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To: AuH2ORepublican
Sorry, I don't think that argument is going anywhere. Each state has two senators, so should we have racial districts that vote only for their senator?

What is abhorent about this decision is the conclusion that white officials can only represent white people and Hispanic officials are needed to represent Hispanics. This is offensive and un-American. The judge should be ashamed.

11 posted on 01/24/2008 12:02:51 PM PST by BigBobber
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To: BigBobber

“What is abhorent about this decision is the conclusion that white officials can only represent white people and Hispanic officials are needed to represent Hispanics. This is offensive and un-American.”


Well, while it is certainly offensive and un-American to say that only members of a certain ethnicity may represent people of such ethnicity, that’s not what the judge is saying. The ruling is that an election scheme in which a discrete population living in a particular part of the city (such as Hispanics) are denied the opportunity to elect the councilman of their choice violates the political rights of such group. It would be the same if all 6 members of the Baltimore City Council were the candidates favored by blacks because they held a citywide vote where everyone gets to vote for 6 candidates (and thus the black majority can elect 6 members) and white voters that form the overwhelming majority in North Baltimore cannot elect a single councilman of their choice. If Baltimore was divided into 6 districts, white voters would be able to elect the candidate of their choice in 2 of them, and if people voted citywide but with some sort of proportional representation (say, with each person casting a single vote), white voters would still be able to elect 2 of the 6 councilmen; the only electoral scheme in which a simple majority of voters can elect 100% of council members would be one in which each person votes for 6 members. Well, that Baltimore hypothetical is exactly what (according to the court’s findings) occurs in Port Chester, New York, only with the Hispanic population.


13 posted on 01/24/2008 12:40:13 PM PST by AuH2ORepublican (Fred Thompson appears human-sized because he is actually standing a million miles away.)
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