The birthright citizenship in the 14th amendment that finally overturned Dred Scott and was thus the last victory of the Civil War (the REASON our victory was worth winning), has a similar function: it keeps us honest.
The great temptation of a self-governing people is ‘more people, with fewer rights’. Recognizing (not granting) that population COMPELS representation is the actual reason we had a Revolution, after all.
Allocating Representatives based on population means that there’s a limit to how long people can be denied self-government. Likewise, birthright citizenship means you can only disenfranchise folks for a generation.
In terms of human rights, the three-fifths compromise sounds terrible, but in practical terms it would have been far better to have the proportion set at two-fifths, one-fifths, or zero because the enslaved were counted towards the number of residents for parceling out seats in Congress even though they had no voting rights. Thus, the three-fifths compromise enabled the slave states to have more seats than they otherwise would have, and counting each enslaved person as an individual would have magnified that injustice even more. Check out this link for a consideration of the counterfactual: https://www.lizcovart.com/blog/indulging-in-counterfactuals-the-three-fifths-clause-of-the-constitution
The U.S. Supreme Court in its unanimous Evenwel opinion, rejected that idea that states be required to exclude noncitizens when drawing state legislative districts.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) brought up the Evenwel opinion when questioning Marshall Friday to ask how he squared his request with that court’s decision.Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) brought up the Evenwel opinion when questioning Marshall Friday to ask how he squared his request with that court’s decision.
“If noncitizens are ineligible to vote in a federal election, why would noncitizens be included in the formula for congressional apportionment?” she said.
Well them, exclude anyone under the age of 18, citizen or not.
With all of these voter manipulations, the GOP is doing the equivalent of picking up ball and going home, because the game just isn’t ever going their way.
I think this is a really important point which we should remind ourselves daily. They wouldn’t be pursuing voter suppression measures, shrinking congressional representation, whining incessantly about illegal voting that doesn’t exist, doing everything within their reach to cling to power if they thought there wasn’t a reckoning on the horizon. They know it’s coming. Trump’s election wasn’t a sign of great victories to come. It was the rally before dying.
Did you intend to write “Roast in Hell?” Resting is far too nice. I want these bastards to Rot and Roast in Hell. I want them to squeal in agony, gnash their teeth until they crack and cry tears of blood.
If Dems opt to forever hold their peace, we’ll guarantee in perpetuity that the gun-humpers, firearm-fetishists and ammosexuals will forever hold their piece.
Please GOP: Can you skip the getting-defeated-in-the-courts part, and instead just go ahead and try to get this Constitutional Amendment passed? Good luck with that!
This. Despite all the braggadocio and blustery bloviation from these slack-jawed chuckleheads, just as with The Little Dick(tator) himself, you can almost smell the fear and desperation, the creeping, dim but rising awareness of their own political mortality. They know it’s all downhill for them from here.
Not that Generalissimo von Crapbag will ever admit it to his devout cultists…
Sometimes I think George Corley Wallace should have been elected in 1968 just for the nation to come to terms openly with these James Crow tactics. At least a fair part of the nation and courts would have fought back. Now we have these folks working in subterfuge.
