I don’t really care about the morality of it, I’m just point out it’s legal. None of those bodies you mentioned aside from the U.S. District Court could make an actual determination on whether it was voter fraud, and that decision specifically says it isn’t any kind of actionable fraud under the Voting Rights Act–so it may be fraud in the conversational sense but not the legal sense (as a judge would be compelled to act otherwise.)
I don’t think we should have referendums at all, as I consider it an intrinsic part of the process that the sort of things you mention will be going on.
FWIW as a policy position I believe universities should set their own admissions criteria, as long as they aren’t grossly discriminatory, so I don’t actually support the Michigan law. So no, I’m not saying something is legal because it “sticks it to the blacks”, I’m saying it’s legal because it’s legal. I just don’t have the outrage you do because I start from the position that ballot initiatives are intrinsically going to result in special interests manipulating and confusing voters on issues they lack the sophistication to understand. If you outlaw method A, method B is developed which is legal etc etc, it’s why we shouldn’t have them in the first place.
I’m curious if you are venting because you think the Michigan public will was thwarted by all this deceit, or if you’re just pissed that some conniving whites conned some blacks…
Pew and Rasmussen seem to have polls showing different public sentiment toward race-based AA.
I’ve never been quite sure where the public is on the question of race-based preferences. Do you have a preferred cite on the issue?
I never disputed the strong evidence that it happened, Honesty. My point was: it’s not against the law, and thus does not invalidate the petition. Ultimately the person signing is responsible for what the paper he signs says.
A law that tried to enforce what signature collectors said is certainly possible. But it would greatly weaken, if not destroy, the ability to collect effective signatures for any petition.
Consider my hypothetical company, the Evil Oil Co. I want to build a refinery next to the puppy playground; the neighborhood collects signatures on a petition to stop me.
Can I challenge them by bringing forward witnesses who will claim that the signature collectors lied about how bad oil is for the environment? How about simply people who claim the collectors lied about which side the petition supported? If a dozen adverse witnesses can raise doubts about the entire petition, surely you can see how an unprincipled opponent can derail nearly any petition drive?
Yes. I quoted the relevant section of Michigan law, and the Court of Appeals decision. I am completely confident it’s legal.
Your implication was that Board actively rejected the petition. They deadlocked – they did nothing.
I don’t think so at all. There is nothing wrong with mandating large fonts of the petition language, making it illegal for petition gatherers to lie or misrepresent what the petition is about, or mandating that petition gathers must read aloud, verbatim, what the petition language is, before the person signs. Paying petition gathers per signature should go, too; that just encourages people to write-in signatures (which the MCRC found as well). Laws should be there to strengthen the integrity of the initiative system. What’s mind-boggling is that it’s an easy fix.
If those dozen adverse witnesses corroborate a story of widespread voter fraud, then yes, those signatures should be invalidated and Evil Oil Co. should be forced to start over. I don’t see a problem. You’re using dozens for the Evil Oil Co, but the Michigan Civil Rights Commission found over 120. The only thing “unprincipled” is how the MCRI instructed petition gathers to lie and obfuscate the intention of initiative. The whole affair not only wrong and unethical but reduces the integrity in the electoral process.
You’re right. That was poor language on my part.
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But the effect of that was to get the language on the ballot.
The people of Michigan were not deceived into passing something into law, were they?
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The point is that Proposal 2 should never have gone to the ballot in the first place.
Correct. The purpose of the signature threshold is to ensure that fringe positions with no large support don’t overwhelm the ballot and create pages of “Shall the Lizard People be barred from holding office?” type propositions.
The legal requirements for signatures were met. But you, Honesty, are not arguing that the law was violated. You’re arguing that the spirit of fair play was violated. If that’s true, I don’t see how you then revert to the pure legal argument. In other words, if the spirit is the important thing, then it’s clear that the strong majority of voters accepted the proposition, which is the ultimate spirit of democratically adopting legislation by referendum.
If the law is important, then no law was violated.
You’re arguing we should use the spirit of the law to say that the measure should never have gotten on the ballot, and then the strict letter of the law to say that regardless of how many voted for it, it should never have been there in the first place and therefore should be voided. At each stage of your argument, you adopt the standard which keeps your goal alive.
So it seems that despite the 50-page dissent that Alito penned in which called it “affirmative action gone wild” and he called the idea that a diverse student body would produce “educational benefits” to be a “faddish theory.”
Wonkette concludes and I concur:
Until we can show that white people are not gaining from Affirmative Action, we should be hesitant to dismantle the attempt to even the playing field for everyone.
Today the court stated that not only are rules that assist in promoting a diverse atmosphere in state schools constitutional, but that it is beneficial and necessary.
Sure, but you’re quite mistaken if you believe the difference between what you said before and what you’re saying now is a semantic quibble. Your first sentence did not say or imply “necessary for beneficial outcomes in education.”
But, having clarified, I certainly agree with you now.
A couple of interesting things about this particular case: apparently the Supreme Court said Fisher had an opportunity for automatic admission to UT by simply graduating in the top 10 percent of her high school class, a path open to every Texas high school student. Also, approximately 150 minority students with better grades than her were also denied admission, while approximately 150 white students with lower grades were admitted, indicating there were certainly factors other than race (activities, community involvement, other achievements) involved in her denial.
The anti-affirmative action crowd probably should have picked a better standard bearer than Abigail Fisher.