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In South Carolina, state Attorney General Alan Wilson has joined with 16 other states in a lawsuit aimed at overturning Obamas executive action.

Amid the continued rancor where the debate often centers on border security, deportation and accusations of amnesty one angle of the debate not often heard is how comprehensive reform could have a positive impact on U.S. businesses.

However, there is an advocacy group in South Carolina composed of various business interests that is urging congressional and other leaders to address the nations broken immigration system.

There are a number of voices a number of organizations and groups of industries in South Carolina that have, for years, been calling for immigration reform, says Shell Suber, spokesman for the Partnership for a New American Economy. The tourism industry and the agricultural industry are two large industries that have been beating this drum for years. They have been joined in the last couple of years by chambers of commerce and a broader range of tourism [entities].

Suber says many in the tourism and agriculture industries would like to see immigration laws molded in such a way that would enable them to more easily staff their heavily seasonal businesses.

In agriculture, you have the harvest, Suber says. There are farmers here in South Carolina who have a terribly difficult time navigating the current broken immigration system. By the time they can verify the identity of [foreign-born] workers and they need hundreds of workers for several weeks the season is over.

In pushing for immigration reform, the Partnership for a New American Economy has also emphasized the spending power of Hispanics and sought to reform tourist visa laws.

According to a report released by the partnership, U.S.- and foreign-born Hispanics in 2013 had an estimated after-tax income of more than $605 billion, which is equivalent to about one out of every $10 of disposable income held in the United States.

As for tourist visas, tourism officials in the state say they would like to make it easier for citizens from certain nations to travel to South Carolina. On Dec. 15, Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and John Durst, president of the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, called specifically for the expansion of the U.S. visa waiver program to include countries such as Brazil, Hong Kong, Turkey, Israel, South Africa and Poland.

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Pro-Business Group Wants Immigration Reform

TIME Politics Congress The 7 Biggest Things That Didnt Happen in D.C. in 2014 The U.S. Capitol stands surrounded by fog in Washington, D.C., March 20, 2014. Andrew HarrerBloomberg/Getty Images No immigration reform. No Supreme Court fight. No shutdown.

Lets face it: 2014 was no 2008. As far as politics goes, this year wont go down in American history as one of the more notable ones.

But sometimes its the things that didnt happen that are more interesting. And some very big things didnt happen this year, even though pundits and commentators once thought they might.

Heres a look at the seven biggest things that didnt happen in Washington in 2014.

The House never passed an immigration reform bill.

What might have happened: In June of 2013, the Senate passed a bipartisan overhaul of the nations immigration laws. The House could have voted on that bill or passed its own version.

Who thought it would happen: Some Republicans. Many party leaders thought Republicans needed to put the immigration issue behind them in order to win the White House in 2016.

Why it didnt happen: House Republicans sat the issue out. Speaker John Boehner never brought the Senate bill to the House floor or offered an alternative.

Could it happen next year? Not likely. When President Obama deferred deportation for millions on his own in November, Boehner argued that he had poisoned the well.

There was no big Supreme Court nomination fight.

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The 7 Biggest Things That Didnt Happen in D.C. in 2014

Without The First Amendment (B3 -- Tyler S., Cael A., Clinton M.)

By: cgmsbmcgurk

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Without The First Amendment (B3 -- Tyler S., Cael A., & Clinton M.) - Video

The Supreme Court has stepped into the center of a divisive issue: whether, consistent with the First Amendment, states that elect some or all of their judges may prohibit the candidates from directly soliciting campaign funds.

The case of Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, scheduled for oral argument on January 20, 2015, will test how far the Supreme Court is willing to go in pushing the boundaries of the First Amendments guarantee of freedom of speech and throwing off the restraints of campaign finance regulation.

The case has important implications for law students interested in First Amendment, legal and judicial ethics, political law, and the governance of the judiciaries throughout the United States.

According to both sides in the dispute, thirty-nine states elect at least some of their . Over half of those states at least twenty have adopted a variation of the American Bar Associations Model Code of Judicial Conduct, which includes a provision that prohibits candidates for judicial office, incumbent judges and challengers from directly soliciting campaign funds.

The issue is not whether judges and their challengers may raise campaign funds. There seems to be general agreement that even judicial candidates need campaign committees with sufficient resources to mount an election effort. Rather, the question is whether the candidates themselves should be able to solicit funds, which is often an effective way of promoting name recognition and raising the cash necessary to run a campaign.

Federal appeals courts and state supreme courts are deeply split about whether restrictions on direct solicitation by candidates are permissible under the First Amendment. According to the petition filed in the Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third and Seventh Circuits and the state supreme courts of Oregon, Florida, and Arkansas have upheld ethical rules restricting judicial candidate solicitation; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have invalidated similar rules. The Florida Bar agreed with this description of the disagreement and, although it prevailed in the Florida Supreme Court, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case because of the split. That divide is what the Supreme Court will try to resolve.

The case presents a conflict between the need to protect the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary and the role of the First Amendment in protecting political speech from government interference. At the heart of that conflict is the volatile question, one that has been of considerable interest to the current Supreme Court, of how campaign funds fit into the framework of political speech.

In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a restriction on speech in judicial campaigns, finding that a rule which prohibited candidates from announcing positions on controversial issues violated the First Amendment. That ruling, Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, involved political statements rather than campaign funds, but it brought judicial elections under the same First Amendment framework that applies to other political speech.

More recently, under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court in the name of freedom of speech has expanded the ability of corporations and unions to spend funds directly in elections in Citizens United v. FEC and less than a year ago invalidated limits Congress placed on the overall amount that individuals may spend in a two-year federal election cycle in McCutcheon v. FEC.

The case now before the Court arose in a Florida judicial election. In 2009, Lanell Williams-Yulee ran for a position as judge in Hillsborough County, which is in the Tampa area. She sent out a general fundraising letter which she signed herself. When the Florida Bar filed a complaint against her, Williams-Yulee noted that the Florida ethical rule referred to elections between competing candidates, and since she had no opponent when she sent the letter, she did not think the rule applied. A state referee appointed to decide the issue said her mistake did not excuse the violation of the rule and suggested she be issued a reprimand and pay the costs of the disciplinary proceeding.

Originally posted here:
SCOTUS for law students: Financing judicial elections

December 20 and 22, 2014, 10:00 a.m. Contents The Price of Free Speech What the University Owes Students The Values of Free Speech and a Proposal Pictures of Presidents "The Interview" Trailer and Pictures of "Art" Quotations from . . . President Barack Obama The Guardians of Peace (the Hackers' Threats) Sony Statement UI President Sally Mason Statement UI AAUP President Katherine Tachau Message First Amendment Alternatives to Law -- and Censorship: Professor Lawrence Lessig Mason Williams The University of Iowa should consider developing a course for entering undergraduates first semester that exposes them to the values underlying the First Amendment, the history of protest movements in this country and on this very campus.

-- Nicholas Johnson

The Price of Free Speech

So it is with free speech its a good idea, and also the law. With two distinctions from the law of gravity.

(1) The law doesnt always apply.

Although the First Amendment to our Constitution merely forbids Congress to make a law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, the courts interpret congress to mean all government action things done by city councils, school boards, and yes, state universities like the University of Iowa. But that means the First Amendment gives you no protection from restrictions on your speech at the family dinner table, or in the corporate workplace.

Courts also permit governments to restrict freedom of speech in a variety of contexts how companies can advertise and label their products and new stock offerings, restrictions on sound trucks blasting messages throughout suburban neighborhoods after midnight, and a prohibition on airline passengers telling jokes as they pass through TSA security.

(2) And even when free speech is legally protected, its not free.

Speech is free like food is free in a Michelin four-star Paris restaurant. You tell the waitperson what you want, its presented before you, and you eat it. Only after the final cup of coffee, when youre preparing to leave, do you pay the price.

This speak-now-pay-later quality of free speech made the news recently from Iowa and California.

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Threats and Sensibilities: Presidents Kim, Lynton and Mason