Texas Tries To Redefine “Personhood” To Keep Blacks and Hispanics From Voting

[GoLeft TV]

For a long time, Republicans have been hard at work in trying to prevent Black and Hispanic voters from taking to the polls on election day. Now, the Supreme Court is ruling on a case that could change the way we look at voting districts in the worse way imaginable.

Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss this.

[valerief]

1. This time the Texan bastards won't even make them 3/5ths a person.

Shameful.

[yuiyoshida]

2. That's F'd up

seriously.

[Dont call me Shirley]

3. It is news weirder than reality. Although the gop is weirder than reality.

[blackspade]

8. Hey, leave KY out of this!

Twice!

[blackspade]

14. True.....

It didn't help that the State party ran two super weak conservaDems.....

[LiberalArkie]

5. I am surprised that Texas hasn't tried going back to being a free man who owned land

is a voter.

[dembotoz]

6. lets use it with the right to lie folks

if the gop does not consider you to be a person til you are 18 than how can you be a person inside the womb

[blackspade]

7. Disgusting racist assholes.

The GOP is the Trump party.
The GOP is trying to form an apartheid state so that they and their rich donors stay in power despite the changing demographics.
It never works in the long run.

[Ford_Prefect]

10. Representation has been held to be the right of all US Citizens.

It is the responsibility of all members of congress to look out for the welfare of every American citizen. Citizenship is conveyed by birth, by statute, and by migration status. It is likewise held that all American citizens have equal right to citizenship, its protections, benefits and obligations. The states may not decide for themselves who may be an American citizen. That is the purview of the Congress alone in line with the Constitution.

To so reduce the status of non-voting Americans is to diminish their right to Life, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Equal Justice under the law, and their access to the same. It would also create a special class of persons who have fewer rights than other citizens for no apparent reason. The Supreme Court has time and again ruled against such partitions.

The next diminution will be by tax payment. IE: IF you hold no property you have not paid suitable taxes to receive service by the Government. Therefore children and renters have no right to expect service of any kind from government agencies, the courts,the police, the Army, the legislature or the president. You don't get to play if you don't pay for it. By the same token if you pay more you should get more from Government.

[happyslug]

16. The case is based on the word "Voter"

This starts with the Second Section of the 14th Amendment:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv

The first sentence says the number of Federal Representatives per state shall be set by Total Population, but the second sentence then adds a clause that uses the term "Vote". Thus the second sentence implies Congress was looking at VOTERS when it came to Congressional Districts NOT Total population.

The Plaintiff/Appellants in this case are saying that the Court has long adopted the term "Voter" to be what is protected by the 14th amendment NOT total population and thus any district should include the same number of VOTERS not the same number of people. The Plaintiffs even cite the "One man, One Vote" Rule issued by the US Supreme Court in 1964, saying that shows the Court were concerned only about VOTERS not total population.

Kagan brought up the issue of women prior to 1920 when Women could NOT vote in most elections and that at that time districts were set by TOTAL Population not Voting Population.

When the issue of Representation came up, the Appellants made comments that non voters were represented by their Congressman even though they can NOT vote for them. Bryer brought up the concept of virtual representation, which was the Argument the British Parliament made in the 1700s that they represented everyone in the British Empire, even the US Colonies, even through no one in the colonies had the right to vote for any member of Parliament.

The key is how the Justices want to handle the word "Voter". Is that word, used in the Voters Rights Act of 1965, the same as people, or a smaller group of people who can vote in an election? i.e. Voter means only people who can vote NOT the same as all of the people.

Please Note the State of Texas REJECTED the idea the districts should be based on Voting population instead of total population of the district. This action was brought by two people who said their were voters and had voted in elections in Texas and thought that their district had to many VOTERS in their district as oppose to other districts with smaller number of voters (but the same total number of people in all districts). Given districts have different numbers of voters (but the same total population) that violated the One Man, One Vote rule and thus violate the US Constitution.

Please note I am NOT a supportive of that position, I am just explaining it.

[Ford_Prefect]

17. it's The Voting Rights Act of 1965. not Voter. I ought to know. I was there when it happened.

Do not be distracted by the term Voter. Voting is held to be a right of US citizens. Those persons who are qualified to vote are known as voters.

Justice Breyer and others made the point that apportionment is about more than the vote alone. It is about proportional representation for All citizens.

[happyslug]

18. Going by memory, always dangerous.

I should have looked it up, to get the right name but my point was this is an attack on the concept of One Man, One Vote using the term One Man, One Vote as the reason.

When I wrote what I had, I had just finished reading the Transcripts and the Briefs, which I cited below, and then wrote by memory more to show who was whom in the litigation.

I did not read them fully, I just wanted to get a drift of the point each side was making, Tomorrow, if I have the time I will read them fully but the argument is what is protected? The people as a whole, including people who can NOT vote, or just voters?

[Ford_Prefect]

19. The case is an attempt to limit the term by taking it out of context,

by trying to limit who is a citizen to only those who may vote, and in turn effectively limit who may vote at all.
The first sentence says clearly and plainly that the whole population is the basis for apportionment. It did not limit the population to only those who could vote at the time (Native American exception noted).

It seems to me that the appellants want to argue that the presence of the word vote reclassifies the population into qualified voters only. That is quite a stretch since it would require that those who may not vote become notionally property of the voters in one form or another, rather than citizens...A concept quite at odds with US legal tradition.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

11. But corporations are people, and they don't vote...

Strictly speaking I guess they don't have to, but I wonder if the Republicans thought that part of it through.

[Ford_Prefect]

12. File that under: "Money doesn't Talk, It Swears!"

[happyslug]

15. Here is the TRANSCRIPT of the actual Oral Argument in front of the Supreme Court:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/14-940_4g15.pdf

Here are the briefs: Please NOTE, the Appellee is the Governor of Texas who is DEFENDING the right to use TOTAL population NOT just the population of Voters (i.e. the Governor is Texas wants to divide districts using Total Population including NON-voters, i.e. Felons and Children, it is the Appellants who want to use only VOTERS in setting up voting districts). The Appellants are the one saying Texas should use ONLY Voter Population to set up districts. Thus the Federal Attorney General is supporting the Governor of Texas in this case.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/evenwel-v-abbott/