So the city has been sued and a judge has suspended the June 4 enforcement date for the voter-approved E-Verify law. It’s not common for someone to welcome a lawsuit, but I must say it comes as a relief to me.
The main reason is that the law is illegal. Parties on both sides of the issue agree that it’s illegal. Attempting to enforce an illegal law puts the city in an awkward position.
We need a court to determine how we enforce this voter-approved bill. Will a court sever out the illegal portions and leave the rest? Will a court throw out the entire law? We don’t know. That is for the judge to decide.
We are still wondering how this could happen. Maybe a majority of those who voted – there was only a 14 percent voter turnout for this controversial issue – either didn’t know it was illegal, or didn’t care.
I suspect most just voted emotionally.
Let’s peel back the curtain and consider how an illegal bill gets passed by our citizens.
A certain percentage of those voting for it in the February election might not have known the bill was illegal, despite our attempts to get that fact out into the community via multiple media outlets. Evidently, we failed to connect with this group. Shame on us. We’re working on new, nontraditional ways to communicate with our citizens. Stay tuned.
A certain percentage of those voting for the bill may have known the bill was illegal but figured we could fix it somehow after the vote, so they proceeded to vote for it. In reality, City Council can’t touch it for six months, and even then, can only amend or repeal it with a unanimous vote.
Another percentage of those voting for the bill just flat don’t trust government. They probably figured that if we said that parts of it are illegal, then the bill must be just fine.
Let’s say the illegal portions are taken out by the court. What’s left of the bill still creates a responsibility on any entity that employs even one individual. I’m often asked what all of this means for employers.
First of all, it means signing an annual affidavit form, testifying that you will screen all of your employees through the federal E-Verify system. You must get this form notarized and submit it to the city Finance Department every year by the deadline.
Then, you must keep records proving that you do use the system for every employee hired. If a qualifying complaint is filed against you, under the law as it is written, the city can only give you three business days to prove the identified worker is legally able to work in the United States. If the city does not receive proof within three business days, this new law requires us to shut down your organization until proof is received.
This applies to any organization that does business in Springfield – for profit or not-for-profit – regardless of whether the business has a physical location within Springfield. I’m not sure how I would close down a church, a hospital, a university, City Utilities, or an individual. The law is also unclear: It may mean that the kid you hire to mow your lawn or the girl you hire as a babysitter may qualify as an “employee.”
But those are not even the illegal parts of the law. The illegal parts call for fines and for employers to screen all existing employees retroactively. Federal law prohibits the retroactive use of E-Verify for employees already hired. But yet, the voter-approved ordinance calls for it.
Don’t like it? Sue me.
Greg Burris is Springfield’s city manager. He can be reached at gburris@springfieldmo.gov.[[In-content Ad]]
