Posted on 04/04/2016 8:45:59 AM PDT by jazusamo
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens can be counted when states draw their legislative districts, shooting down a challenge by Texas residents who said their own voting power was being diluted.
The ruling does not grant non-citizens power to vote, but says the principle of one person, one vote doesnt require localities to only count those who are actually eligible to vote.
Justice Ruth Baden Ginsburg, writing for the court, said even though only eligible voters are supposed to cast ballots, elected officials represent all people within their districts, and it is that act of representation, not the election itself, that the boundaries are drawn to.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Yes. And the black robed tyrants are ok with this.
Actually I’m not sure. Please disregard my previous post.
That is seven citizens, legally present. Two eligible to vote.
That's different from a household of 7 illegals.
Require all employers to use E-verify, under penalty of law.
They will self-deport at no cost.
Absolutely, it’s common sense and would be very effective.
Well, I do care about ethnicity because it equals culture and allegiance. I am sick and tired of people who do not respect or honor our Veterans, who are only too happy to take Good Friday, 4th of July and Christmas off as paid holidays yet do not believe in God, attend church, fly the American flag or pledge allegiance One Nation, Under God, and want cinco de mayo and kwanzaa off with pay, who not only do not speak English but refuse to learn.
Although the Court's decision was unanimous, there were actually two opinions: the majority (Ginsburg, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan) said "must be," and the concurring judges (Thomas and Alito) said "can be." Made no difference in this case, because Texas chooses to count all residents, legal or otherwise, so even Thomas and Alito voted to uphold the Texas law.
UNANIMOUS??!??
Even Justice Thomas???!?
This is horrific.
Well the plus side for Texas conservatives is that their voting strength is magnified compared with areas where there are less illegal immigrants. The Libs on the court didn’t think this one thru!
Ethnicity does not equal culture and allegiance.
The way to eliminate illegal aliens from the equation is to simply deport them. Then this whole issue becomes nothing more than an academic discussion.
I don’t agree with this decision.
Could we compromise and count 3/5s of illegals instead? ;d
Seriously, they should be counted.
The decision was unanimous. I don’t think Alito and Thomas would have voted for anything sinister.
The plaintiffs did not have a very strong argument, since if one-person, one-vote meant that districts had to have equal numbers of voters (whether eligible, registered or whatever measure you want), it would exclude children and legal immigrants from the count, and surely those persons are being represented just as much as voters are. But that’s the only card that the plaintiffs had because Congress permits the Census to count illegal aliens as if they were “inhabitants” of the state in which they are illegally living.
As I’ve been saying since 2004 or so, when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency, what we need is for Congress to pass a law mandating that the decennial Census be an actual enumeration of all persons legally living in each state, and clearly setting forth that non-citizens with temporary visas (whether students, tourists, etc.) or without the legal right to live in the U.S. should *not* be counted in the Census for purposes of reapportionment. If illegal aliens aren’t counted when determining how many congressional districts TX would have, then they couldn’t be counting when drawing districts with equal populations of persons counted at the Census. But federal law currently orders the Census Bureau to count all persons living “permanently” in the U.S. even if they are here illegally, and SCOTUS gives great deference to Congress and the President when it comes to the Census (SCOTUS has permitted the Census to count federal employees stationed overseas as residents of the state that they claim as their home, but not to count Mormon missionaries that pay taxes in Utah but are away temporarily because of their one- or two-year religious mission abroad).
So we need to change the law to exclude illegal aliens from the Census count, not try to sue our way to districts with similar numbers of voters.
Have to go read it now - even when wrong they’re smarter than that.
They are all in the same category: evil.
US Congress, yes.
State legislature/State Senate, no.
It would seem to be “denying to its citizens equal protection of the laws.”
The question is, “MAY a state apportion legislators on the basis of eligible voters, or MUST they apportion on population?”
One wrinkle is that the Census Bureau does not ask respondents whether they are legal. Any state wishing to apportion that way would have to conduct its own census.
However, school districts conduct their own censuses and seem to find the money.
“Trump should jump on this.
A constitutional amendment stating that only citizens of the United States should count for apportionment purposes.”
The man has more tricks up his sleeve. I try to pay attention, but he’s thinking a couple moves ahead of me, and at least a move ahead of his detractors.
They've always been counted. This ruling just affirms the status quo.
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