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Now playing at the Supreme Court: How to preserve white power in four easy steps

j brown's body

j brown's body

"A Soros-backed animal"
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Step 1: Devise a discriminatory policy. In this case, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, after consulting with Stephen Bannon, who was then President Trump’s nationalist “alt-right” adviser, resolved to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census for the first time in 70 years. ...Step 2: Create a pretext. In this case, Ross lied to Congress, saying the Justice Department wanted the citizenship question added to help enforce the Voting Rights Act — a claim three lower courts dismissed as pretextual....

Step 3: Muddy the waters. In this case, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and conservative justices raised doubts about the statistical capabilities of the Census Bureau, claiming it couldn’t accurately “quantify” the damage that would be done by adding a citizenship question because the alternative way to get such information was an “untested statistical model.” ...Step 4: Blame the victim. Francisco, the top Trump administration lawyer, saved this nastiness for the final minute of the 80-minute argument. If the court disallows the citizenship question, he said, “you are effectively empowering any group in the country to knock off any question on the census if they simply get together and boycott it,” he said, raising the possibility of a boycott by gender-nonbinary people.
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This is a breathtakingly cynical power grab on the part of the executive and judicial branches. Trump wants to undercount people in blue states because most people don't support him, so they devise a scheme to undercount the census by adding a question about citizenship.

The conservatives on the Supreme Court seem willing to support this by saying that it is needed to uphold the Voting Rights Act, a law whose enforcement provisions they gutted several years ago.

I have come to believe that all of the GOP's efforts to undermine democracy, to the degree that they accept interference from a foreign adversary in our electoral process because they believe that the political power must stay in the hands of white, male, straight, Christians despite their shrinking population and popularity.
 
j brown's body said:
Link

This is a breathtakingly cynical power grab on the part of the executive and judicial branches. Trump wants to undercount people in blue states because most people don't support him, so they devise a scheme to undercount the census by adding a question about citizenship.

The conservatives on the Supreme Court seem willing to support this by saying that it is needed to uphold the Voting Rights Act, a law whose enforcement provisions they gutted several years ago.

I have come to believe that all of the GOP's efforts to undermine democracy, to the degree that they accept interference from a foreign adversary in our electoral process because they believe that the political power must stay in the hands of white, male, straight, Christians despite their shrinking population and popularity.
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Despite the fact that 2 federal courts have already ruled against the census citizenship question, the conservative SCOTUS may uphold it. It's critical for liberals to recapture the Senate in 2020.
 
The distortion of your "legal" argument is comical. The commerce secretary (CS) can include anything not prohibited by law on the census forms. It is not up to the CS to show a need to ask (include?) a particular question - it is up to those how don't like that question to prove that the law does not allow (prohibits?) asking it. The SCOTUS does not make law - it merely decides if the existing law is being violated. Congress has specifically barred asking census questions about religion but has never barred the federal government from asking questions about citizenship, in fact, the REAL ID act actually requires doing so.
 
This is merely part of the radical rights strategy to change the rules to allow them to win elections and hold power. Without that, they are doomed and they know it so suppressing the vote and census count is the only other option that works for them.

We are slowly losing America to the forces of right wing evil.
 
haymarket said:
This is merely part of the radical rights strategy to change the rules to allow them to win elections and hold power. Without that, they are doomed and they know it so suppressing the vote and census count is the only other option that works for them.

We are slowly losing America to the forces of right wing evil.
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Now that's a remarkable claim in light of the policy efforts of the New Democratic Party.

Open Borders, Amnesty for illegals leading to voting rights, felons who haven't paid their debt to society being given the right to vote, children being given the right to vote, refusal to take action to insure the legitimacy of voters, ballot harvesting, etc., etc..

To the question of asking about citizenship:

Census in the Constitution


Questions beyond a simple count are Constitutional

It is constitutional to include questions in the decennial census beyond those concerning a simple count of the number of people. On numerous occasions, the courts have said the Constitution gives Congress the authority to collect statistics in the census. As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census. The Legal Tender Cases, Tex.1870; 12 Wall., U.S., 457, 536, 20 L.Ed. 287. In 1901, a District Court said the Constitution's census clause (Art. 1, Sec. 2, Clause 3) is not limited to a headcount of the population and "does not prohibit the gathering of other statistics, if 'necessary and proper,' for the intelligent exercise of other powers enumerated in the constitution, and in such case there could be no objection to acquiring this information through the same machinery by which the population is enumerated." United States v. Moriarity, 106 F. 886, 891 (S.D.N.Y.1901).​
 
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Every claim made by the Democratic Party on this issue is a lie. The census will still go to everyone so both citizens and non-citizens are counted. The difference is we know how many citizens there are and how many non-citizens there are.

The Democratic Party wants to hide how many non-Americans are in the USA and for illegal migrants plus other non-citizens to have as much representation power as citizens do. At stake are likely at least 10 Democrat districts that exist only because non-citizens are counted for representation.
 
j brown's body said:
Link

This is a breathtakingly cynical power grab on the part of the executive and judicial branches. Trump wants to undercount people in blue states because most people don't support him, so they devise a scheme to undercount the census by adding a question about citizenship.

The conservatives on the Supreme Court seem willing to support this by saying that it is needed to uphold the Voting Rights Act, a law whose enforcement provisions they gutted several years ago.

I have come to believe that all of the GOP's efforts to undermine democracy, to the degree that they accept interference from a foreign adversary in our electoral process because they believe that the political power must stay in the hands of white, male, straight, Christians despite their shrinking population and popularity.
Click to expand...

As per the article, if the citizen question is part of the census it will keep non-citizens from answering the census. Yes, probably so, but lets keep in mind the main goals of the census, and that is representation, districting and funding. Why should a district get more representation and funding because of the numbers of illegal non-citizens?

Dismissing the bait of identity political labeling in the OP and article isn’t this padding of the census more harmful than helpful for poorer communities that don’t have a high population of non-citizens, aren’t they being underserved?

We also need to be honest of the ugly political truth. The left is only interested in growing the indebted voting block and their power, they really don’t give a toss for the wellbeing of these people. The right plays the same political games but they do have the common sense factor on this topic on their side.
 
I cease to see how adding a question about citizenship on a census is discriminatory. It's not like they have to answer it.
 
haymarket said:
This is merely part of the radical rights strategy to change the rules to allow them to win elections and hold power. Without that, they are doomed and they know it so suppressing the vote and census count is the only other option that works for them.

We are slowly losing America to the forces of right wing evil.
Click to expand...

There is a rule against asking for citizenship status on the census? since when?
 
haymarket said:
This is merely part of the radical rights strategy to change the rules to allow them to win elections and hold power. Without that, they are doomed and they know it so suppressing the vote and census count is the only other option that works for them.

We are slowly losing America to the forces of right wing evil.
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Interesting, all this doom and gloom with obvious partisan hackery in this post. I didn’t realize that wanting an accurate census of US citizens deserved the tag of “radical”, my bad. I’m curious, how is it suppressing the vote when this topic is about undocumented non-citizens that live is this country illegally being asked if they are citizens?

And yes, we are in fact slowly losing America, One just needs to look at the Democratic platforms of the candidates running in 2020.
 
woodsman said:
Interesting, all this doom and gloom with obvious partisan hackery in this post. I didn’t realize that wanting an accurate census of US citizens deserved the tag of “radical”, my bad. I’m curious, how is it suppressing the vote when this topic is about undocumented non-citizens that live is this country illegally being asked if they are citizens?

And yes, we are in fact slowly losing America, One just needs to look at the Democratic platforms of the candidates running in 2020.
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An accurate count means counting everyone. And questions which have the practical effect of discouraging participation through fear are contrary to that goal. That is what the Republicans are guilty of.
 
woodsman said:
As per the article, if the citizen question is part of the census it will keep non-citizens from answering the census. Yes, probably so, but lets keep in mind the main goals of the census, and that is representation, districting and funding. Why should a district get more representation and funding because of the numbers of illegal non-citizens?
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Because the Constitution orders it so.
 
ocean515 said:
Now that's a remarkable claim in light of the policy efforts of the New Democratic Party.

Open Borders, Amnesty for illegals leading to voting rights, felons who haven't paid their debt to society being given the right to vote, children being given the right to vote, refusal to take action to insure the legitimacy of voters, ballot harvesting, etc., etc..

To the question of asking about citizenship:

Census in the Constitution


Questions beyond a simple count are Constitutional

It is constitutional to include questions in the decennial census beyond those concerning a simple count of the number of people. On numerous occasions, the courts have said the Constitution gives Congress the authority to collect statistics in the census. As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census. The Legal Tender Cases, Tex.1870; 12 Wall., U.S., 457, 536, 20 L.Ed. 287. In 1901, a District Court said the Constitution's census clause (Art. 1, Sec. 2, Clause 3) is not limited to a headcount of the population and "does not prohibit the gathering of other statistics, if 'necessary and proper,' for the intelligent exercise of other powers enumerated in the constitution, and in such case there could be no objection to acquiring this information through the same machinery by which the population is enumerated." United States v. Moriarity, 106 F. 886, 891 (S.D.N.Y.1901).​
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The question has as its goal the discouraging through fear the counting of the entire population. As such, it is clearly unconstitutional.
 
DarkWizard12 said:
There is a rule against asking for citizenship status on the census? since when?
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The wording with the question has changed over the years and there really isn’t a simple answer to give. If you go thru this link from NPR you will get a base feel for the topic but take note, This article took extra effort to lean left. That said there are highlighted links provided to draw your own opinion.

FACT CHECK: Has Citizenship Been A Standard Census Question? : NPR
 
haymarket said:
Because the Constitution orders it so.
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Too bad the constitution didn't add a common sense amendment. I guess our forefathers didn't think the country would get this dysfunctional.
Your position is that the invading British army during the years of the War of 1812 ought to have been counted in the census, these illegals
the Democrats want to be counted are invaders too. But we are here.
 
slick said:
Too bad the constitution didn't add a common sense amendment. I guess our forefathers didn't think the country would get this dysfunctional. Your position is that the invading British army during the years of the War of 1812 ought to have been counted in the census, these illegals the Democrats want to be counted are invaders too. But we are here.
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You do know that there are millions of lawful permanent residents in this country who are not citizens don’t you?
 
Napoleon said:
You do know that there are millions of lawful permanent residents in this country who are not citizens don’t you?
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Yes they are legally here & I imagine will fully cooperate & not check the citizen box as they have no fear of deportation.
 
slick said:
Yes they are legally here & I imagine will fully cooperate & not check the citizen box as they have no fear of deportation.
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Don’t be so sure of that. ICE has a very poor record of distinguishing between undocumented immigrants vs lawful residents and even citizens when it comes to snatching people off the street and detaining them.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
The distortion of your "legal" argument is comical. The commerce secretary (CS) can include anything not prohibited by law on the census forms. It is not up to the CS to show a need to ask (include?) a particular question - it is up to those how don't like that question to prove that the law does not allow (prohibits?) asking it. The SCOTUS does not make law - it merely decides if the existing law is being violated. Congress has specifically barred asking census questions about religion but has never barred the federal government from asking questions about citizenship, in fact, the REAL ID act actually requires doing so.
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Your attempting to use logic and reason on people that do not understand these concepts.

They do not understand that the job of the judicial system is to uphold the law not change it.
 
Napoleon said:
Don’t be so sure of that. ICE has a very poor record of distinguishing between undocumented immigrants vs lawful residents and even citizens when it comes to snatching people off the street and detaining them.
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Federal Law (Title 13) protects the information gathered via the Census from being shared with any other Federal Department such as the FBI or ICE.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
Federal Law (Title 13) protects the information gathered via the Census from being shared with any other Federal Department such as the FBI or ICE.
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And you trust this administration not to do that? ICE routinely violates the law and the Constitution and no one is held accountable for it.
 
Napoleon said:
And you trust this administration not to do that? ICE routinely violates the law and the Constitution and no one is held accountable for it.
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I have responded to each census for which I've been queried. Have you?
 
haymarket said:
Because the Constitution orders it so.
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The original frame of the census was just a head count but it evolved, see below.

“It is constitutional to include questions in the decennial census beyond those concerning a simple count of the number of people. On numerous occasions, the courts have said the Constitution gives Congress the authority to collect statistics in the census. As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census. The Legal Tender Cases, Tex.1870; 12 Wall., U.S., 457, 536, 20 L.Ed. 287. In 1901, a District Court said the Constitution's census clause (Art. 1, Sec. 2, Clause 3) is not limited to a headcount of the population and "does not prohibit the gathering of other statistics, if 'necessary and proper,' for the intelligent exercise of other powers enumerated in the constitution, and in such case there could be no objection to acquiring this information through the same machinery by which the population is enumerated." United States v. Moriarity, 106 F. 886, 891 (S.D.N.Y.1901).”

Census in the Constitution

Fast forward to today 2019, we have tens of millions of people living in this country that reside here illegally. I’m guessing these post suggest we give them representation and tax dollars just because they managed to avoid the legal immigration system and protocols. Curious, if one takes that opinion what is the point of boarders or an immigration system?
 
ludin said:
Your attempting to use logic and reason on people that do not understand these concepts.

They do not understand that the job of the judicial system is to uphold the law not change it.
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They may well understand that judges have "made law" in the past and wish for that behavior to continue.
 
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