Oh? You mean the system where the party that gets the most votes gets the most political power? And is that the result you are talking about? Not the one where one party gets fewer votes, but ends up with more seats?
Or the one where one party sets up a system that discourages Dem voters and pretends its all about preventing unicorn stampedes? That’s the sort of thing we call “cheating”. The fact that its legal and Constitutional means that its a worse problem.
Because then we have to have more votes than the cheaters to stop them from cheating the voters. That’s like saying its OK to make laws that keep us poorer, because we can overturn those laws when we have more money.
“Some” Republicans are OK with that. We have that on the very best authority!
Do you ever feel as though he courts are an appropriate place to have grievances against legislation addressed?
For instance, say that Virginia passes a law that says that it will now be requiring citizens to provide a space for national guard troops to stay in their homes, free of charge, and must be available at any time.
Now, this law was passed by the legislature, and it was signed by the governor, so it followed all the correct procedure to become a valid law.
OTOH, you can’t keep from feeling that this law violates something very important, maybe something in the constitution.
Would you, were this hypothetical come to pass, support the citizenry running to the courts to cry, and would you support the judicial branch overturning this law?
Now, this example legislation is one that seems pretty obvious that it is unconstitutional, but where do you draw the line as to when it is obvious?
To some of us, yes, passing legislation that has the intent and the effect of preventing people from voting violates something very important, maybe something in the constituion. It’s not as obvious as directly contradicting the 3rd, but at the same time, the interpretation that this sort of thing should be allowed is not all that obvious either.
So, what to do with a law that some think is constitutional, and some think is not? If asking for the a judicial decision on the matter is considered to be “crying to the courts”, then in what manner do you address when you feel that fundamental rights are being violated?
Either way, I am going to advocate changing either the minds of the legislature that passed the bill, or advocate changing the legislators that will not change their mind, but in the meantime, it does not seem as though going to the courts and asking them to weigh in on the matter is something that will destroy democracy.
You don’t have to be that vague about it. Amendment 15: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
See the word “abridged”? There’s yer ID laws. How about “race”? There’s yer application of ID laws.
To be fair, it is only race, color, or previous condition of servitude that they are not allowed to deny or abridge upon. It does require a bit of interpretation to take that to mean that you may not disenfranchise people because they are less fortunate in their participation in the economy.
Were I a judge, I would find it tempting to consider “previous condition of servitude” to refer to one’s economic status, making any requirements that disproportionately impact one economic class over another to be ruled unconstitutional.
But then, I would also rule against a law that said you had to host military personnel in your home, even if it doesn’t use the word “quarter”.
You know, even this self-evidently right thing you think you’re saying . . . isn’t.
When the Third Amendment was adopted, it constrained only the federal government. Just like the others. It wasn’t until 1897 that the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company objected to the city of Chicago widening Rockwell Street and giving themthe princely sum of one dollar to erase their right-of-way. Their case ended up at the Supreme Court, which for the first time held that portions of the Bill of Rights were applicable against state powers, even though the text of the Constitution binds only the federal government.
As a general rule, I believe that it’s better for substantive changes to what the Constitution means to come from the elected legislature, not the unelected lifetime tenure judiciary.
Through the years, other parts of the Bill of Rights were similarly incorporated against the states by the Supreme Court. But (so far as I recall) never the Third.
So you might have a Takings Clause problem, but there’s not (yet) a Third Amendment problem with what you posit.
Now, of course the problem is that we cannot simply throw out the years of caselaw that’s been built up around the judiciary’s legislative efforts. So please don’t read this and infer that I am advocating throwing out all the caselaw progeny of the various incorporations. I’m merely pointing out that what you appear to think about the Third is not, technically, true.
That said, the courts are absolutely a place to have grievances against legislation addressed. When legislation conflicts with the plain text of the Constitution, or with itself, courts must suss out the application.
But what your crew routinely asks courts to do is apply a “living, breathing” standard to Constitutional law: to be a guide to create new Constitutional provisions based on some sense of an evolving standard, to decide that words that meant one thing when lawfully adopted by supermajorities now mean something substantively different because the judges believe that the law SHOULD be different.
Yes, but only a bit, and you don’t even need that. Disparate impact on the right to vote of these laws is well established on the basis of race alone.
I think that’s pretty clearly understood to have been just another nicety meaning slavery. It would be very interesting to see it raised as an argument for restoring felons’ voting rights. That too has a racial basis btw.
I am going to admit that I did not know that, and I do not know that I fully understand it either.
So, you are saying that such a hypothetical law could not be challenged under the 3rd amendment?
I was aware that the bill of rights did not apply to the states when written, but I thought that was part of the point of the post civil war amendments, to make the constitution binding on the states as well.
That there is virtually no caselaw on the 3rd is a fun trivia point, but shouldn’t prevent a judge from throwing out legislation that flagrantly violates it, I would think.
See, that’s where I don’t agree at all that those are the motivations. It’s more that there are situations that come up that were not thought of by those who wrote those original words, and so we have to decide how to deal with them within that framework.
I do advocate for judgements that would, IMHO, lead to better outcomes, and by coincidence, I also feel that those are valid interpretations of the legal framework that we are operating under. Serious legal minds disagree on interpretations of statues that were passed a week ago where the original authors are still around to declare their intent. To disagree with interpretations on a document a couple hundred years old, written by people living in a world and culture very different from our own, is not looking for courts to act as dictators, but looking for the judicial system to ensure that we are not living under a suicide pact due to uncharitable interpretations.
It could be, but the “challenge,” would essentially take the form of, “We ask the court to incorporate the Third Amendment because basically most of the rest of the Bill of Rights has been incorporated.” As opposed to, “The law violates the Third Amendment, as previously held applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment by X v Y.”
Nope. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1830s, in Barron v. Baltimore, that the federal government, and only the federal government, was bound by the Bill of Rights. The first such incorporation, of the Takings Clause, happened in 1897, more than 30 years after the Fourteenth Amendment passed.
The Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule (evidence seized illegally with no search warrant is inadmissible) wasn’t applied to state prosecutions until 1961, nearly a century later.
To this day, the Seventh Amendment’s requirement for jury trials in civil cases has never been incorporated against the states.
Maybe that’s a wise result, but why does a judge have the power to make such a huge change? I mean, not so huge now, given all the other incorporation, but the first one – why does a judge get to make such a sweeping change?
I don’t see a lot of what “arms” means in the Constitution. How was it decided what “arms” meant? Does “arms” just mean handguns? Does it mean fully-automatic rifles? Does it mean anti-tank weapons?
Seems like some court based the current definitions on an evolving standard.
There is a clear difference between an “evolving standard” that creates a new text in the law, and an evolving standard that continues to apply the text, as written, to new situations that arise in the world.
The latter is how law, perforce, works. The former is the modification of the law.
The answer to your question is: “arms,” like any other word, retains its ordinary meaning. If new arms are created, they are still arms; if new types of “press” are created, they are still press, and Mormons are still protected by the First Amendment even though the religion didn’t exist in 1789, because it’s a religion, albeit once that didn’t exist then.
In contrast, there ought to be no “right to privacy,” that exists independently from the rights related to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, even if we all agree that this is a good right to have. If we all agree, let’s modify the Constitution’s words.
Can you get the wall up please, I want to paint graffiti all up and down it. I have it all planned, even the Urban Jungle graffiti font. I think you’ll like my plan. I’ll gladly let you pick the color.
Probably the brethren of the same folks that decided a bay mare is a female horse that is reddish brown in color, and not a horse standing in the water closest to the city of San Francisco, even though “bay” appears in both contexts.
The Second Amendment speaks to the right of the people to keep and bear arms. While the word arms, standing alone, has been applied to other things, the phrase “keep and bear arms” steers us towards the understanding that the right encompasses firearms that are borne by people. Because that’s what it says.
To forestall your seemingly inevitable next queries: it’s also not relevant to supplying weapons to ursine mammals, or wearing clothing that exposes the skin of our upper extremities.
Republicans cheat,** Bricker**. That’s the crux of the biscuit. Even if voter confidence were the central issue to the Founding Fuckups, even if that principle were as sacred as “Both Sides Do It!”, using it to hamper, harass, and hassle certain groups of voters would still be cheating. “Them’s the rules!” doesn’t get it, “Legal and Constitutional” doesn’t even try.
“Some” Republicans have malign motives, you say, in a spasm of honesty. All well and bad, but what about the rest? Are they dumb=ass dupes, innocent lambs led astray? Nobody told them, they didn’t get the memo from ALEC? Please, pull the other one, its got bells, pull the middle one and I’ll give you a nickel.
Republicans cheat. All the arcane legal lectures, all the Brickersplaining won’t change that, we have to. You could help, you could hinder, you made your choice. My Mom told me cheating was wrong, gonna bet yours did too. Difference is, I listened.
We are fighting for justice, here, Counselor, and we could use your help if you’ve nothing better to do. And really, whatever could that be?
Well, I daresay given the opportunity, any politician will cheat, but Republicans have chosen to align themselves with social blocs that are in decline, so their cheating has to become more extensive and blatant.