Posted on 09/14/2008 12:32:43 PM PDT by goldstategop
Your claim is quite simply nonsense. The Constitution does not grant the people the right to pick electors, it never has and it never will. And electors, once chosen, are not bound by any law to vote in a particular way.
In the most recent case, Gore v. Bush in 2000, the vote denying the Florida Supreme Court's action was 7-2. People focus on the 14th Amendment dimensions for that decision, but the truth is that the three conservative Justices then on the Court (Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas) did not agree to an equal protection violation. They ruled -- correctly -- that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature, and they made it clear that the Legislature alone had the authority to choose the manner of selecting electors. If that vote were held again tomorrow, the vote would have 4 votes for the Article II violation, and the equal protection clause would become the subordinate (concurring opinion) and the plenary power of the legislatures of the states to name electors would be not only de facto but de jure as well. You are simply wrong. No federal court would overturn the legislatures' authority. There are a number of precedents beside this most recent one, and they do not support your position.
As for popular election of Senators, it was a mistake to do that. It weakened a Federalism already weakened by the 14th Amendment. But it was done itself by Amending the Constitution, and was not done by the people nor was it done by the Courts, neither of whom have anything to say about it.
“Your claim is quite simply nonsense. The Constitution does not grant the people the right to pick electors, it never has and it never will. And electors, once chosen, are not bound by any law to vote in a particular way.”
My claim is totally true. You can’t separate what the constitution says from political realities. Do you actually think any state legislature, or the Supreme Court would take an action that removed the people’s vote for presidential elector’s, or their indirect vote for president?
One more vote recently and some part of the right to bear arms would have been lost in the DC case. What does the constitution say about the right to bear arms? Why was there even a case that threatened that right? And you claim that such deviations from the constitution just can’t and won’t happen.
What the constitution says (and it’s not always clear what it says) and the political realities that exist are not always in perfect harmony.
And, I never claimed the constitution gave the people a right to pick electors, but that they presently vote for the electors and that no action will be taken to remove that because of political realities.
And neither you, nor anyone else knows precisely how the Supreme Court might rule on any question. You never hear the complaints about legislating from the bench, or amending the constitution with court rulings rather than amendments?
And what weakened federalism more than anything was the court battles during the Civil Rights Movement, where state’s rights was used often to deny rights to black Americans, and state’s rights suffered many defeats. And there are plenty of activists who’d like to see state’s rights ended once and for all.
Constitutionally, it is up to the states to determine the method of selection of the electors. They can be idiots about it if they wish.
“Constitutionally, it is up to the states to determine the method of selection of the electors. They can be idiots about it if they wish.”
And by being idiots about it, they can set in motion lawsuits and even initiatives for constitutional amendments that take away that power. That happened again and again in the Civil Rights Movement.
Just let some state change their laws so their citizens can no longer vote for presidential electors and see what happens.
Some here are so hung up on technicalities that they can’t recognize the political realities.
More nonsense. Please stop blathering. You're embarrassing yourself.
First: DC vs. Heller was not a case brought threatening gun rights. The case was brought by a gun owner asserting that an existing statute in the District of Columbia denied him his RKBA. The case was not a challenge to the Second Amendment at all.
Second: This is the way Constitutional challenges work. A challenge is brought into Federal Court and the Federal Court(s) resolve the Constitutionality of it. The Court doesn't simply make announcements about what is Constitutional and what isn't.
Your claim about states' rights issues during the civil rights movement being the reason for weakening Federalism is laughable. Those issues were settled on the basis of the theory of Incorporation which is the question of whether the 14th Amendment applies some part of the Bill of Rights to the states, and that is by NO MEANS a judicial rewriting of the Constitution. The Constitutional authority for Incorporation rests firmly in the Constitution as amended after the Civil War. That Fourteenth Amendment was a direct response to Chief Justice Roger Taney's bizarre theories of American citizenship adumbrated in the Dred Scott decision.
Weakening of Federalism was an ongoing process started and to a very large degree settled by the American victory over the rebellion in 1864. The ongoing process of asserting National over Federal government has been going on ever since.
“More nonsense. Please stop blathering. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
You’re so tangled up in your technicalities and details that you’re incapable of looking at the practical effect of these various issues and court cases.
So, no gun rights were being violated by the DC laws? And, no gun rights were protected, or re-established by the ruling? And no restriction of gun rights would have been affirmed if the case had gone the other way? Have you even thought what the result have been if the DC laws had been upheld?
“Your claim about states’ rights issues during the civil rights movement being the reason for weakening Federalism is laughable.”
Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, southern states had for decades run their schools based upon state laws that mandated segregation. They certainly thought that education was a matter left to the states, and not to be dictated by the federal government. Under the federalism of those days, or the decentralization of power, southern states made those decisions. You can spin all you care to, and cite all the legal theory you care to, but since the CRM and numerous court cases, many decisions of education and public accommodation and other issues have been taken from the states of are now decided at the federal level.
You can say that didn’t weaken federalism, or didn’t centralize more power if you care to, but no matter what legal doctrine was used to move the decisions from states to the central government, the brand of federalism established by the US Constitution and the accompanying states’ rights were weakened.
And when I say “federalism”, I mean a federalism as established in the US where states were left with very important powers to decide many of their own affairs, and to establish many of their own civil and criminal statutes, as much as some still want to weaken that aspect of American federalism by moving even more decisions and lawmaking to the central government.
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