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Land Law Amendment Targets 'Vestiges Of Racism'

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 18, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - There's a new Amendment 1 in Florida, and it doesn't have anything to do with your tax bill.

In November, the first proposal voters will see on the presidential election ballot would eliminate an obscure provision of the Constitution that can stop people ineligible for U.S. citizenship from owning property in Florida.

That may sound reasonable, given the short list of groups ineligible for citizenship today: drug traffickers, for example, terrorists or people with dangerous communicable diseases.

But when Florida voters adopted the alien land law in 1926, it targeted Asian immigrants, who were barred from becoming naturalized citizens purely because of their race.

White America had both "an inferiority complex and a superiority complex" about Asian immigrants that produced the discriminatory land law in Florida and a majority of other states, said Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach.

"You don't want to keep vestiges of racism in your constitution," Geller said.

Florida is one of two states where an "alien land law" remains on the books. Proposals to ask Florida voters to eliminate the restriction failed in the Legislature for three years before Geller successfully shepherded it through in 2007 with the help of Rep. Ronald Brise, D-North Miami.

Supporters of the proposal want voters to close what they see as a dark chapter of history by wiping out the discriminatory language. Doing so would be "purely symbolic," said Geller, because neither Asians nor any other ethnic group are barred from citizenship based on their race.

Skeptics say it's not that simple. In an era when terrorism is a threat, they say, an alien land provision could be needed to restrict property holdings of people who are ineligible for citizenship because they pose a threat to national security.

"In the global environment we live in, when we see a lot of foreign interests buying up property in the United States, I think we should still have some control," said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland. "At least now, we still have the ability to regulate it."

Racial Roots

The California Gold Rush and westward expansion of railroads during the 19th century brought waves of Asian immigrants to the United States.

As the Gold Rush waned and jobs grew more scarce, many whites resented the influx of Asian laborers whom they viewed as an economic threat.

In response, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 that banned immigration of Chinese laborers. It was the first time the country had restricted immigration based on race or national origin.

California passed an anti-Japanese land law in 1913, followed by a stricter alien land law in 1920.

The discrimination against Asians continued.

In 1922, in the case of Takao Ozawa v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Japanese ineligible for naturalized citizenship. The high court declared Asian Indians ineligible for naturalized citizenship in 1923.

The next year, Congress passed the U.S. Immigration Act denying U.S. entry to most Asians.

Florida and other states adopted their own alien land laws, fearing that Asian farmers driven from their property by restrictions in western states would head east, according to the Organization of Chinese Americans. Florida's law gives the state the right to regulate more heavily or ban altogether land ownership by those ineligible for U.S. citizenship.

Over time, Congress has changed the rules for citizenship by making all ethnic groups eligible. Small numbers of Chinese immigrants became eligible in 1943 with the repeal of Chinese exclusionary laws, and Congress eliminated race entirely as an obstacle to citizenship in 1952.

Likewise, the courts gradually turned against alien land laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled during the 1920s that such state laws were constitutional, but invalidated a portion of California's law in 1948. During the next decade, the supreme courts of California, Oregon and Montana struck down the laws entirely for violating 14th Amendment protections against racial discrimination.

2 States Retain Such Laws

Most states with alien land laws have since shed them. By 2004, New Mexico and Florida were the only states that still had such laws.

According to legislative staff analysts, Florida never has attempted to implement its version of the law, which has remained slumbering in the state Constitution, safe from court challenge.

"It's been very difficult to get it repealed," said Winnie Tang, president of the South Florida chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans. "People think, 'It's been there a long time, so it must be for a good reason.'"

Geller said Florida could never successfully implement the provision because of previous court rulings. Tang said her organization is not so sure.

"At the bottom of our hearts, we worry that maybe Florida would somehow try to enforce that language one day, years from now, even though it's unconstitutional under federal law," Tang said.

Ross said there may be lawful, reasonable ways of enforcing that provision against people who are disqualified for citizenship today, such as terrorists and human traffickers.

"If they're ineligible, that should be a red flag to us that maybe we don't want them as property owners in the state of Florida," said Ross, who sits on the Safety and Security Council, which heard the proposal in 2007. "Especially if we are talking about homeland security and protecting our interests."

One of 31 House members who voted against the measure, Ross was the only one of several opponents contacted for this article to respond.

Even if the origins of the alien land law are racist, he said, that does not mean automatically that it can serve no purpose now. A land purchase by terrorists or other dangerous foreign interests "could be masked as a very innocent group of foreigners," he said.

Larry Spalding, lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, said government can intervene in security-sensitive land purchases and business deals without such discriminatory laws. "I think the answer is, if there's an obvious terrorist threat, that's what we supposedly have a Department of Homeland Security for."

Spalding noted the pressure that Congress brought to bear to drive a Dubai company to abandon its quest to take over operations at several U.S. ports. "Where there is a transaction that maybe should be prevented, there can be some intervention."

Geller, who is a lawyer, said opponents such as Ross do not understand the court rulings against alien land provisions.

Case law, he said, has already determined that the "ineligibility" language in such laws targets people based on race, not based on their actions.

That, he said, is why the law is patently unconstitutional. "Because it's about who you are, not what you do."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.

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