Gov. Janet Napolitano has vetoed a measure that would penalize people who linger on street corners seeking work, echoing objections raised by fellow Democrats in the Legislature.
The bill’s critics immediately hailed her action as siding with Arizona residents who merely want to find jobs.
But the measure’s author said the governor, in rejecting the bill, offered only excuses and called her move “consistent with her long record of opposing meaningful anti-illegal immigration measures.”
Napolitano had described the bill, H2589, as “vague, overbroad, and discriminatory.” She suggested that it would target hard working residents “willing to pound the pavement.”
“While I recognize the need to stop unlawful employment practices that fuel demand for illegal immigration, this bill is vague, overbroad and discriminatory. The bill’s title says it applies to ‘day laborers,’ but those words are found nowhere in the text of the legislation; and in fact, the bill applies to any Arizona adult citizen seeking work while standing adjacent to a public street,” she said in her veto message May 1.
“Absent exceptional circumstances, hard working Arizonans willing to ‘pound the pavement’ to find lawful work should not be subject to criminal penalties,” she said.
All 13 Democratic senators voted “no” and all 17 Republicans voted for the bill on April 24. In the House, two Democrats backed the measure.
As transmitted to the governor, the bill would have prohibited a person from soliciting employment while standing or remaining unlawfully on public and private property, making the act a criminal trespass in the first degree. A criminal trespass in the first degree ranges from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a Class 6 felony. The bill exempts those younger than 18.
A person is also liable if he or she remains on private property after a “reasonable request to leave by the owner.” It defines soliciting as “verbal or nonverbal communication by a gesture or nod that would indicate to a reasonable person that (the) person is willing to be employed.”
Napolitano also said she finds no rational reason for discriminating on the basis of age for this type of activity.
“I am concerned that House Bill 2589 would therefore be found unconstitutional,” she said, echoing the primary concern raised by critics.
Sponsor: Bill was specific, veto reasons were ‘bizarre’
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-8, was decidedly upset that the bill was vetoed.
“She claimed that the bill was overbroad and vague. In fact, it was very specific. The person had to be standing on or near a public street, soliciting work as a day laborer or trying to get day laborers to work for him or her, and they had to be disrupting traffic. All three had to be present. That’s pretty specific,” he said.
“Her second objection was even more bizarre,” he said. “She objected because we exempted from arrest people under 18. I believe that if parents put a child on the street for day labor, the child is a victim and should be taken into protective custody by Child Protective Services and the parents should be locked up.
“The governor said that she objected to the age limit so she was literally saying we should be able to lock up children, and that’s bizarre to me,” he added.
Not so, according to Napolitano.
“I just think there’s a legal problem there that hadn’t been thought through,” she said during a press briefing May 2. “They say this is about illegal day laborers in the title, but I actually read the bill and it was not so limited. Again, I have signed a host of bills on illegal immigration and I’ve done a lot of things on illegal immigration but somebody’s got to actually read past the titles in the language of the bill and I think this one was problematic.”
13Napolitano also suggested other ways to deal with day laborers, and not just through legislation.
She suggested the matter be taken to city officials and their departments to help individuals who feel their businesses are being interrupted by congregations of day laborers. Then she fired a succession of questions about the bill:
“A first question is, is it really drafted to deal with the problem it purports to deal with≠ Is it too narrow or too broad≠ Is it legal≠ And then do you really need it or are there other laws or things on the books already that adequately… would take care of this≠”
Kavanagh said the only anti-illegal immigration measures that won Napolitano’s support were the ones that are “watered down and weak.”
Earlier, Kavanagh had raised another point, besides the problem being a safety issue.
“This bill will also prevent the exploitation of those day laborers who are here legally. Street pick-ups are the back alley of employment. These people are exploited. They are not paid (right). There is no workers’ compensation. The whole street corner labor market has no place in a decent society,” he said.
Asked what his options are now, he said he might just have to wait for a governor “who doesn’t feel the need to pander to pro-illegal immigration constituencies.”
He added that he would talk with County Attorney Andrew Thomas and leadership to see if the measure can be reworked to satisfy the governor’s “strange opposition” and still have teeth.
“The veto of this bill was a loss to the people of Arizona. We needed that tool to control this growing problem and the governor has denied us,” he said.
Sen. Jorge Luis Garcia, D-27, said he was glad that Napolitano “stood on the side of folks wanting to work out there.”
“And she said — what I read in it — is that we shouldn’t prevent anybody who needs to work here in Arizona to do that,” Garcia said.
One of the senators who had vigorously opposed the bill, Sen. Albert Hale, D-2, suggested that the bill could still have been fixed before it was sent to the governor so it was clearer how to apply it and to whom to apply it to.
The bill was susceptible to court scrutiny since for him it dealt with freedom of expression issues, Hale said.
“As I read the bill saying that this doesn’t apply to any individual who is less than 18 years old, you’ve undermined that compelling interest (of the state). To me if they hadn’t done that, maybe the bill would have been OK. And I even suggested and requested in some of the meetings that (in the phrase) ‘standing unlawfully,’ you just remove the word “unlawfully” and that would resolve some of the concerns that I’ve had with it,” he said.
Arizona Capitol Reports Researcher Tasya Grabenstein contributed to this story.