The Democrat Thread

[DukeNukeEm]

Scalia is 100% right.

 

The VRA doesn't breeze through Congress every time it comes up because its still a necessary law, because its not a necessary law anymore and probably does more harm than good nowadays, but instead because not devoting yourself to it is branded as racist. Even when all the arguments against keeping the VRA around have nothing to do with race, its still racist to not support it. So everyone supports it, the liberals are happy (but still ever-vigilant of the evil white man) and a dumb law we have no use for anymore continues to add more bureaucracy and more intrusion from the federal government.

 

It is a massive racial entitlement, we cant adequately control the scope of our government because some people might get offended. Or pretend to be offended. Or satisfy the gargantuan white-guilt complex were showered with f***ing daily. I dont know, I seriously dont understand the motivations of whiny, sentimental liberals..

[StrangeSox]

Of course neither you nor scalia can explain why it's unnecessary or why it would ever be harmful. Nor is it possible to decouple one of the most important civil rights laws in this country from race.

[DukeNukeEm]

Because it violates states rights on a discriminatory basis. That's why its a bad law in 2013.

 

Now you tell me why we should keep the law without using the race card.

Edited March 1, 2013 by DukeNukeEm

[StrangeSox]

The 15th Amendment explicity gives Congress the power to override "States Rights!!!!!" in favor of actual, living peoples' rights. After almost a century of trying to prevent discrimination on a case-by-case basis, it was determined that pre-clearance was a much more effective measure as it shifted the burden to those who wanted to change the voting laws.

 

As I already noted with this link, the present-day voting discrimination comes primarily from areas that are covered by pre-clearance.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/shelby-c...covered-states/

 

More importantly, you're making a political argument. It's not the Court's place to decide this on the incoherent grounds that it's too popular of a law.

Edited March 1, 2013 by StrangeSox

[DukeNukeEm]

The 15th Amendment explicity gives Congress the power to override "States Rights!!!!!" in favor of actual, living peoples' rights. After almost a century of trying to prevent discrimination on a case-by-case basis, it was determined that pre-clearance was a much more effective measure as it shifted the burden to those who wanted to change the voting laws.

 

As I already noted with this link, the present-day voting discrimination comes primarily from areas that are covered by pre-clearance.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/shelby-c...covered-states/

 

More importantly, you're making a political argument. It's not the Court's place to decide this on the incoherent grounds that it's too popular of a law.

Is it really more voter discrimination happening or the added vehicle for lodging complaints leading to more complaints?

[StrangeSox]

No, as the referenced Katz study looked at Section 2 litigation, which is universally applicable, and still found that areas covered by Section 5 were significantly disproportionately represented. Regardless, there are still literally thousands of examples of attempted voter discrimination acts, which highlights exactly why the entirety of the VRA, including and especially Section 5, is necessary.

 

I have said in the past that I support pre-clearance being applied to the entire country, but that's a political question, not a judicial one. Scalia is not a super-legislator, tasked with doing the tough things those elected, accountable legislators just can't do without, ya know, being held accountable. There are arguments against Section 5, and not all of them are explicitly racist (and dumb) as Scalia's statements. Check out the rest of the articles on SCOTUSblog for some examples. I think they're incorrect or naive about present-day realities, but they are not Scalia's argument.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

By the way, to put the timeline of Section 5 into perspective, consider this:

 

From 1501-1865, a total of 364 years, slavery was legal in the American colonies and then states. From 1865 until 1964, a total of 99 years, we had legal racial discrimination and oppression in this country, and it was another year until the right to vote was fully protected. It's been only 48 years since the VRA was signed into law. We are barely on to our third voting generation since the passage of this law compared to almost two dozen generations of vicious discrimination before it. As much as we have progressed since the 1960's, it's simply naive to believe that racial animus has disappeared and that minority voting protections are no longer needed. In just this past election, we saw minority-heavy districts in certain states have hours-long waiting lines that weren't present in other areas of the same state or in other states.

[Jenksismyhero]

Yes, that "entitlement" to vote.

 

You're talking about a bunch of irrelevant (but still silly) stuff in order to hand-wave away what he said, what he was talking about and what he is going to help do.

 

He was making an analogy. He wasn't calling the right to vote a racial entitlement, he was talking about the various measures enacted by the government to deal with certain racial issues related to voting which may or may not be necessary anymore. His point was, at some point, the need for section 5 will go away, yet Congress will continue to extend it another 25 years because politically it would be suicide not to. He even referenced the name of the bill indicating that people reading a headline like "congressman X votes against extension of Voting Rights Act" will assume he/she is doing something negative. s***, even the news media coverage of the arguments spins it that way.

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

No, he wasn't making an analogy. He was making a s***ty and racist argument against a policy he doesn't like. He was talking about the case before him, which is about the Voting Rights Act. I'll grant you that his statements are more akin to a talk radio host than a judicial scholar these days, but there was no analogy here.

 

If, at some point, the need for Section 5 goes away, then we can let our elected representatives determine that. If there will always be too high of a political cost for doing so (in e.g. Utah or "just ratified the 13th amendment" Mississippi, I'm doubtful), then it means that a law that the people want remains in place.

 

Why does this become Scalia's decision to make? Why does the Court get to usurp Congress's power to protect voting rights and forever close off certain very effective measures? Judge "Dead Constitution Originalist" is making an argument that "times change" and that he should explicitly overturn a duly passed law with explicit constitutional support simply because he doesn't think Congress will ever not renew it. He wants to overrule Congress's considered judgement and determination to take away this "racial entitlement." Does he think the PATRIOT Act should be thrown out by the court because of the chosen name and broad support? Is there something else that the act designed specifically to protect voting rights should be called? How is this not an explicitly political and completely ajudicial argument?

Edited March 1, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Sotomayer basically shoots down the entire case in her first statements:

 

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: In -- in the period we're talking about, it has many more discriminating -240 discriminatory voting laws that were blocked by Section 5 objections.

There were numerous remedied by Section 2 litigation. You may be the wrong party bringing this.

 

MR. REIN: Well, this is an on-face challenge, and might I say, Justice Sotomayor

 

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: But that's the standard. And why would we vote in favor of a county whose record is the epitome of what caused the passage of this law to start with?

[Jenksismyhero]

No, he wasn't making an analogy. He was making a s***ty and racist argument against a policy he doesn't like. He was talking about the case before him, which is about the Voting Rights Act. I'll grant you that his statements are more akin to a talk radio host than a judicial scholar these days, but there was no analogy here.

 

If, at some point, the need for Section 5 goes away, then we can let our elected representatives determine that. If there will always be too high of a political cost for doing so (in e.g. Utah or "just ratified the 13th amendment" Mississippi, I'm doubtful), then it means that a law that the people want remains in place.

 

Why does this become Scalia's decision to make? Why does the Court get to usurp Congress's power to protect voting rights and forever close off certain very effective measures? Judge "Dead Constitution Originalist" is making an argument that "times change" and that he should explicitly overturn a duly passed law with explicit constitutional support simply because he doesn't think Congress will ever not renew it. He wants to overrule Congress's considered judgement and determination to take away this "racial entitlement." Does he think the PATRIOT Act should be thrown out by the court because of the chosen name and broad support? Is there something else that the act designed specifically to protect voting rights should be called? How is this not an explicitly political and completely ajudicial argument?

 

Forcing states to do something requires a certain level of scrutiny to be considered constitutional. If it's no longer necessary, and Congress continues to vote it through, then the Court is will within its right to determine the law is no longer constitutional.

 

Liberal justices do this same s*** all the time - they "usurp" the role of legislators and you're fine with it because you agree with them. I don't necessarily agree with Scalia that section 5 isn't necessary anymore (although did he ever say this?), but I do agree with his point that the problem with these laws is that they're meant to be temporary, yet once enacted they become difficult politically to get rid of.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

It's not analogy if he's talking about the law that's in front of them and citing the voting record on the law that's in front of them. That's just literally talking about a thing.

 

Congress has the explicit authority to enforce the 15th amendment via "appropriate legislation." What is appropriate is a policy question, not a constitutional one, and even then, Section 5 is a perfectly rational method to address the problem. Congress went to considerable effort in 2006 to consider if this measure was still appropriate and necessary and found that it was. So long as this law is seen as an important and necessary law, it will and should remain difficult politically to get rid of. It simply is not the Court's role to make this determination.

 

Liberal justices do sometimes usurp Congress's power, and sometimes I'm okay with the outcomes even if I'm not okay with the theory. But liberal justices don't pretend to be "originalists" or that the constitution is "dead," as Scalia does. Furthermore, the history of the Court's rulings on voting rights has recognized an enormous amount of deference to the legislature. Gutting the Voting Rights Act because it's politically difficult to "get rid of" would be the height of judicial activism.

[StrangeSox]

e.g. if the Court makes an odd ruling the pre-clearance simply applies to all states, I'll happily accept the outcome but still disagree with how it was reached.

[Jenksismyhero]

It's not analogy if he's talking about the law that's in front of them and citing the voting record on the law that's in front of them. That's just literally talking about a thing.

 

Congress has the explicit authority to enforce the 15th amendment via "appropriate legislation." What is appropriate is a policy question, not a constitutional one, and even then, Section 5 is a perfectly rational method to address the problem. Congress went to considerable effort in 2006 to consider if this measure was still appropriate and necessary and found that it was. So long as this law is seen as an important and necessary law, it will and should remain difficult politically to get rid of. It simply is not the Court's role to make this determination.

 

Liberal justices do sometimes usurp Congress's power, and sometimes I'm okay with the outcomes even if I'm not okay with the theory. But liberal justices don't pretend to be "originalists" or that the constitution is "dead," as Scalia does. Furthermore, the history of the Court's rulings on voting rights has recognized an enormous amount of deference to the legislature. Gutting the Voting Rights Act because it's politically difficult to "get rid of" would be the height of judicial activism.

 

And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

 

I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.

 

That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.

Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?

 

Fine, it wasn't an "analogy" but he was talking about it as one of many "entitlements" that he has issues with. He's talking about a general issue here that's not specific to section 5 only.

 

And I don't think being an originalist has anything to do with it. We'll see what his opinion says (if he has one), but he can get rid of this based on a scrutiny standard pretty easily. You state the basic law that congress should be given difference in this area, but that's not absolute.

 

And "gutting" the law? Come on. The vast majority of the country doesn't have to follow section 5 and those that do have their changes/recommendations denied less than .01% of the time.

 

In 2006, the United States Commission on Civil Rights reviewed the Justice Department Preclearance record and found that the percentage of DOJ objections to submitted changes has declined markedly throughout the 40-year period of the Act: from 5.5 percent in the first period to 1.2 percent in the second, and to 0.6 percent in the third. Over the 10 years prior to the review, the overall objection rate was so low as to be practically negligible, at less than 0.1 percent.

 

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/051006VRAStatReport.pdf

 

He's absolutely right that the fact that not a single member of congress voted no means they didn't even read the damn thing, they just approved it.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

The law is so popular with the citizens that it must be struck down! We must kill democracy in order to save it! This is, essentially, the argument he's making here. It's complete nonsense and it's not his role as Supreme Court Justice to be some super-legislator and strike down laws he thinks Congress doesn't have the balls to strike down. Does this law suddenly become more legitimate if the vote had been 90-10? 80-20? 70-30? In what world does that make any sense?

 

Yeah, nobody in the Senate voted against it, and few in the House did. That's 100% great. Is it any surprise that, in a country where it's harder to be explicitly racist and where minorities are a growing demographic and have their voting rights guaranteed, that modern legislators don't want to vote against a popular bill that would cost them their position? That is the essence of democracy. Make unpopular votes, and you'll lose your office.

 

I'm glad you see that it wasn't an analogy. So now it's just one of the many "entitlements" he doesn't like? So voting rights protections for minorities still remain a "racial entitlement," which is still an incredibly racist and stupid-as-f*** thing to say. And if he's just complaining about all those other "entitlements" and "handouts" that the blacks and mexicans get? Still racist, still dumb-as-f*** but now worse because he's Limbaugh on the bench.

 

What scrutiny standard gets rid of this? Congress compiled a substantial record in 2006 on the history of discrimination and found it was still reasonable to single out certain states and counties. He's simply saying that, since he disagrees with that conclusion, the law should be unconstitional? What's the actual, legal argument Scalia is making here? There appears to be nothing but an incoherent, political rant, not dissimilar from his SB1070 dissent. I've thought for a while now that Thomas gets unfairly labeled as a Scalia tag-along, and this just makes it worse. While I rarely if ever agree with Thomas, he's a lot more respectable than the clown Scalia has deteriorated into.

[StrangeSox]

So now combine the bail-out provision, which has never been turned down IIRC, with the low incidence rate, and tell me why Section 5 is a problem that the court needs to declare unconstitutional because they disagree with Congress's judgement?

 

The low incidence rate could also be a reflection on the deterrence effect of the law. Why go forward with a discriminatory change when you know it's simply going to be rejected?

Edited March 1, 2013 by StrangeSox

[DukeNukeEm]

So now combine the bail-out provision, which has never been turned down IIRC, with the low incidence rate, and tell me why Section 5 is a problem that the court needs to declare unconstitutional because they disagree with Congress's judgement?

 

The low incidence rate could also be a reflection on the deterrence effect of the law. Why go forward with a discriminatory change when you know it's simply going to be rejected?

Why bother with any of this crap. How dumb do you have to be to think racially discriminatory laws are in any way better than the bevy of legal voterigging schemes?

[DukeNukeEm]

I do think its funny that the affirmative action hire justice has taken even more of a particular interest in this case than Scalia. Talk about racial entitlement.

[BigSqwert]

I do think its funny that the affirmative action hire justice has taken even more of a particular interest in this case than Scalia. Talk about racial entitlement.

What do you mean? Thomas hasn't muttered a word since 1996.

[StrangeSox]

Why bother with any of this crap. How dumb do you have to be to think racially discriminatory laws are in any way better than the bevy of legal voterigging schemes?

What are you talking about and how is it applicable to the VRA and Scalia's dumb statements?

[StrangeSox]

I do think its funny that the affirmative action hire justice has taken even more of a particular interest in this case than Scalia. Talk about racial entitlement.

See? Racism is dead in this country. No need for the VRA!

[DukeNukeEm]

What are you talking about and how is it applicable to the VRA and Scalia's dumb statements?

Im saying there's a whole lot of disenfranchisement going on in this country, and generally minorities aren't the victims.

[DukeNukeEm]

See? Racism is dead in this country. No need for the VRA!

Her words, not mine.

[Jenksismyhero]

The law is so popular with the citizens that it must be struck down! We must kill democracy in order to save it! This is, essentially, the argument he's making here. It's complete nonsense and it's not his role as Supreme Court Justice to be some super-legislator and strike down laws he thinks Congress doesn't have the balls to strike down. Does this law suddenly become more legitimate if the vote had been 90-10? 80-20? 70-30? In what world does that make any sense?

 

Yeah, nobody in the Senate voted against it, and few in the House did. That's 100% great. Is it any surprise that, in a country where it's harder to be explicitly racist and where minorities are a growing demographic and have their voting rights guaranteed, that modern legislators don't want to vote against a popular bill that would cost them their position? That is the essence of democracy. Make unpopular votes, and you'll lose your office.

 

I'm glad you see that it wasn't an analogy. So now it's just one of the many "entitlements" he doesn't like? So voting rights protections for minorities still remain a "racial entitlement," which is still an incredibly racist and stupid-as-f*** thing to say. And if he's just complaining about all those other "entitlements" and "handouts" that the blacks and mexicans get? Still racist, still dumb-as-f*** but now worse because he's Limbaugh on the bench.

 

What scrutiny standard gets rid of this? Congress compiled a substantial record in 2006 on the history of discrimination and found it was still reasonable to single out certain states and counties. He's simply saying that, since he disagrees with that conclusion, the law should be unconstitional? What's the actual, legal argument Scalia is making here? There appears to be nothing but an incoherent, political rant, not dissimilar from his SB1070 dissent. I've thought for a while now that Thomas gets unfairly labeled as a Scalia tag-along, and this just makes it worse. While I rarely if ever agree with Thomas, he's a lot more respectable than the clown Scalia has deteriorated into.

 

Christ, let's overreact a little more shall we?

[StrangeSox]

Im saying there's a whole lot of disenfranchisement going on in this country, and generally minorities aren't the victims.

 

I'll ask again "what are you talking about"