If the law is in the way...

Another reason to pack the courts.

Ravi Singh, an Illinois-based political consultant and self-proclaimed “campaign guru,” is challenging a decades-old federal law barring foreign involvement in U.S. elections. He calls the provision unconstitutional, insisting Congress can’t regulate the role played by non-citizens in state and local elections.

  Politico

He's going to lose that one. But if the GOP has its way (as it normally does), the case could be pushed up to the Supreme Court where Trump has his lackies.

Legal scholars say the appeal represents a serious challenge to the statute.

I really find that hard to believe. Can states and local governments simply do whatever the hell they want? Are they not bound by any standard federal regulations? How are we one country if that's not the case?

At a time when the special prosecutor’s legitimacy is being attacked on various grounds, a ruling in Singh's favor would create even more uncertainty around the broader effort to shield U.S. elections from foreign influence.

“It shows there is a lot of untested ground surrounding the foreign national prohibition,” said Joe Birkenstock, a former Democratic National Committee general counsel now with law firm Sandler Reiff.

Singh is appealing a 2016 federal conviction on charges a Mexican real estate developer secretly footed the bill for a quarter million dollars-worth of digital campaign consulting that Singh provided two San Diego mayoral candidates.

The source of the funds for Singh’s campaign work, businessman Jose Azano, has homes in San Diego and Miami and spent much of his time in the U.S., but is not an American citizen or green card holder. He was allegedly hoping to gain influence in a bid to redevelop San Diego's waterfront.

That not only sounds like foreign contribution, but bribery.

[V]arious localities including Takoma Park, Maryland, San Francisco and Chicago allow non-citizens to vote in local elections of some sort. However, under the broad federal ban, it is illegal for at least some of those foreigners to donate to candidates in those same races.

That sounds like the case for adjudication. And, indeed, it does sound like a place to chip away.

“If the eligibility of foreign nationals to vote in state and local elections is exclusively a state/local matter, it stands to reason that the eligibility of foreign nationals to make contributions related to such elections is also exclusively a state/local matter,” Singh’s defense wrote.

I can't argue with that.

“We’ve forgotten the last 100 or more years of our history — how foreign nationals participated so actively in the life of our country. … That’s a very important tradition,” Krent, dean of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, told POLITICO. “Most states, some even in their constitutions, permitted foreign nationals to vote. It’s a lot richer history than I was aware.”

No shit. This is not, I think, a good thing. Maybe I'll have to back off on my assessment of the likely outcome of this suit. After all, it's now legal to consider corporations as individuals.

This country is going down.

The Justice Department has a blunt response to that argument.

“It does not matter that some local jurisdictions may permit aliens to vote,” prosecutors wrote in a brief defending the conviction. “That is a matter of grace, not constitutional requirement.”

A matter of grace? That's a weird legal argument.

“I think there’s actually a pretty strong federalism issue here and it’s super interesting,” said Temple University Law Professor Peter Spiro, a leading expert on citizenship and dual nationality. “If non-citizen voting is constitutionally acceptable, I’m not sure I see what the government’s rationale here is. … It’s hard to see the national security explanation when you’re talking about state and local elections, and once you take that off the table it just looks like a federal diktat in terms of how states define their own political community.”

Asked to rate the chance of Singh prevailing, Birkenstock said: “It’s above zero, but I still think it’s uphill. … It’s certainly not frivolous. I think they’re raising worthwhile challenges.”

Downhill fast.

The case.

This case arose out of Singh's 2016 conviction for helping a Mexican businessman funnel money to San Diego candidates. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison and a $10,000 fine last September. He was arrested in January 2014 and pled not guilty.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.