Nothing new here… just a typical GOP voter suppression tactic. Hopefully the Ds can crush this
Republicans in the suburbs should start shopping real estate in the exurbs, before their own party gets too far along transforming cities into dysfunctional, money-deprived, powerless hell holes where nobody even knows how many people live there, let alone who they are or what their urgent needs might be. Will they build walls around cities too? To keep people in?
Or, change your minds and start voting for Democrats, who are the conservative party now.
Here is to hoping that Rep. Cummings can pull the lever hard and fast enough to put the brakes on this locomotive mess. Add to that - here’s to hoping that in 2019 there are fewer and fewer stories that refer to Kris Kobach - he needs to be sent into political obscurity.
As a protest, this is the first year I’m not filling out the Census. Fuck it, the world is not going to come apart if an ornery, old Norwegian refuses to be counted.
I’ll blame it on a potet klub overdose if they come looking for me.
This is an important issue for the Oversight Committee to take on because of the ripple effect of the census question and the urgency of the timing. I suspect it will be low-hanging fruit given what is already known about Ross’ statements about why the question was added. I can’t wait to watch Elijah Cummings in action.
Stockholm Syndrome?
I was a paid Census employee (temporary, part-time) for 2010 in a very rural area of southwestern Arizona. It was a proud and memorable experience. There were definitely a couple of wing-nut jerks, one being an elementary school teacher who was nothing but evasive and failed to meet up on three different attempts to conduct the interview. A sad, contemptible hypocrite. I could only imagine the taint she was passing on to her students.
Good news, everybody. It’s not up to the Executive Branch to decide how the census is accomplished. The census clause, from Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution gives that power to Congress:
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.
The Republicans have done enough to suppress the essential rights of citizenship in a democracy that we should revive a question that was asked in the 1870 Reconstruction era census. The modern version would refer to the 2nd section of the 14th Amendment and ask all citizens above the age of 18 whether their right to vote has ever been “denied . . . or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime.”
NB: I don’t think it is controversial at this point to highlight that we seem to not only be re-litigating Reconstruction but the Civil War itself.
If a right-wing rethug was told voting rights are now back to the way it was in colonial America, he’d be elated. White, male, land owners get to make all the decisions. The fact that this would please nearly all rethugs tells us all we need to know.
Not such good news, historically. This provision was the cornerstone of the slavery constitution. Superseded - for the most part - by the 13th and 14th Amendments. But a warning to us, today, not just an historical footnote.
I hope they drag Wilbur Ross over broken glass
where is Chump today? Anybody know if after he shit-stirred Iraq he went back to Mar-A-Lago?
Alt right white nationalists like Kris Kobach, Steve Bannon and other racist extremists not only seek to undercount people for the census, but have the ultimate goal of only citizens being counted.
One must assume the citizenship census question is designed to destroy the credibility and accuracy of the census results. Far right radicals (Republicans) will then seek to limit the census to citizens. It’s insidious, evil, racist, and undemocratic, which explains why the GOP is moving in this direction.
Remember, we need to always look at the long game intent of these scum.
I did not know about this! Shame on me. But this is GREAT! Revise it to delete “or other crime.” Long past time that the felon exception to non-white voting rights was eliminated.
Their ultimate goal is to enshrine in the constitution that only straight, white, christian, property-owning men are citizens and therefore have rights. Everybody else is subhuman.
Agreed. Loss of the franchise – in effect demotion to resident alien – in addition to time served would seem to meet the criterion for cruel and unusual in addition to being arbitrary and unjust.
Vermont, I think, is the only state that allows incarcerated people to vote from jail/prison. No one should lose the right to vote as punishment for a crime.
I hope voters make it a priority. They didn’t seem to care about it at all in 2010.