Sure. But “ought” is a matter of opinion. “Wise,” too.
You cannot assert that, as a matter of indisputable fact, that the Voter ID law is unwise or ought to be repealed. You may hold that opinion, of course, but must also recognize that your fellow citizens disagree in wide margin, and the court system has (thus far) upheld those challenges. Since this discussion is predicated on what will happen if Pennsylvania’s final judicial decision continues to uphold them, it’s unclear to me on what grounds you might assail them, other than your personal disagreement as to the weighing of the interests involved.
To sum up, once the PA Supreme Court rules, we will have an indisputable answer to whether this voter ID law is constitutional. We will not have an indisputable answer as to whether it is a good idea, whether the approach that found it constitutional should be reconsidered (i.e., let them eat provisional ballots), or whether this legal finding is, as a matter of opinion, the correct outcome in terms of other legal rules and concepts.
What is still unclear to me–and this is maybe the third or fourth thread where I have had or witnessed others have this conversation with you–is why you put so much value on the narrow question of what the law is.
Do you understand anyone in this thread to be debating the proposition that once that PA Supreme court speaks, that’s the end of the question of whether this law is constitutional? It’s ten pages, so I concede I might have missed something. But I don’t see anyone disagreeing with that proposition.
If someone has his same name and birth date, chances are they could secure a valid ID with that name and birth date, even if the face doesn’t match his own face.
Even so, is there actually evidence that anyone looked at the ID? This isn’t a parking ticket, as a juror I’m not going to convict anyone of a felony without tangible evidence. I would find a matching signature far more compelling than the Voter ID law itself, unless they are in the habit of copying down the ID Number, or providing some other tangible proof that this man’s ID was used to get a ballot. The fact that a law “requires” ID is not proof that you provided it.
Sure, I get that. But that’s the only question that can be said to have a definite, clear, and indisputable answer. The rest is shouting.
The people railing against this law assert, almost as a postulate, that the law is Bad. I, a majority of their fellow citizens, and the majority of legislators in the states at issue all disagree.
When we have a disagreement in this country over what constitutes a wise law, how do we resolve it?
On one level, this is actually a very interesting question in this particular circumstance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you believe that the courts are not to pass on the wisdom of laws. In our system, we resolve disagreement over the wisdom of laws through the democratic process of voting and governance. The role of courts, in your view, is to play umpire in enforcing the rules–statutory, constitutional or otherwise–set up by the more democratic branches.
But in the context of the law of the democratic process, of course, that’s a bit of a problem, since the very legitimacy of the democratic process is the question. And so this is in some ways a very unique role for the courts, since their answer to the question determines the democratic structures that would otherwise check their authority.
In this singular context, the law makes the democracy rather than the democracy making the law. That’s a pretty profound difference, with a lot of implications for how courts ought to proceed and how we as a people ought to treat their judgments.
But in another sense your question misses the point entirely because you’re conflating the practical necessity of making a decision on a disputed issue with what the right answer is. The correct answer is what it is. Disputable? Sure. Even unknowable sometimes. But certainly not determined by John Boehner or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They are just the means for practical resolution.
That’s why it’s such a deeply false dichomety to say there is only The Law and everything else is “just shouting.” The Law addresses the practical problem. It does not tell us who is right. Do you not believe in sweet reason? Moral suasion? Do you not believe that sometimes a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court has gotten it wrong, in some sense of that word?
The rest isn’t “just shouting.” That’s why we have message boards, and not just threads filled with case citations.
Passports don’t have addresses, and are valid forms of Voter ID.
They would be more useful in tracking down fraudulent voters*, but the extra step may be a disaster logistically. Some voting locations can have waits in excess of an hour already, adding the time consuming step of copying down every single drivers licence number (or other ID information) could drive those times way up.
*which I still believe are a trivially small issue, compared to yet another case of absentee ballot fraud concerning hundreds of votes.
The reason it wasn’t on the books is because it wasn’t a problem and everyone knew it wasn’t a problem and would only serve to create barriers to voting.
These ridiculous arguments about race and discrimination were also applied to facially neutral voting requirements like literacy tests or poll taxes.
Are you under the impression that voter suppression of minorities is the driving force behind these bills?
All the beginnings of a fascinating essay, to be sure.
But it’s more apt if I were arguing that the courts should have been more deferential. In this case, the courts and the legislature (and tghe executive, who signed the laws into effect) are not in conflict.
So yes, I contend it’s back to shouting. If the courts were upending that which the legislature had deemed necessary, you and I could surely have a rousing discussion on judicial deference.
But if you are somehow advancing the position that the legislature, executive, and judicial branches of state government should all be pushed aside in favor someone else’s judgement on this issue – then curiosity impels me to ask: whose? King Richard I, Protector of Pennsylvania?
No, I don’t think so. This board is so monolithically leftist that here and now, the debaters simply shout down their opponents. And even when they don’t, this particular issue simply comes down to how one weighs the competing interests. Not one person speaking in opposition to this law on these boards has said, “I don’t agree, but I at least see how a reasonable person could weigh the competing interests differently than I do.”
Against that backdrop, I rely only upon that which I can definitively prove. Few debaters here are interested in granting to me the dignity of accepting I hold a principled position that happens to oppose theirs.
I suppose I’d be amenable to some sweet reason or moral suasion, should any appear. Now, though, I simply point out that in our society, we have a method of resolving disputes about the law should be, and that method has been followed, and this law is the result. I recognize reasonable people may disagree with that result, but no one should claim the result is not legitimate.
Or that is it the result of “worthless motherfucking liars with the civic virtue of a sewer-rat’s tapeworm,” for that matter.
The distinction is that poll taxes and literacy tests were not related to voting qualifications. On that basis, even prior to the amendment disallowing the former, they were struck down.
I should have said, “…and in his voting precinct??”
I get it. You don’t think it’s worthwhile. I do. Lots of people agree with me, as do the legislature, the courts, and the governor. So we all get the law we wanted. YOu don’t agree, and I see your point, but don’t agree with it.
It was your question, not mine. You asked about how we resolve conflicts over the wisest course to choose our democratic leaders. Maybe it was rhetorical, but I’m giving you my sincere answer which is that it seems pretty complicated to me in this particular instance. It should be sufficiently obvious why there cannot be absolute deference to those leaders to determine how they should be chosen. I suppose the answer is even more complicated when the judges are elected in partisan elections to which the voter ID rules equally apply.
Your point is that if every lever of power agrees, then it’s all academic. Which is fine, but then I really don’t understand why you asked the question. As we both apparently agree, your abstract question has little relevance here.
Here’s what I said:
I think a fair reading of that is my acknowledgement that one’s views on this issue can turn on sincere differences in personal moral compasses, and differing views of the facts. No?
I understand and sympathize. You face two options on this board. There is your preferred approach, which is to call upon those people who disagree with you but don’t think you’re a moral leper to reign in the people on their side of the debate. The alternative is to only engage those whom you believe are debating in good faith. I won’t deign to tell you which course is correct, but I wonder how, as a practical matter, your policy is working out so far?
I think I wasn’t clear. A passport is valid ID for the new PA Voter ID law. Passports don’t show your address, so a person with the correct name and birthdate* should be able to vote without having the ID match the address in the log book.
Perhaps because the competing interests are obviously not what you say they are? Since they don’t actually, you know, *exist *and shit?
Process and result are not the same concept. But someone who does not distinguish between the concepts of legality and morality, or partisan interest and democracy, may indeed not distinguish between those, either.
I asked because some folks that have an opposing position in this debate evidently feel that there is, or should be, some fourth lever of power.
Absolutely. If every debater here were your clone, I’d fare much worse, in that my ass would be kicked with both depressing regularity and genuine good faith.
I harbor hope.
I know I am not ever going to move a Lobohan. But I hope that I may persuade a you, or a Left Hand of Dorkness, of some meritorious point. And I hope that the lurkers, the ones that read and don’t post, may also find themselves thinking about things in a new way.
Very touching. And you plan to achieve this end with your clarity of reason and your forthright honesty? Combined with your genial good nature and sweet civility, I can hardly see how anyone could resist. Charm the birds right out of the trees, you do.
Is there any state where they aren’t pulling this happy horseshit? Getting hard to keep up. Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, the big swingers, they are pulling every trick in the book to try and keep the number of Dem voters down. I’m used to their usual bullshit, lies, innuendo, and money. But this, using their power in the state legislature to legally give themselves an electoral advantage? By hindering and discouraging legitimate voters?
Barry Goldwater would puke his guts out.
(Repeat of post in other thread. I don’t know why I point that out, I got the feeling I’m supposed to, but don’t remember why…)
Makes sense when your reflect that the Founding Fuckups were not all that egalitarian. It was widely accepted that the “democracy” would be guided by gentlemen of substance. In Marxist terms, their struggle was to replace an authoritarian nobility ruling class with a more or less bourgeois ruling class. So i easily understand why they overlooked what appears to us to be bleeding obvious.
I’m sure you’ve given it more thought than I have. But it seems to me that the general pro-federalism arguments apply (laboratories of democracy, etc.). New York could choose to enfranchise aliens, if it wanted. How’s that for an experiment?
It is wildly anachronistic to apply Marxist principles to the 1780s. There was no bourgeois ruling class. This is a topic for another thread, I suppose, but the Howard Zinn take on this particular moment of history is just wrong. And it’s sad, because the truth is that the American Revolution was a fantastic moment for progressive values by any reasonable standard. More women voted to approve the Constitution than had ever voted for anything in all of World History, most likely.
