-abortion group in Mississippi believes it has discovered a back-door legal method to force the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. According to David Rogers, who heads "The Campaign for the Ultimate Human Life Amendment," if voters in Mississippi pass an initiative declaring that “[t]he word ‘person’ shall apply to all human beings … from conception,” then a chain reaction of legal ramifications will ensue:

"The simplest way to explain it is, for example, if you are a citizen of Mississippi or citizen of a state, then you're automatically a citizen of the United States," he offers. There is a similar legal linkage concerning personhood, Rogers explains.

"If we declare, or if any state declares an unborn child [to be] a person through their constitutional process, then they're automatically a person of the United States," he says. In effect, then, it "legally maneuvers the Supreme Court into protecting unborn children," Rogers adds.

While Rogers’s elaborate legal plan may appear dubious, “Pro-Life Dave” is undaunted. He derides other anti-abortion activists as a “'Limited Abortion' coalition” focused on “'chipping away' at Roe v. Wade,” and declares that the strategy of “getting Republican Presidents in office so they could nominate reasonable judges” has “seriously backfired.” Rogers declares his technique – in which, rather than replace justices on the Supreme Court, he tricks them – is “The Only Way to END Abortion.”

The Washington Times reports that the English-only movement is “building momentum,” citing Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)’s plans to reintroduce his English Language Unity Act in the new Congress and “seven states pushing legislation to make English the official language or to strengthen laws already in place."

“This is the strongest push for official English legislation that I have seen in the last 15 years,” crowed Mauro Mujica, chairman of US English. Rep. King claimed that “There's been such strong support. And it's gaining momentum.” Of course, with Republican immigration hawks out of power, King’s bill may have even less chance of becoming law than last year, when it languished in committee. And while King may use his skills in exaggeration to magnify the “momentum” and to try to create a wedge issue to motivate the anti-immigrant base, the real focus may be on proposed state laws.

"The states have been wonderful on this,” said Jim Boulet Jr., the executive director of English First, a group most recently involved in a failed attempt to prevent Florida Sen. Mel Martinez from being named general chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Washington Times cites efforts by legislators in Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey and Oklahoma, as well as an English-only referendum that passed last year in Arizona. King himself is devoting his energy to the state level by suing the governor of Iowa for supposedly violating the English-only law King crafted as a state legislator.

For 43 states.