AIM recently interviewed Cory Andrews, the senior litigation counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) , a public interest law and policy center that defends and promotes free enterprise, individual rights, and a limited and accountable government. They filed a brief in the recent lawsuit filed by the U.S. government in attempt to block the new Arizona immigration law from going into effect.

Cory Andrews is the senior litigation counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF), a public interest law and policy center that defends and promotes free enterprise, individual rights, and a limited and accountable government.  The cases we talked about are cases that the Washington Legal Foundation has filed briefs for on behalf of the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF), among others. AEF is a non-profit—charitable foundation based in New Jersey, which has been in existence for nearly 50 years, and promotes education in diverse areas of study, such as law and public policy. They have also been a major supporter of Accuracy in Media’s Speaker’s Bureau, through which we get our message out about the need for honesty and accuracy in the media.

In the brief the WLF filed in the Arizona case, they argued that the law is designed merely to assist with the implementation of immigration policies already established by Congress, and, said Cory Andrews,  “I’m pleased to say that we filed this brief not only on our behalf, but on behalf of 23 or 24 amici clients, including Allied Education, but also including the author of the law, Arizona State Senator Russell Pierce, and 18 members of the United States Congress, along with the National Border Patrol Council—which is the largest union for border control agents—the American Immigration Control Foundation, and also Concerned Citizens and Friends of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement.  And we argued that there’s nothing in the Arizona law that stands as an obstacle to Congress’s policies on immigration—in fact, it dovetails with federal law.”

Other quotes from Mr. Andrews of WLF from the interview:

“…one of the very first high profile cases WLF took on was when Dan [Popeo]  had the good fortune to represent Senator Barry Goldwater.  Jimmy Carter had sort of unilaterally reneged on the defense treaty with Taiwan in his effort to normalize relations with Communist China at the time, and WLF took that case to court.  The case ended up in the Supreme Court.  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court decided that it was a political question, and that it wasn’t capable of rendering a relief in the case.  But that was one of our very first cases, and since then, we’ve been shaping public policy and fighting activist lawyers and regulators and intrusive government agencies at every turn.”

“Justice Alito wrote an opinion, in which Justices Ginsberg and Sotomayor joined, that basically overturned the District court’s injunction and reaffirmed its previous holdings in a case called Winter, which was a case that had involved a challenge to the Navy’s sonar use as ‘threatening to dolphins,’ that said, an injunction is a drastic remedy, that these injunctions should not automatically issue against a proposed action, even where a federal agency may not have completed a complete environmental impact study, as required by federal law.  The decision was a victory for us, and for the party, Monsanto, and for the USDA.”

“…what’s interesting is that the view of preemption that the administration is now peddling in the Arizona litigation is just radically different from the position that it’s only recently announced elsewhere.”

“The memo actually advances the view that state law and national law are often working concurrently to provide independent safeguards for the public, and that preemption of state law should be undertaken only with a full consideration of all the legitimate prerogatives of the states, and with a sufficient legal basis for the preemption.  Basically, in this memo, President Obama advocated presumption against preemption unless a clear contrary intention was expressed in the statute.”

“WLF took the position, and the Supreme Court agreed with it, that there’s simply no such thing as ‘good aid’ to a terrorist group, because all aid is fungible—which is to say, any time you provide material support to a terrorist organization, even if you provide it to its humanitarian efforts, that frees up resources that the group can then reallocate to its terrorist efforts.”

“…for the most part the media has at least done a good job of looking at all the important issues and cases facing the day.  They don’t always present it in a completely fair and balanced way, but the attention’s there.  The spotlight is there.  In a sense, it’s unfortunate, I think, that so many Americans look to the Supreme Court as one of the most influential institutions affecting their day-to-day lives.  I don’t know that it was ever intended to be that way, but it’s sort of become that way.”

You can listen to the entire interview, or read the edited transcript here.

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