Thread: Novato sidesteps rights of voters

Marin Voice: Novato sidesteps rights of voters

By Kenneth Kelzer
Guest op-ed column
Posted: 06/12/2011 02:20:00 AM PDT

ON May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-3 vote, upheld the Arizona employment law that requires employers to use E-Verify to ensure that new employees have a right to work in our country.

This, of course, excludes illegal immigrants. Thus, a local law requiring employers to obey employment law is not preempted by federal law.

It does not contradict federal law. It supports and reinforces federal law.

In 2009, a citizens group in Novato politely asked the Novato City Council to require contractors with the city to use the E-Verify system so that our tax dollars would not pay wages to illegal aliens.

The City Council declined.

E-Verify is a program run by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. Claims by open-borders sympathizers that it isn't accurate are false.

E-Verify simply checks to see if a submitted name and Social Security number match the federal database. If the data entered is inaccurate, for whatever reason, that is not the fault of E-Verify.

If a "no-match" is the result, the employer and the prospective employee are given a chance to correct the mistake, if they want to and if they can.

Of course, if the new employee is an illegal immigrant and the identity data entered has been stolen or fabricated, no correction is possible and that person cannot be hired legally. E-Verify is simple, fast and effective.

The Novato activist group, Citizens for Legal Employment and Contracting ( www.clecnovato.com ) gathered signatures and qualified a ballot initiative for the 28,000 voters of Novato to decide if contractors working for the city should use E-Verify.

According to California Election Law, when a local initiative qualifies the City Council has only two choices: Adopt the initiative as an ordinance and thereby save the taxpayers the cost of an election, or place the initiative on the ballot for the next regularly scheduled election.

On June 22, 2010 the Novato City Council declined to place our qualified measure on the ballot. Instead, council members followed the advice of the city attorney, Jeffrey Walter, and the city manager, Michael Frank, who concocted a so-called "third option," claiming that the council could take "no action" on the initiative.

This "third option" was a pure fabrication, driven by the personal ideology of the council and city staff.

They all violated California Election Law. They have disenfranchised the 3,600 Novato voters who signed our petitions. They deprived the voters of Novato the choice of mandating contractors to follow our immigration and employment laws.

California's unemployment rate is near 12 percent. More than 20 million people are out of work nationally.

Rational people believe and expect that jobs that are created should be filled by U.S. citizens or legal immigrants with a work visa.

Tax dollars should not be paying wages to illegal workers.

Nationwide, the open borders advocates are fighting E-Verify wherever they can because they know it is an effective deterrent to illegal immigration. Everyone knows that illegal employment is the magnet that drives illegal immigration and its numerous attendant problems.

For example, in California's current crisis of overcrowded prisons approximately 20,000 inmates are illegal immigrants and 15,000 are from Mexico alone.

The Novato City Council, through its actions, supports the hiring of illegal immigrants, and it has dictatorially denied Novatans the right to vote on this initiative.

On May 17, Marin Judge Lynn Duryee failed to require the Novato City Council to place our legally qualified measure on the ballot. This forces us to appeal the decision to a higher court.

The issue is basic and easy to understand.

We are a nation of laws. Americans have the right to disagree with any law and to work toward changing the law. We do not have the right to disobey the law. That includes illegal aliens, citizens and the Novato City Council.

Kenneth Kelzer, a longtime Novato resident, is a founding member of Citizens For Legal Employment and Contracting, the proponents of the proposed E-Verify initiative.

http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_18249874

Kenneth Kelzer, you rock! I'd love to shake your hand. This is ONE man who has no intention of backing down, I hope the other signers are standing shoulder to shoulder with him in this battle.

Citizens for Legal Employment and Contracting

CLEC: Protect Jobs in Novato for Legal Workers
CLEC wrote a citizens' initiative that requires the contractors with the city of Novato, California to use E-Verify to confirm that the contractors hire ...
www.clecnovato.com/
e-mail clecnovato@yahoo.com