Most of us wouldn’t hesitate to agree with the notion that our laws apply to everyone here in the country. After all, things like murder, theft, speeding, etc. are all wrong no matter who is doing it. Then there is our guaranteed right to due process under the law that comes straight out of the 5th & 14th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Clearly, all of our laws apply to all of us here in the United States of America.
Ok, where am I going with this? Some of our laws define assistance that is available to those who are sufficiently in need. Such laws are known by many names, but we would pretty much all recognize “welfare” as a term to bring us to a common understanding and focus our conversation. It is true that we can find slight differences in State laws and, generally speaking, State laws are all designed to complement Federal statutes so we should try to keep our conversation more general.
Recently, the Governor of Maine found himself in the spotlight for wanting to deny assistance to persons who could not show proof of legal residency in his State. I don’t think he is the first Governor to attempt such action and I certainly don’t think he will be the last, but we should avoid the rhetorical flames of illegal immigration and simply ask ourselves – What does the law say?
If the State of Maine has language in their statute that limits welfare to legal residents only, so be it. If the State of Maine has no such language on their books, then the laws apply to both legal and illegal residents equally and if the law is to be applied equally it must distribute the benefit equally as well.
So what if the State of Maine has something in their statute that limits welfare to legal residents only and we think it is a bad law? Someone must file a legal challenge and move the matter into our judicial system. By the end of the day the challenge will wend its way through the various levels of our court system and get argued before our Supreme Court. Our nine Supreme Court Justices will do their best job to put their personal preferences aside (some will do better than others) and decide the matter based on the language in our Constitution and any past rulings relating to the matter at hand.
Think of our legal system like a piece of fabric. Some of the fabric is nice and smooth with an even weave and a high thread count – when we lie down on it we feel comfortable and secure. Other parts of the fabric are more like burlap with a loose, rough weave and occasional knots making the fabric scratchy and uncomfortable. It is these lower quality portions of our legal fabric that hold the ill-defined language leading to our need for challenge. We must take the time and put forth the effort to carefully remove the knots and increase the thread count until the fabric starts to look more like fine linen than course burlap.
The founding fathers were brilliant in their collective efforts to give us a form of government that would hold up to the many unknown challenges of the future. They gave us three coequal branches of government – a legislative, an executive, and a judicial to make laws, to enforce laws, and to settle the inevitable squabbles that would arise from those two efforts. They did their best to give each of those three branches the means to do their work and to protect their efforts from the other branches. And, the founding fathers gave us a means of making sure that any misconduct could be corrected – they gave We the People a ballot box.
Our future is up to We the People. If we pay attention, stay informed, and make good choices through our election processes, our system of government will function just fine. If, on the other hand, we become lax and neglectful in meeting those responsibilities, the power-hungry interests will take over and dysfunction will be the order of the day. We the People have let ourselves down.
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