[Quote] In addition to the “one person, one vote” implications, civil rights activists fear the asking about citizenship will shift political power away from urban, minority communities and towards rural, red regions[/Quote] You mean more so than the Senate and Electoral College already do?
[Quote] “one WHITE person, one vote”
[/quote]
There, FIFY.
“If and when the citizenship question is ever returned to the census, and Congress considers excluding illegal aliens from the apportionment process, liberals in districts loaded with illegal aliens will protest that such aliens must be counted in apportionment,”
So all the illegal immigrants are clustered in liberal enclaves? They why give a shit? Aren’t you happy all the liberal enclaves give more in taxes and receive less in government benefits then the snowflake-heavy white conservative bastions with their immigration vapors, along with hosting those icky illegal immigrants?
We’re willing to take one for the team, and have a stronger bigger team in the end.
Interesting, the Constitution specifies a decennial census, but it makes no mention of questioning citizenship. It refers to counting “persons” (notwithstanding the now-superseded “Three-Fifths Compromise.”) Where does Kobach find this rule? Oh, yeah, he pulled it out of his ass.
“One Conservative White Person, One Vote”
FIFY even more!
But if you really, really want to get it the way the right wing wants it, it’d be:
“One White Male Conservative Protestant, One Vote”
do non-citizens get counted as three fifths?
To all the constitutional ‘originalists’ out there: remember our hallowed forebears counted slaves toward a state’s representation in the House of Representatives? (albeit at a 40% discount).
This is just one more rung in the ladder leading to all sorts of bad things
And yet these same people will rabidly defend corporations being “people” and having “rights” like the right to free speech and give money to political campaigns even though they cannot vote.
Yawn.
This presidency is their last hurrah…their last desperate gambit for saving themselves from the demographic shifts that are completely obliterating them. They will not go quietly into that good night…RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE WHITE!
Hey! We could count them as three-fifths of a person!
Related:
“Pennsylvania Senate President pro tempore Joseph Scarnati announced on Wednesday that he will not comply with a state supreme court order to redraw Pennsylvania’s congressional lines. His open defiance of a court order raises the serious possibility that he may be held in contempt for brazenly violating the law.”
A bit shocking… but not really
I’ll go you one better Kobach – if you draw districts only by citizen population, then representation apportionment should use that same number. That will take a chunk out of the Kansas delegation.
Not to rain on your parade, but I remember thinking sort of exactly like you in the waning days of the Reagan Administration, how this was rock bottom…how it would never be this bad or the GOP base and the President this delusional again…
Kobach wrote. “But that’s absurd, because a person who’s very presence in the United States is illegal — and who may return home or be deported at any time — cannot be considered a resident of the district in any meaningful sense.”
This is what happens when you combine mental lightweights in way over their heads and the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Yes, that individual might leave at any time. The statistical relevance, however, is that in this one snapshot, there was a person living at this address in this district, etc. Statistically speaking, we would expect that if/when that individual leaves, another would move in to take his or her place.
In fact, this is why the Census is valid at all: any person living in California might at any moment choose to pack their bags and head to Texas, perhaps due to a traumatic brain injury obliterating higher cognitive function. However, we expect that when that happens more likely than not there is a corresponding migration happening in the other direction.
The argument of “that might change!” is countered by the built-in corrective: the Census is run every ten years, to account for the cases where more people move (or are born) into a state than leave (or die). If you want more precision, the obvious and sole approach is to run the Census more often or to establish “Census correction” procedures (ticking the tallies up/down as people move around or are born or die, which would go over just swimmingly in the Tea Party crowd I’m sure!)
If Kobach is saying that those who violated the law to get here or stay here (overstaying a valid visa) should not be considered “residents” that is also absurd. They reside here, therefore are residents. This is basic look-it-up-in-the-dictionary level stuff here. More pressingly, the Constitution does not use that term and instead is much more broad:
Article 1, Section 2: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
Superseded in part by:
Amendment 14, Section 2 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.
The Census must measure “whole persons” for the purpose of apportionment, not “citizens” or “eligible voters” or even “residents”. Babies are counted. Women were counted long before the 19th Amendment.
And of course there is a reason for that. People who live within the borders of a country are subject to that country’s laws and, by long-standing custom of nations, entitled to that country’s protections. The United States of America was founded on the principle, amongst many others, that all people subject to our laws must have representation in the body forming those laws (even if they are not able to vote for that representation, which is why voting rights are treated wholly separate from apportionment mechanics in the Constitution).
Kobach, if you really think this is what we need to be doing, you need to amend the Constitution to ensure that apportionment is done based off of some more restrictive subset of the population. I can not see that amendment getting past even this currently hard-right Congress, much less ratified by the 3/4ths of state legislatures or conventions necessary.
(* I should note, that federal case law has supported the ability for Congress to ask other statistical questions on the Census, so long as it is “‘necessary and proper’, for the intelligent exercise of other powers enumerated in the Constitution” (US v. Moriarity, 1901), although I don’t believe the SCOTUS has directly made any rulings on the manner other than not taking up appeals in such cases decided by district courts. I’m not sure the “citizenship question” really meets the “necessary and proper” test, but it is far more likely than the absurd notion that the answer to that question should be used for apportionment or district drawing.)
Is this a ploy to discourage the undocumented from registering, thereby lowering census counts in urban areas, which could lead to less aid (at least that which is apportioned by population) available in those areas?
Kobach needs to crawl back into his hole and stay there. He has lost all credibility.
The guy is the lead Kochsucker ! Wake up America!
Your “Bonus” is going to Exxon as we speak!
I realize that logic and facts are largely beside the point in a dispute over issues involving immigration, but I nevertheless admire the clarity of thought and soundness of reasoning that you have brought to this subject. Well said, sir.
So am I confused here, or is Kobach implying that all noncitizens are illegal immigrants?