A LINEUP OF LEGAL BEAGLES FOR FRIDAY'S *AZ WEEK*

posted by Michael Chihak

The state of Arizona and the federal government already have clashed over a number of issues in which each side says it has the right constitutionally to govern a given area.

Such issues range from stripping businesses of their licenses for employing illegal immigrants and tax credits for religious schools to public funding for election campaigns and immigration law enforcement. The business license, religious schools and public funding cases all are on the U.S. Supreme Court docket.

And more cases likely are coming. The Arizona Legislature is considering bills that will push more enforcement of immigration, challenge the federal government on its oversight of commerce and health care and impose a kind of omnibus legislation that would allow the state by fiat to reject any federal laws it feels are unconstitutional.

Republican Attorney General Tom Horne has been on the edge of such issues, helping push the state along a path of challenge to federal authority. "I think that's an unfortunate decision," Horne was quoted Feb. 2 by the Arizona Daily Star as saying regarding a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling giving the Environmental Protection Agency the power to regulate greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

Arizona Week will interview Horne for Friday's program to get his viewpoint.

Also scheduled for the program is University of Arizona law Professor Ana Maria Merico, who teaches a course in federalism and has done extensive research on the topic of the legal and constitutional relationship between the states and the federal government.

Additionally, Patrick Cunningham, a third-year law student at Arizona State University, will discuss an article he wrote for the Arizona State Law Journal about the business license revocation case as an example of the clash over federalism.