Arizona Immigration Law Unites Obama and the Chamber of Commerce

The Wall Street Journal's Jess Bravin has a good overview of Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, which the Supreme Court is hearing today. At issue is whether federal immigration law preempts Arizona's harsh statute penalizing employers for hiring "unauthorized aliens." As Bravin notes, some unusual alliances have been formed:

The [Chamber of Commerce] has teamed up against the Legal Arizona Workers Act with allies including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Service Employees International Union and a Latino group that Justice Sonia Sotomayor once helped lead. The Obama administration is sending the government's top litigator to assist the chamber's lawyer.

In the other corner is notorious anti-immigration leader Russell Pearce, the author of the state law:

Mr. Pearce, 63 years old, is a former sheriff's deputy first elected to the state legislature in 2000. "I was a tea partier before the tea party was cool," he said.

While Democrats are his principal adversary, Mr. Pearce also cited fellow Republicans he said carry water for a business community that puts "profits over patriotism." The day will come, he said, when "these folks are going to have to decide, when they take their money from big business, which side they really are on."

Read all about it here. For more on Pearce, don't miss Kerry Howley's 2008 feature "The One-Man Wall: How a single Arizona legislator's obsession has changed immigration policy for the worse."