September 20-2013
By the margin of only a solitary vote, the Missouri state legislature failed last Wednesday to override the governor’s veto of an anti-Sharia bill. The anti-Sharia bill is now dead.
The Missouri constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the entire membership of each house to override a veto. The State Senate readily provided that margin on a 23-10 vote. In the House, the override vote was 108 to 53 with one member absent. That was a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, but fell one vote short of two-thirds of the entire House membership.
Both chambers in the Missouri legislature are controlled by Republicans, but Gov. Jay Nixon, who vetoed the bill in June, is a Democrat.
He and other Democrats flogged the anti-Sharia legislation as the product of rightwing craziness.
“It’s an embarrassment to this state,” Democratic Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, the only Muslim in the State Senate, told her colleagues during Senate floor debate. “People around this country are able to see the extremism in this chamber.”
The bill would have made it illegal for Missouri to enforce any foreign law or legal decision deemed “repugnant or inconsistent” with Missouri or US law. Lawyers pointed out that no foreign law that is contrary to US law has ever been enforceable in the United States.
Media coverage and critics of the bill have described it in the context of the anti-Sharia law movement that has been moving through many states the last three years. In half the states, conservatives have pushed legislation to halt the alleged influence of Sharia religious law in American courts. Critics say it is a non-issue that is being used to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment.
The Missouri bill didn’t specify Sharia law by name since an Oklahoma law doing so has been ruled unconstitutional because it singles out a particular faith. Oklahoma later passed a modified bill that doesn’t mention Sharia law by name.
In Missouri, the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Brian Nieves angrily disputed the goal of the bill, saying it has been “mischaracterized” by critics and the media.
Nieves insisted that the bill is merely meant to ensure “that in Missouri, we are not going to have court cases decided by using foreign law,” regardless of where those laws might originate.
“This bill is not about Sharia Law. . . . it’s not about islam, it’s not about the Muslim culture,” Nieves said. At one point, he turned directly to media reporters in the Senate chamber and alleged that they “don’t seem to be able to get this through their heads.”
But Senator Nasheed responded bluntly that she simply doesn’t believe it’s not part of the anti-Sharia law movement. “A blind man can see that it is…. That’s exactly what it’s about,” Nasheed said from the Senate floor. She called it “bigotry at its highest level.”
“We don’t have a problem with Muslims going into American courts trying to impose islamic law,” said Nasheed. “This [bill] is an attack on Islam and Muslims throughout America.”
Many proponents of the legislation in Missouri and other states have openly said such bills are aimed at the alleged threat from Sharia.
Proponents say Sharia law is being cited in US court cases. That is true. It is often cited in inheritance or child custody cases where a will was drawn up under Sharia law or a custody decision was awarded under Sharia law. But in such cases, the US court first determines that the Sharia law provision in use does not contradict American law. When it does, it is not enforceable in a US court.
Nixon vetoed the bill in June, saying it could potentially complicate the process of foreign child adoption for Missouri parents. In his veto message, he said the bill seeks “a solution to problem that does not exist,” while risking a “chilling effect” on those foreign adoptions.
Nieves, the sponsor, called that claim “patently absurd.”
Anti-Sharia laws have now been enacted in seven states: Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee. In Alabama, the public will vote on an anti-Sharia amendment to the state Constitution in 2014.