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” doesn’t 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 ...
Ugh.
This issue has been debated for 200 years. Remember that a compromise allocated each slave as 3/5 of a person for purposes of redistricting and representation in Congress. This gave the South more representatives compared with an allocation to citizens or all free persons.
I don’t think that this decision is unexpected, but it may not end up favoring the Democrats. The city cores are already dominated by the Democrats, now both blacks and illegal immigrants will be counted, making those districts even more concentrated toward the Democrat Party, But, since these districts must continue to be minority (black) majority districts, the result may be even more Democrat leaning with less ability to expand those districts into the suburbs.
Yup.
However, your statement:
Very few people were eligible to vote in the early days of the U.S., so there was clearly a disconnect between the number of eligible voters and the number of people.
is also troublesome.
Shouldn't your sentence end with "...and the number of citizens."?
Otherwise, we have to assume the Founders intended that the rest of the world who happened to have some presence within our borders was entitled to representation equal to that enjoyed by voters. (Today's "dilution" argument.)
Even then, such a view would have sounded an alarm to both the Founders and those expecting to be eligible to vote, of a potentially disastrous imbalance.
Right. There is a remedy for that -- constitutional amendment.
I see this as helping Texas get more congressional seats if the allocation is on a % of total US population.
As long as those illegals cannot vote, this is actually a plus as most of Texas will be more conservative than the general US. Gotta leave out the hellhole of Austin.
It also says they are to be counted (like slaves) as 3/5 of a person. Are they doing that?
“Constitution says persons, not citizens.
Our Founding Fathers appear to have actually gotten something wrong there. “
However, at the time of our Constitution being developed, this allowed those who were unable to vote like women, children to be counted. Not sure if they were called citizens if no vote was allowed, though. Same with slaves.
thanks, SCOTUS. yet another campaign issue.
Have a real hard tie believing the unanimity of the verdict. On the surface this boggles the mind. Need to do some digging.
“because most of the people living in those districts aren’t eligible to vote. “
A lot of people are always ineligible to vote. Children. Some people have lots of ‘em.
This is why all of these blue state mayors keep begging Obama to send them more refugees.
“Current voters should be the only standard, but it won’t be.”
So you are advocating that only those who show up to vote should be the bases for redistricting?
2012 election had 57.5% turnout, and 65 million who voted of an estimated 314 million people residing in US or about 20% of total?
Interesting, to base all Congressional representation on basis of not those eligible to vote, but on who actually does vote.
YET.
Cancer allowed to grow unchecked soon takes over the host. Texas is dead man walking.
I’ll take my Texas over whatever state you are speaking from any time, thank you.
Nope, eligibles.
Can’t be a voter without being eligible.
It also means the seats are guaranteed dimocrap.
“Nope, eligibles.
Can’t be a voter without being eligible.
“
That is not what you said.
You specifically said current voters, not current eligible voters.
And I guess you give zero rights proportional Congressional representation to any like children who cannot vote, even though they are citizens?
Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution states that Indians are not included in the count for representation purposes, and that anyone who is not a "free Person" is counted as three-fifths of a person. Those who were subject to indentured servitude for a specific period of time were counted as "free Persons" for the purpose of representation.
Most people couldn't vote in those days -- including most white males.
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