The New York Times reports today that “the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether Arizona may impose tough anti-immigration measures. Among them, in a law enacted last year, is a requirement that the police there question people they stop about their immigration status.”

ABC News reports ”the case will be argued sometime this spring,” adding that, “although deeply opposed to the law, the Obama administration had asked the Supreme Court to refrain from taking up the case at this juncture.”

Kris Kobach, current Kansas secretary of state and the coauthor of S.B. 1070 and other immigration enforcement-only efforts, wrote in May 2010: “[S.B. 1070] makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration violations while in Arizona.”

S.B. 1070 was passed by the Arizona Legislature in the first months of 2010, and was signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer in April; the measure was immediately challenged by the Obama administration.

The Times adds that the Obama administration “challenged four provisions” of S.B. 1070: “The most prominent was a requirement that state law enforcement officials determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if officials have reason to believe that the individual might be an illegal immigrant.”

According to ABC News, “similar legislation is pending in Utah, South Carolina, Indiana, Georgia and Alabama.”

The Supreme Court of the United States Blog writes today: “The Arizona measure, and one in Alabama that goes even further, were passed by state legislatures with the specific intent of making life so difficult for undocumented aliens that they would choose to leave the state. Other states are also passing similar measures.”

“Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant law, SB 1070,” and other similar state laws, according to the Immigration Policy Center, ”impose unfunded mandates on the police, jails, and courts; drive away workers, taxpayers, and consumers upon whom the state economy depends; and invite costly lawsuits and tourist boycotts. These are economic consequences which few states can afford at a time of gaping budget deficits.”

Gov. Robert Bentley (R), who signed the law and continues to support it, recently revealed that he has avoided making public statements about the law in part because he believes it has damaged Alabama’s reputation by strengthening stereotypes about the state’s residents “living in the ’50s and ’60s.”

“I don’t want to be perceived as the face of illegal immigration bills in the country, and I could be that,” Bentley told the Associated Press.

Bentley says he’s been turning down many national news interview requests because “I don’t want to add fuel to the fire across the country where people continue to look at Alabama in a negative light.”

He contrasts himself with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who embraced the national spotlight when her state passed a similar immigration law last year.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Section 28, a provision requiring K-12 public schools to check the immigration status of their students. Attention focused on the section after reports of Hispanic and immigrant families withdrawing their children from Alabama public schools. Such was the attention that provision received that one GOP state senator who voted for the law called what was happening in Alabama schools “heartbreaking.”

Yet much of the law is still in effect, including provisions requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain, or arrest, and a provision that makes any contract made with an unauthorized immigrant invalid.

But while most Republicans say they support state-level immigration laws, some are hesitant to publicly champion Alabama for implementing the most stringent enforcement law in modern history. Apart from the effects of the law itself, some of H.B. 56′s most prominent supporters have also been personally damaged by the heightened national media scrutiny of Alabama.

State Sen. Scott Beason (R-Gardendale), one of two named sponsors of H.B. 56, was recently publicly rebuked by a federal judge for having “racist” intentions when he cooperated with authorities in a high-profile corruption case, and was captured on a wiretap calling African-American constituents “aborigines.”

An outright accusation of racism from a federal judge towards a prominent Alabama Republican, in the context of a controversial push for immigration enforcement in as many fronts as the courts have allowed, could be one reason why Bentley isn’t as eager as Brewer was to become a national spokesperson for immigration laws.

Some restrictionist activists in Washington also aren’t that enthusiastic about the law in its entirety. Roy Beck, Executive Director of NumbersUSA, was recently asked by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about Section 27 of HB 56, which bans “any contract between a party and an alien unlawfully present in the United States.”

Beck told Hayes: “My organization doesn’t take a position on those things. Again, I’m sorry you’re right, we don’t believe that for the most part the answers are in the states.”

Beck went on to argue that the priority should be on what former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) calls the “jobs magnet,” the idea that unauthorized immigrants come to the United States for jobs. He argued that nationwide mandatory E-Verify, which Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has proposed in his Legal Workforce Act, would make state-level immigration policy obsolete.

“The more they focus on the fence, or frankly in-state tuition,” Beck told Hayes, “They’re off the main subject.”

Whether or not Beck is correct, it appears that many of the proponents of state-level enforcement don’t agree with his “jobs magnet” centric view on immigration enforcement.

Many states, including North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana, passed laws mandating workplace verification but without the more controversial sections of “papers, please” laws. But Arizona, which also passed a mandatory E-Verify law in 2007 that the Supreme Court ruled constitutional earlier this year, then went a step further in 2010 by passing S.B. 1070, which directly involved local police in immigration enforcement.

Georgia, Indiana, Utah, South Carolina and Alabama all followed suit, passing immigration laws that went further than mandatory E-Verify and cracking down on the so-called “jobs magnet”.

And dwelling on specific provisions of the law could be obscuring its broader intent, to create an atmosphere of zero tolerance towards unauthorized immigrants in the states that forces them to leave. U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) recently told Politico that regardless of the constitutional challenges to the law, its ongoing effects are not unintended: “with respect to illegal aliens who are now leaving jobs in Alabama, that’s exactly what we want.”

Kris Kobach, an attorney who in addition to being the Kansas Secretary of State wrote much of Alabama’s immigration law in his spare time, praised the exodus of immigrants from Alabama  as a sign the law was working. “You’re encouraging people to comply with the law on their own.  Nobody gets arrested.  Nobody spends time in detention. We don’t expend resources in removal hearings. People decide to comply with the law. I’d say that’s a good thing.”

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who was set to host the conference last year but canceled it after the Mexican governors announced they would boycott the state due to the immigration enforcement law S.B. 1070, had originally said she would attend the conference this year but backed out at the last minute. The Christian Science Monitor reports Brewer’s absence means a potential confrontation between the governors over S.B. 1070 has been avoided:

[Brewer] was to partake in discussions over two days that center on economic development, border security, and international ports of entry.

Although SB 1070 was not on the conference agenda, the participating governors from Mexico still “personally reject it,” as do many Mexican citizens, says Martin Cota, a spokesman for Baja California Governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán.

Gun trafficking will also be on the agenda, according to the Monitor, a salient issue in the wake of Operation Fast and Furious, a gun-surveillance sting run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that allowed hundreds of guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel members.

The office of California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said he was unable to attend due to legislative concerns, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is attending multiple fundraisers for his presidential campaign in anticipation of tomorrow’s deadline for the candidates’ to file campaign finance reports. Perry was the only absent governor not to send representatives to the conference.

“Conversations about border issues between Texas and other states and the federal government are ongoing,” Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed told AP. ”Whether or not someone is attending border governors’ conferences.”

Martinez will host next year’s conference in Albuquerque.

“It has always been a priority of mine to ensure that Arizona and its voters play an influential role in the nomination process, and that Southwestern issues were addressed by the candidates in a meaningful fashion,” Brewer said Tuesday upon signing a proclamation establishing Feb. 28 — the same day as the South Carolina primary — as the date of her state’s election.

Although Arizona had been earlier threatening to move into January 2012 and days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the Republican National Committee made concessions in the form of a potential GOP presidential debate that squelched the move. The promised debate, Brewer said, when combined with the Feb. 28 primary, would give her state the attention she believes it deserves in the nomination process.

“Arizona will be a player in determining our nation’s next president. Over the next 14 months, the candidates would be wise to meet with our voters and become familiar with our issues. Many of these issues — whether illegal immigration, the housing crisis or Medicaid reform — have national implications,” she said.

Brewer’s move, however, may have the opposite effect than she’d hoped. RNC rules now call for the state to lose a portion of its delegates to the national convention for usurping the calendar rules that allow only the four lead-off states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — to hold contests ahead of March 6. In addition, no specific date has been scheduled for the debate that was promised to the state, which could also slip away if Brewer continues to brush aside calendar rules.

The move by Arizona directly impacts South Carolina, which could move a few days ahead and still follow the Nevada caucuses. However, Florida, which has voiced its intent to be the fifth lead-off state in 2012, remains a wild card. It is likely that Florida might leap-frog Arizona, forcing an even greater jump by South Carolina and creating a domino effect within the calendar that could push the Iowa contests into January.

In Iowa the burden of deciding whether or not to move forward is mostly in the hands of the Republican State Central Committee, since there is no competitive Democratic primary on the horizon. As in years previous, there is little doubt that Hawkeye State officials will work closely with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Bardner, who has been granted extreme flexibility in setting his state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Brewer also told The Associated Press that her intention was to leave the state an option to move earlier than its currently scheduled date of Feb. 28

“Sometime after the 31st is still possible,” Brewer said. “I’m going to keep looking at that, to see what fits our best interests.”

Arizona law requires 150-day advance notice of an election date change. Therefore, if Brewer had planned to move to Jan. 31, as she was considering, the deadline to announce would have been Saturday.

Thus far the calendar established by the Republican National Committee, which has the Iowa caucuses leading the nomination process on Feb. 6, has stood. New Hampshire, holding with tradition, is scheduled to have its first-in-the-nation primary on Feb. 14. The Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary follow on Feb. 18 and 28, respectfully. Several states then hold their primary on Tuesday, March 6.

Rules set by the national party prohibit states other than the beginning four to hold a contest prior to March 6. Those who do could be stripped of delegates at the National Convention. At least six states are threatening to hold contests outside of their allotted calendar windows, and movement by any one of them could cause a domino effect that would throw the process into chaos.

According to the AP, the Republican National Committee seems prepared to offer Brewer’s state a GOP presidential debate, which is something she had indicated might persuade her to keep the Arizona primary where its currently slated.

House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (Texas) told the New York Times, “The Obama administration has again made clear its plan to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants.” Smith has sponsored legislation that would remove the administration’s capacity to exercise discretion when choosing who to deport for the duration of Obama’s current term.

In a statement, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, whose state passed an immigration enforcement law of unprecedented stringency in 2010, issued a statement saying, “The Obama administration cannot get its amnesty schemes through Congress, so now it has resorted to implementing its plans via executive fiat.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a prominent restrictionist organization which was influential in pressuring Senate Republicans to kill the 2007 immigration reform effort under President Bush, issued a statement calling the new policy an “administrative amnesty and a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration policy without approval by Congress.”

FAIR, which has been deemed a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists (including its founder, John Tanton, whom FAIR has distanced itself from), has repeatedly accused the Obama administration of various attempts at “amnesty.” In the past year, Morton’s memo and the Obama-supported attempt by Senate Democrats to pass the DREAM Act during the lame-duck session were both decried as amnesty. Dan Stein, president of FAIR, has argued that the Hispanic Caucus voted for the Affordable Care Act only because of a promise of “mass amnesty” by Obama.

Perry, who chairs the Republican Governors Association, sent out invitations to all 49 other state leaders for the Aug. 6 event at Reliant Stadium. As the Texas Independent reported earlier this week, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and (according to Politico) Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels won’t be at the stadium this August, either due to scheduling conflicts or unspecified reasons, while Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi has yet to finalize his August schedule. In addition, another four Republican Governors have recently made clear they cannot attend.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin will not be joining Perry and the prayer crowd due to previous scheduling engagements, said spokesperson Aaron Cooper, adding that the governor remains supportive of such efforts. In May, Fallin keynoted a prayer event coordinated by the Oklahoma City National Day of Prayer Task Force, a coalition of pro-life and ‘pro-family’ groups in her state. The same goes for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who will not be heading to this event in August for the similar reasons. Press Secretary Sara Wurfel says the governor is intensely focusing on “turning around Michigan’s economy,” and can’t take part, pointing instead to Snyder’s May proclamation calling for a “Michigan Day of Prayer.”

Aides from the offices of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said those state leaders are not permitted to attend due to previous engagements. Meanwhile, governors John Kasich of Ohio and Bob McDonnell of Virginia are still working through their agenda commitments, leaving the decision up to a later date, say staff press secretaries. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is the only governor thus far to accept his invitation to the all-day prayer and fasting rally dubbed “The Response,” a “non-political” Christian-based event.

It “will describe my ongoing fight to provide security for our citizens and to defeat those who profit and grow more powerful by refusing to secure our borders,” Brewer said in a statement.

Reuters reports she will write the book with Jessica Gavora, a writer who has worked for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Earlier this week, Brewer announced she would take the fight to have SB 1070 fully implemented to the U.S. Supreme Court, after a federal judge’s stay on key provisions was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April.

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It “will describe my ongoing fight to provide security for our citizens and to defeat those who profit and grow more powerful by refusing to secure our borders,” Brewer said in a statement.

Reuters reports she will write the book with Jessica Gavora, a writer who has worked for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Earlier this week, Brewer announced she would take the fight to have SB 1070 fully implemented to the U.S. Supreme Court, after a federal judge’s stay on key provisions was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April.

AFC is headed by Betsy DeVos, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party; she is married to former Republican candidate for Michigan Gov. Dick DeVos, son of famed billionaire Richard DeVos, who made his fortune through the success of household appliance and manufacturing giant Amway. Betsy and Richard DeVos have been longtime advocates of school choice, setting up an intricate web of nonprofit organizations that put money behind candidates who support shifting tax dollars from public schools to private and charter institutions. As John Nichols of The Nation reports, AFC is a rebranding of older groups affiliated with the DeVos family that were slapped with fines for illegal campaign practices.

Headliners for the two-day event include controversial Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former chancellor of D.C. public schools Michelle Rhee and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett — all supporters of school choice initiatives. In attendance were also a coterie of investment and real estate moguls, like Julian Robertson and Albert Ratner, who have given millions of dollars to the school choice movement.

Gov. Corbett gives a history lesson on U.S. poverty and education, explains "poverty's long true companion has been family dysfunction."

AFC’s political orientation is difficult to detect. While the sponsors of the policy summit include conservative stalwarts American Legislative Exchange Council — a conservative free-market nonprofit that supports state ballot initiatives curtailing college student voting rights — and Walmart-funded The Walton Family Foundation, groups like Hispanic CREO and Black Alliance for Educational Options counter the feeling of heavy-handed partisanship. Even Robertson, operator of one of the first hedge funds, joined AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in calling on Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy in 2010.

As many of the speakers referred to studies that paint the public school system in dire straits, the popular refrain throughout the first day of the summit was the belief school choice transcended politics and ideology. Giving a keynote address in a portion of afternoon called, “The Urgency of School Choice,” Gov. Corbett said, “Next to national defense, [school choice] is right there as to what we need to be doing.” Echoing one of his campaign slogans, Gov. Corbett stressed educational reform must include making funding portable, saying public money for education belongs to the students and parents.

His state of Pennsylvania began legislative proceedings this week on a school choice bill, Senate Bill 1. If passed, the new law would expand a 10-year program that offers tax credits to businesses that donate money to organizations providing subsidies for private school tuition costs and sweep in a comprehensive school voucher program. The bill is receiving some bipartisan support; Democrat and school choice supporter Sen. Anthony H. Williams of Philadelphia is a co-sponsor of the bill.

The summit was just as concerned with how its messaging is perceived as with the message itself. Dr. Frank Luntz, a pollster and political consultant specializing in testing public attitudes to key words, lectured the audience on how to better communicate the goals of the school choice movement. He cautioned that roughly half of Republicans believe access to good schools is a privilege, not a right, explaining that more work needs to be done convincing the right than the left.

Luntz released a collection of his findings in 2010, outlining his nine communication commandments that make the best use of the most impacting words that the public finds most compelling.

Commandment number seven reads, in part: “Play the America card–often. Embrace ‘American Exceptionalism’ and encourage people to embrace the principle of exceptionalism in schools.” Number three says: “While positive imagery and arguments are comforting and popular, it’s the negative ideas and fear of failure that move people to action.” That sentiment is paired with the efficacy of negative images: “A school with boarded up windows and broken glass is the single most frightening visual of a school in trouble.”

2011 has been a good year for school choice advocates. The Students for Opportunity and Results Act (SOAR), sponsored by Speaker of the U.S. House John Boehner, entered law as part of the federal budget Continuing Resolution. The new law opens Washington, D.C. to school choice programs and is projected to cost $300 million from 2012-2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law School Scholarships Act (HEA 1003), giving low-income students up to $4,500 in tuition assistance to attend K-8 private schools. The law sets no award limit for high school students. And though the Arizona state Supreme Court ruled a statewide voucher program is unconstitutional in 2009, Gov. Jan Brewer approved legislation in April that creates savings accounts for students with disabilities who opt for private schools to attend private schools that better fit their needs.