Category Archives: voting

It Hinges on the Meaning of….

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Missouri’s Attorney General, Katherine Hanaway, has gone to court to

bar the federal government from counting immigrants living in the country illegally when determining congressional representation and federal funding….

She added,

We are confident that the Census Bureau is going to start to plan for a census in 2030 where we don’t count illegal immigrants….

None of us American citizens believe illegal aliens should be allowed to vote. Counting their presence in apportioning 435 seats in House of Representatives among the several States is a different matter, though, and it’s not entirely up to the Census Bureau. Here’s what our Constitution has to say on House representation:

Article I, Section 2: The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative….

And

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….

Every thirty thousand what, though? Citizens? Residents, which would include legal aliens? Anyone present at the time of enumeration, which would include illegal aliens?

The question hinges, also, on the definition of other crime, and here’s where things get truly serious. Illegal aliens, wherever present have committed the wrong of entering our nation illegally, and they compound their wrong-doing by remaining here in their illegal status. Are either of these crimes?

Title 8 US Code § 1325 – Improper entry by alien has this:

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

Our courts usually count illegal entry to be a misdemeanor, while illegal reentry is counted a felony. In this context, though, it’s a meaningless distinction: both misdemeanors and felonies are crimes in the legal sense. So it is, too, in our American English dictionaries. Merriam-Webster Online defines “misdemeanor” as a crime less serious than a felony.

With the 14th Amendment clarifying Art, Sect 2, and the Title 8 paragraph clarifying the nature of entering the US illegally, the case for not counting illegal aliens when apportioning Congressional representation should be straightforward.

An Idiotic Move

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It turns out that Hennepin County, MN, has some 3,000 persons on its registered voter rolls that are missing key identifying data, such as birthdates, names and addresses. Many of those incomplete records suggest a registered voter age of more than 100 years including many with birth years listed as 1900. According to Alpha News, though, that bogus birth year was just a placeholder, since Minnesota law did not require a birth date before 1983.

That’s just idiotic, though. It would have been simple enough to set the “placeholder” year to 1962, so those voters, for good or ill, could be adjudged old enough to vote, and then year by year to walk that placeholder year forward until 1983 and then freeze the placeholder to that year.

Even better, when that 1983 law required birth dates and the fields (month-day-year) created in the voter registration database, it would have been simple to fill in the birth date fields associated with the year 1900 with NA and then send requests to those voters for their birth dates—and then remove altogether those voters who did not respond within some reasonable period of time, say three months.

Whether 1900 was chosen out of laziness, incompetence, or an overt effort to masquerade the ineligible as eligible is anyone’s guess.

Reapportionment

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There is a flurry of domestic migration from Blue States to other States, usually Red. That could prove costly to the Blue States’ representation in the US House of Representatives.

The left-leaning Brennan Center has taken a look at the Census and finds Democratic-controlled states are likely to lose at least 10 House seats.
If recent trends in population growth and migration continue, the Brennan Center projects that Texas would gain four seats, Florida three, and Georgia, Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, and Idaho one each in the reapportionment after the 2030 Census. California would lose four, and New York two. Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island would give up one apiece.
This would give Southern states 164 House seats, which is 19 more than in the 2000s. The Northeast would have 81 seats, down from 92.

That representation reallocation isn’t all. That’s also a shift of Electoral College votes from Blue States to Red to the tune of 30 votes shifting right.

Which is why the Progressive-Democrats are so shrilly against requiring US citizenship as a criterion for voting in Federal elections, requiring proof of US citizenship in order to get a ballot for Federal elections, and—especially—against excluding non-citizens present in their States from the census count that’s used for apportionment. It’s also why Progressive-Democrats so shrilly push for open US borders and welcoming all comers, including illegal aliens, into their jurisdictions. If they succeed in keeping non-citizens in the apportionment count and blocking Voter ID, that would strongly favor apportionment toward them, even with the ongoing domestic outmigration from those States.

Progressive-Democrats are more interested in their political power than they are in free and fair elections.

Tension?

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The Supreme Court has taken up the question of whether Louisiana’s redistricting effort for its Federal Congressional representation is legitimate, or not. The Just the News‘ news writer, the unusually (for JtN) anonymous “Just the News Contributor,” posed the central question before the Supreme Court:

In Louisiana v Callais, the Supreme Court is confronted with a direct tension between two legal commands: the VRA’s mandate to protect minority voting rights and the Constitution’s limits on race-based decision-making by the state.

There is—or should be—no tension here. Our Constitution says this in Art VI:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land….

In Marbury v Madison, the Supreme Court made clear that conflicts between statute and Constitution must be resolved strictly and solely in favor of what our Constitution says, and every Supreme Court decision since has hewed to the ultimate supremacy of our Constitution. Any tension can exist only in the minds of activists and activist judges and Justices.

Nor can there be any half-measure wherein some level of race-based discrimination is OK. Any race-based discrimination or “preference” in political gerrymandering is too much and a violation of our Constitution. Here’s the 14th Amendment on the matter:

No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The clause does not say No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, except when it’s convenient to do otherwise.

Full stop.

No, Congress Can’t Do That

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William Galston, in his last week’s Tuesday op-ed, expressed concern about the growing power (as opposed to authority) of American Presidents, and he proposed a solution.

[I]t [is] be up to Congress to write legal language defining clearly the limits of presidential power.

Even were the President to sign off on such legislation (or Congress to override his veto), anything more than a tweak to a Congressionally-enacted statute (viz., the Electoral Count Act tweak to which Galston referred) would be blatantly unconstitutional. (The ECA may itself be unconstitutional given how vague our Constitution is on the role and authorities of Electors and the sitting Vice President in counting Elector votes for President.)

Galston’s solution, which accrues power (as opposed to authority) to Congress, is every bit as dangerous (aside from its unconstitutionality) as accruing power to the Presidency. Galston’s move ignores the fact that not only did we rebel against a monarchical chief executive, we also wrote our Constitution to prevent the concept of Congressional (Parliamentary) Superiority from taking hold in our republican nation.

Our Constitution is quite clear on the matter, both in text and in that text’s construction of a Federal government whose powers (as well as authorities) are divided equally among the three branches of Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary. These are three branches equal in their powers and authorities. Congress cannot take it on itself to limit the power, or authority, of a rival branch.

If Congress is serious about reining in what it views as an overweening Executive, if it is not simply bleating virtuously in attempts to gain political points, it will propose the Constitutional amendment that tightens the reins and then convince the American citizens of at least 38 States to ratify its amendment.