North Carolina now:
I mean, it was pretty obvious what these laws were created for. To remove the ability for poor people to vote.
When you have a GOP State Senator saying publicly
Asked by reporter Charles Benson why Cruz would be able to turn a
reliably Democratic state like Wisconsin red, Grothman said: “Well, I
think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have
ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to
make a little bit of a difference as well.”
Every time a Southerner bitches about states’ rights - well, moron, this is why you can’t have nice things.
This is why I support repeal of the 10th Amendment. It is now exclusively a law used to punish minorities of all sorts in Southern State legislatures.
And this helps Roy Cooper so I’m happy.
Good thing we removed the Voting Rights Act since we know things like this don’t happen anymore.
This is totally absurd, because it presumes that:
- Tyranny somehow can only exist at the state level
and - That having the federal government dictate everything to everyone is somehow good for unity.
The 10th amendment cannot be used to punish minorities, because we have OTHER parts of the constitution to protect them.
The 10th amendment limits federal power. It does not grant states additional power.
I don’t think there’s any part of the constitution that explicitly protects the rights of minorities. There are places where the Federal Government (and occasionally the states) is prohibited from enacting laws that abridge certain rights or treat people differently based on certain specifically enumerated traits, but nothing in there prevents States from abridging rights that are not explicitly protected. In fact, you could read the 10th amendment as explicitly granting States the power to do everything the rest of the constitution doesn’t explicitly forbid. Like, say, LGBTQ discrimination, or slavery prior to the amendments forbidding it. You could perhaps fix it by simply reserving all other powers for the people directly and perhaps letting the states and local governments wield those powers on behalf of their people, but I’m not sure that would do much. Really, though, while it feels like there should be some way to enshrine the principle that everyone should be treated fairly and no laws should be used to discriminate, it’s really tough to do that without ever having to make additions or adjustments.
I believe that a great deal of constitutional law and precedent would disagree with you… but perhaps part of this is that you are talking about “rights that aren’t protected”, whereas I would point out that such things aren’t actually rights.
The constitution defines our rights, and guarantees equal protection under the law. This doesn’t guarantee that everyone can do everything that you maybe think they should be able to, but those things aren’t actual “rights”.
“prior to amendments” doesn’t really matter. I mean, again, the constitution doesn’t protect things that it doesn’t protect.
Well, technically the word would be “implicitly” not “explicitly”. And yes, that is in fact the implication. It’s a limitation on the federal government’s power.
The way that the states’ power is limited, is through the rights defined in the constitution.
Your suggestion here doesn’t actually work at all, since it essentially means that the states don’t exist at all, since the constitution doesn’t define their rights, aside from the 10th amendment. It effectively precludes the creation of all laws which do not fit within the constitutionally defined powers of the federal government.
Which is, clearly, a terrible idea.
It’s called the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment of the US constitution.
And indeed, this is generally how it’s worked. There have been made attempts to create laws which discriminate against people, and they are eventually overturned as unconstitutional.
It seems like there is a feeling that the system is bad, because it doesn’t pro-actively prevent such laws, without the judicial system going through its process… but that’s kind of silly.
Well, this is the problem, though - if we only have rights the constitution explicitly defines, then we can only get protection for things that are already enshrined there. The slavery example is an important one, since clearly the right not to be treated as a piece of property wasn’t something everyone had until amendments were passed to say so directly. And likewise, while the 14th amendment was a good example of limiting the negative effects of the 10th amendment, it required a bloody war to enact and has required major fights at every turn to cover appropriate things. This isn’t just a matter of “the courts doing their business” - it’s not like it was a one-and-done lawsuit that overturned marriage discrimination and there are still so many additional places where the Supremes will have to weigh in at the margins because there is no clear guiding principle to keep all the district courts united.
No, the amendment explicitly grants those powers to “the States, respectively, or the people” - you could read that as it granting it to States first and the people only if the States decline to the assert the powers (though it doesn’t give much guidance for when the States and the people each assert contradictory powers), or you could read it as saying that the States get those powers as long as the people don’t assert them, but either way it isn’t implicit, it is explicit.
That clause really isn’t broad enough. Obviously if you start with the idea that all rights as currently defined by the precedents of Constitutional Law are the only rights we should have, then it’s easy to say that discriminatory laws are “eventually overturned”. But that sure wouldn’t have seemed true to the people at Stonewall, or even Selma (who got some measure of justice faster). I mean, the fact that Scalia could make the argument that equal protection was not violated by laws that prevented everyone from marrying people of the same sex is a perfect example of why that clause alone will never be enough.
Good thing that isn’t the case then.
Yes, you are correct. That’s really the only rational way you can possibly have it work though.
I mean, otherwise, what set of rights you are taking about? Something has to actually define the rights.
It’s not the case that those rights in the Constitution are the only rights that exist, and we are free to extend our system of laws to define and create new rights. But rights can’t just be assumed without delineating them.
North Dakota’s voter ID law barred:
[quote]In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that many Native Americans did not have addresses and that many tribal ID cards did not require them. The barriers to obtaining a required ID, they said, were high: There are no motor-vehicle license offices on reservations, and a significant share of Native Americans lack either the money to obtain an ID or the proofs of identity, such as a birth certificate or Social Security card, that are necessary to get one.
“The record is replete with concrete evidence of significant burdens imposed on Native American voters attempting to exercise their right to vote,” Judge Hovland wrote.[/quote]
Not that ND has a huge minority population but it does have quite a few Native Americans, and every time one of these ridiculous laws is turned back the republic gets a little bit more just.
Think we’re up to five or six states that have had their laws repealed or modified. Imagine these cases going to SCOTUS with Scalia still around (or should Trump win.)
We’re going to see a massive purging of registration rolls in the coming months.
That’s currently underway in Ohio.
Trump says people are going to vote ten times
SCOTUS denies NC appeal for a stay of lower court ruling:
Best news of the day.
Sorry, but what do you mean by this?
It [quote=“Canuck, post:639, topic:69817, full:true”]
Sorry, but what do you mean by this?
[/quote]
It allows states to avoid getting entangled with federal courts, isn’t discovered often until too late, and is what the GOP pulled in Florida in 2000. Ohio is purging their registration rolls under the excuse that those who haven’t voted ‘recently’ are being removed and they’re supposed to be contacted about their situation ahead of time. Color me extremely skeptical.