Supreme Court rules in redistricting case: Illegal immigrants, other non-citizens can be counted

The Washington Times ^ | April 4, 2016 | Stephan Dinan

[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.

[Harpotoo]

unanimous??? Boy are we EF’ed!

[Alberta's Child]

There was one big reason for the disconnect between voting eligibility and counting population for representation purposes back when the Constitution was drafted. The standards for counting population were written into the Constitution, while voting eligibility was not. At that time, voting eligibility was established by state legislatures, not the Federal government.

[NYRepublican72]

I don’t have a problem with this ruling. It’s a proper read of the Constitution. There’s nothing in the census language that requires citizenship. Scalia would have probably decided the case the same way.

[Brookhaven]

Trump should jump on this.

A constitutional amendment stating that only citizens of the United States should count for apportionment purposes.

[God luvs America]

so its not the doom and gloom many are commenting about?

[xzins]

It is what I said.

I suppose I could get all literalistic and say that ‘no one is voting at this current moment in time’ so that I’m actually talking about NO ONE at all.

But, current voters include eligible, registered, likely, etc.

I won’t argue that it was clearly written for some legal document, but I will argue that it is what I meant and that it’s a reasonable way to put it in a quick, stream of thought post on a discussion website.

[armydawg505]

There is precedent in the court just to count them as 3/5s of a person.

[FewsOrange]

“I see this as helping Texas get more congressional seats if the allocation is on a % of total US population.”

Texas already gets more congressional seats because House of Representative apportionment is on the basis of total population, not just eligible voters.

[manc]

Ginsburg had written it. LOL Was she finally awake to do that or even hear the evidence and case?

[MGunny]

Deportation...One Illegal Alien at a time. Easy enough.

[Bobby_Taxpayer]

Sanctuary cities will now become sanctuary states to get a bigger share of the congress.

[jazusamo]

Good question, must have been a very short ruling. :-)

[dsc]

“A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens can be counted when states draw their legislative districts”

Robert Bork was spot on: We are ruled by a liberal judiciocracy.

[bgill]

Now, now, we’ve been told illegals are basically citizens.

[frog in a pot]

...entitled to representation equal to that enjoyed by voters.

Your points are accurate while mine was not clear. I was thinking in terms of quality of representation rather than the quantity. Additional seats acquired by inflated ppulation, of course, may or may not be realized at the local level. They were at the federal level, however, then and now.

Somehow filling the population with perhaps transient non-citizens with a resulting influence at the federal level seems a part of any one-world agenda, doesn't it?

[AustinBill]

Correct. Prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, for example, women could not vote yet they clearly were part of the population that was represented.

The question of whether illegal aliens should be present in large numbers is completely separate from the Constitutional issue of what representation means. The former is a political question, not a judicial one, and is one of the key issues in the current election cycle. Pray we choose wisely.

[sphinx]

Can be, or must be?

The natural inclination of local jurisdictions would be to count all carbon based life forms, alien or not, as well as the dead (to accommodate Democrats), in order to inflate their numbers for congressional apportionment and various federal and state subsidies. That, however, doesn't mean that illegals MUST be counted. The court may have merely ruled that the constitution doesn't prohibit counting them, so if a state, or the Congress, wants to do otherwise, it can legislate to that effect.

[arrogantsob]

Unfortunately, this decision is required by fidelity to the constitution. It does not say “citizen” when describing Congressional representation and how it is determined.

Now, the other side of this is that in order to be counted they have to cooperate with the Census which means they can be potentially identified.

[enduserindy]

I’m glad I read your comment. During the coarse of the last 12 months I’ve learned I’m not as informed as I once thought. thank you.

[Smokin' Joe]

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. Proportional representation was based on population, not voting eligibility.

Precisely. To vote, one had to be free, white, male, 21, and a landowner. There were large numbers of people who were counted as population who were not eligible to vote.

We do need to eliminate the illegal aliens from the equation, though. They are not supposed to be here in the first place.