view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
Kagan said that this sounds like a national issue and states maybe shouldn't decide elections.
And I'd maybe agree with her if it wasn't for Bush v. Gore.
Colorado didn’t declare every state is required to take it off. It decided to take his name off their ballot. I don’t get the argument. It’s true if enough states do it it has a national outcome but so what? That is deciding it nationally. States decide how to run their own elections, I don’t know why states rights aren’t being claimed here given how popular that move usually is lol.
I was being a little facetious, I just wanted to show how her argument was wrong based on Bush v. Gore alone, which was decided by the judicial body she is now a member of, but yeah, there are a lot of reasons why it's wrong.
I'd maybe agree with her if she weren't flat-out wrong. The US Constitution gives state legislatures power to choose Electors -- full stop. Never mind deciding who is or isn't eligible to be on the ballot in that state; they don't even have to hold a popular vote at all in the first place. All 50 states currently do, but that's squarely because of state law each state passed for itself, not anything imposed by the Federal government. A state could repeal its popular vote law tomorrow and have the legislators appoint Electors themselves* and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court could (legitimately, at least) do anything about it.
(* which is what the founding fathers intended, BTW -- it's basically like choosing a prime minister in a parliamentary system, but with added federalism by having state legislatures do it instead of Congress)
Republicans have already tried once. Thankfully, SCOTUS shot them down.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/independent-state-legislature-theory-explained
No, that blatantly-corrupt wishful thinking bullshit isn't what I'm talking about at all.
For reference, here's what your article says "independent state legislature theory" is:
What I'm saying is not that state legislatures could ignore the results of the state's popular vote and send fraudulent electors or whatever (i.e. the second-paragraph case), but that a state could decide to repeal its popular vote in the legitimate way (i.e. the first-paragraph case) if it wanted.
TL;DR: all I'm saying is that the way a state chooses Electors is a matter of its own state law, not Federal law. I'm not saying a state legislature doesn't have to follow its own state laws!
That's a different matter and thankfully they made the right decision there. The question was whether or not a state legislature has the sole power to decide election rules AND they supercede the governor and state constitution.
Well that was talked about. Kagan and Alito both touched on plenary power and the degrees that applies to Colorado's assertion. But in all that was debated Colorado couldn't find de facto application. Kagan even asked if there was any method that didn't rely de novo. The argument keep getting into "well this is so unique". And that's when it headed into how State's executed elections post 1860 but pre 1880.
The thing is, even if there was an application to the novel assertion of federalization here… I mean you heard it right there towards the end, "this is a feature not a flaw". The Court's couldn't be remedy to enforce uniformity. I mean just look at Colorado here for a second. You have three cases in the State plus SCOTUS, that's four hearings. Multiply that by fifty and by three or four major parties that have codified ballot access in the various States. The court's couldn't handle that and elections would become "who has enough money for litigation?" Which is kind of the opposite of "having less money in elections".
And then there comes from that a desire of "Well then Congress could come up with some limit as to what can be litigated before the courts for elections" and then boom, as indicated "how's that different than where we're at?" If the idea is that eventually some de facto appears by Congress, why allow novel approach now with the expectation that we'll get law later when we can equally say why not wait for law today and allow novel to come later based on that?
And Colorado couldn't find a specific reason why the order should or shouldn't be reversed outside of "well State's rights!" And that's what prompted the question of "well how plenary is plenary to join Article II to 14A S3?"
And another thing that you said in a different comment is:
No. Or at least I don't think so because doing so would be really hard to justify. Article IV, Section 4. Now the degree can vary because as it was before that only land owners could vote. But then the Naturalization Act of 1790 allowed the frontier folk the ability to vote. The thing is a vote is always required BUT the definition of who it applies to is up to the State, except that 15A, 19A, and 26A further limit the restrictions that States can apply.
But given Art. II S.1 one could literally read:
But in all States the manner is defined by the State's Constitution meaning that the Citizens would have to vote to amend their process to give up their right to vote and even then, it's possible such is a violation of Art. IV S.4. It would absolutely be a Court case. But it's highly unlikely that SCOTUS would permit a State in the Union to operate on a system that denied voting to everyone outside of the political process as that's kind of the whole premises of the Revolutionary War and that specific part of the Constitution. They would need to include at least ONE person not a sworn officer of the State and given the restrictions of 15A, 19A, and 26A I don't see how they uphold 14A S1 and keep on the correct side of those other amendments. It would be difficult to say, this one person over the age of 18 is cool to vote AND still uphold 14A S1 equal protection and deny OTHER 18 year olds. It would definitely be an exercise.
States have rights, but SCOTUS is the first place to tell someone, "No right is absolute". And multiple justices brought that up plenty of times with the perceived plenary that Colorado attempted. I would love Colorado's reading, but SCOTUS has a point, Colorado needs to define a line in the sand and not just be like "Well that's what SCOTUS is here to do, draw lines". I mean given the track record recently, I don't think we should let SCOTUS draw lines. And yeah, funny time for them to suddenly adopt that mantra. But that's the thinking I agree with, which is why WV v EPA was such bullshit in my opinion. But I cannot think both WV v EPA was bullshit and Colorado is correct here. That just doesn't jive. I get inconsistent SCOTUS is frustrating, but at least questioning where that line is from Colorado is the correct move, not leaving it up to SCOTUS to dictate.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#2-1
Only States decide presidential elections, by selecting electors, and every single one of those Justices knows it.
The electoral college should have been immediately invoked to squash that argument.
The National popular vote has nothing to do with the presidential election at this point. It’s decided by 1 of 3-4 swing states unless there are landslides like Obama or Biden in 2020.
States didn’t decide Bush v Gore. The Supreme Court did.
Right, but their ruling essentially said that not recounting the ballots in a single state can and should decide a presidential election.
If we had a National Popular Vote I would agree but the Presidency is decided by a convoluted contest of contests. As shitty as it would be I unfortunately think a state government deciding the winner regardless of the election results is Constitutional. That's more or less how it was at the start of our nation and no Federal law or amendment says that the electors must be chosen by voters of each state.