Read the AP story about the Florida version of the American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) bill, which yesterday passed in the Florida House. In a word, ALAC simply prevents a state court judge from running amok and applying a foreign law, like sharia, that violates a party’s fundamental constitutional liberties.
Now, note the moans and groans from the “opponents of ALAC” claiming ALAC is unnecessary and a waste of time. Yet, when Congress passed the SPEECH Act of 2010 to do exactly what ALAC does but just for the First Amendment to prevent libel tourism (Muslims from Saudi Arabia were suing U.S. researchers, who found financial links between Saudi princes and the 9/11 mujahideen, in English courts to get easy defamation verdicts to frighten those who would research and write about the threat from sharia-inspired jihad) there was no such outcry.
During the congressional hearings for the SPEECH Act, documentation of the attempt to enforce these foreign defamation judgments in U.S. state courts as a cudgel against researchers and their free speech rights was presented. As a result, Congress passed the first true ALAC law, but with a focus only on the First Amendment. What ALAC does is extend this protection to Due Process and Equal Protection.