Will the courts outlaw legislation by an official who verbalized racism?

What is it about?

When elected officials make anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican statements, they promote hatred. According to the US constitution their legislation is discriminatory and illegal. Will the courts outlaw this racist legislation?

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Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In 2010 the State of Arizona enacted a statute called the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. The law is often referred to as SB 1070. Its stated purpose is to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.” Critics of the law have suggested that the true aim of the law was not just undocumented immigrants, but the entire Latino, Mexican, and/or Spanish-speaking population of Arizona. It was contested in a court of law. One important tool for a court, then, is to be armed with the knowledge of how legislators thought of these different groups (i.e., Latinos, Mexicans, immigrants, etc.) at the time of SB 1070’s passage. Senator Russell Pearce is the “architect” of the law. With the critical discourse method based on cognitive metaphor theory, we analyze the cognitive metaphors Senator Pearce derived from his own words leading up to the passage of SB 1070. Senator Pearce’s understanding of these groups can assist a court in determining the ultimate question of what were the Senator’s actual intentions in sponsoring SB 1070.

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