July 20, 2019
Copycat bills on anti-Sharia law and terrorism have no effect
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
“These copycat bills on Sharia law and terrorism have no effect. So why do states keep passing them?” This is the title of an in-depth report produced after the two-year investigation. This story was part of a collaboration between USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity.
A far-right think tank pushed model bills on Sharia law and terrorism in dozens of states. Civil rights groups say the goal was to stoke fear, the report said adding:
“A lawmaker in Idaho introduces legislation to prevent traditional Islamic law from infiltrating U.S. courts. In Florida, a legislator proposes striking at the foundations of terrorism with a bill bolstering victims’ ability to sue its supporters.
“The lawmakers’ efforts are seemingly unrelated, their statehouses almost 2,000 miles apart. But both get their ideas, and the actual text of their bills, from the same representative of the same right-wing think tank. And when they introduce the bills, the same activist group dispatches supporters to press for passage.
“Eric Redman of Idaho and Mike Hill of Florida are among dozens of legislators who have sponsored copycat bills written and pushed by a network of far-right think tanks and activists.”
The legislation was developed by the Center for Security Policy, which was founded by Frank Gaffney, a Reagan-era acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, who pushes conspiracy theories alleging radical Muslims have infiltrated the government, according to the investigative report. “Once the copycat bills are introduced, local chapters of the Washington, D.C.-based ACT for America, which describes itself as the “NRA of national security,” encourage their supporters to show up at legislative hearings and flood lawmakers’ inboxes and phone lines in support of the bills. ACT’s founder, Brigitte Gabriel, has claimed that up to a quarter of all Muslims support the destruction of Western civilization.”
ACT and the Center for Security Policy are at the center of a broader network that over a decade has waged a successful campaign that has reached every statehouse and led to the bills they’ve written and supported being introduced more than 70 times. Six states – Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee – have passed both the anti-Islamic law and anti-terrorism measures.
The special interest groups and lawmakers who sponsor their bills say they’re protecting Americans from Islamic extremism and terrorism. But the bills have had little practical impact, the report pointed out and added:
“For the first time, the investigation reveals how effective efforts behind the American Laws for American Courts model bill have been and how those groups have branched out to include Andy’s Law and other copycat bills that critics view as Islamophobic, keeping their issues on the agenda in statehouses across the country.”
South Carolina introduces anti-Sharia bill in January 2019
The State reported on February 11, 2019, no South Carolina court ever has relied upon Islamic law. But a Berkeley County Republican remains intent on curbing “foreign law” in S.C. courts.
State Sen. Larry Grooms in January 2019 introduced a bill to prevent the use of “foreign law” in South Carolina.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest civil advocacy American Muslim group, says this is part of a thinly veiled national movement to demonize the Islamic faith.
Grooms’ bill does not mention Islam or its Sharia law by name. But CAIR argues the legislation purposefully is broad to circumvent legal challenges, and targets Islamic religious principles and practices.
Grooms introduced similar bills in 2013 and 2017 that failed to move out of committee.
As of 2018, 13 states had passed laws that forbid courts from considering any international law or a particular religious legal tradition — most often “Sharia law” — that doesn’t grant the same rights as the U.S. Constitution or a state’s constitution, according to CAIR.
The American Bar Association opposes such legislation, stating it is “duplicative of safeguards that are already enshrined in federal and state law.”
“American courts will not apply Sharia or other rules (real or perceived) that are contrary to our public policy, including, for instance, rules that are incompatible with our notions of gender equality,” the Bar Association wrote in a 2011 resolution.
The association, too, warns such bills likely will have unintended and widespread negative consequences. Now, for instance, U.S. courts regularly must interpret and apply foreign laws in international business dealings and commercial disputes, marriages, divorces and custody decrees, it says.
12 states signed anti-Sharia bill into law
Since 2010, some version of the model bill has been debated in 43 states and signed into law in 12, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center tracking of the legislation. USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic’s investigation, which used a computer algorithm to detect similarities in language, found during that period nearly identical copies of American Laws for American Courts had been introduced 40 times in 17 states.
Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, said the copycat bill is intended “to draw attention to their anti-Muslim beliefs.” The center has tracked the spread of the legislation, including through public records requests it shared with USA TODAY and the Center for Public Integrity.
The brainchild of New York attorney David Yerushalmi, general counsel for the Center for Security Policy, the model bill states that judges’ rulings are void if based on foreign laws that violate rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or state laws.
Yerushalmi is not alone. He often collaborates with anti-Muslim advocate Frank Gaffney to push a “national debate about the nature of Sharia and the need to protect our Constitution and country from it.” Gaffney has concocted conspiracy theories about “Islamists” infiltrating the Obama Administration. He has served on the “national security advisory team” for the failed GOP presidential nominee Ted Cruz.
American Laws for American Courts never mentions Islam – a fact often repeated by backers – but its supporters invoke Sharia in arguing why the legislation is needed. Former Idaho Rep. congressman Redman, a Republican circulated a handout that included a picture of a severed hand and a man kneeling to be beheaded, offered as portrayals of the threat Sharia poses to Western society.
Frank Gaffney is the founder of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a neo-conservative think tank that publishes books and pamphlets promoting the conspiracy theory that America is under threat from “Islamization,” and that the implementation of Islamic law is imminent.
Gaffney is also a prolific writer. In 2010, he published the book, Shari'ah: The Threat To America, An Exercise in Competitive Analysis, Report of Team 'B' I, which propagates the conspiracy theory that Shariah law poses a serious threat to the U.S. and Americans. It was co-authored by David Yerushalmi who is also the general counsel for Gaffney’s CSP.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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