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Author Topic:   Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 83 (855280)
06-18-2019 11:06 AM


Probably time that this topic got separated into its own thread.
From The New York Times:
Justices Dismiss Appeal in Virginia Racial Gerrymandering Case
People have been wondering how the Supreme Court is going to rule on various partisan gerrymandering cases. Well, in this particular case, the Supreme Court decided to punt.
In Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, the Virginia House of Delegates appealed a lower courts ruling that a redrawing of district maps was unconstitutional due to racial bias.
The majority ruled that the state of Virginia is the entity that has the responsibility to respond to challenges to the state's laws. However, the Governor declined to appeal the lower courts ruling, and state law does not grant the House of Delegates the authority to appeal the decision on behalf of the state.
Furthermore, the House of Delegates has not suffered the sort of direct injury that would give it standing to sue on its own behalf.
The minority takes issue with this last point. They claim that the House of Delegates has an interest in its own membership rules and should have standing to sue in its own behalf.
I have not read the decision and so can't comment on the reasoning.
-
This still doesn't address the gerrymandering issue. Still to come: cases that will consider partisan gerrymanding in North Carolina and Maryland.
(It has, by contrast, so far left open the separate question of whether extreme partisan gerrymandering, in which the political party in power draws maps to give an advantage to its candidates, can ever cross a constitutional line. The court is expected to address that question later this month.)

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

Replies to this message:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 3 of 83 (855290)
06-18-2019 12:55 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Taq
06-18-2019 11:21 AM


I agree.
The issue is a bit complicated, though. The US Constitution gives the states the authority to regulate their own elections and districting, so without an amendment the federal government can't just assume responsibility.
On the other hand, much of the voter suppression measures clearly violate the 14th amendment's guarantee of "equal protection". Furthermore, Akhil Reed Amar makes the argument that through the 15th, 19th, and 26th amendments the people have made it clear that voting is a fundamental right. In this case, the federal government does have the obligation to regulatory oversight to ensure the people's rights aren't violated.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by Taq, posted 06-18-2019 11:21 AM Taq has replied

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 4 of 83 (855439)
06-19-2019 7:47 PM


House of Delegates v Bethune-Hill: The opinion
I've just read the opinion, written by Justice Ginsburg and joined by Justices Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Gorsuch (and, yes, what an interesting combination).
It's pretty short, just describing why Virginia's House of Delegates does not have standing to bring this appeal to the Supreme Court.
First, the state constitution vests gives the state's Attorney General the responsibility to defend the state's interest in court. Since the Attorney General declined and did not designate another party to take on this responsibility, the House of Delegates cannot presume on its own to represent the state.
Second, the House of Delegates did not suffer an injury that allows it to seek redress on its own behalf. Ginsburg cites an earlier case, also involving gerrymanding, to make the Court's point.
The case cited is Arizona State Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.
When the people of Arizona became tired of the gerrymandered districts the state legislature produced, they used the ballot initiative process to create an independent, nonpartisan body to do the redistricting. The state legislature then sued, claiming that the ballot initiative violated the US Constitution, namely the clause that gives the state legislature the authority to set the districts.
The Court ruled against the Arizona legislature, but it did grant it standing to argue the case. There appear sto be two main differences in the situations.
One, by permanently losing the power to make the districts, the Arizona legislature can make the claim that it is suffering harm. But the Virginia legislature cannot make a similar claim of permanently losing it's redistricting authority so the precedent doesn't apply.
The House of Delegates also claims that the districts determine who the members are, and the House hasan interest in its membership. The Court points out that the House doesn't select its own members, the voters do, and so this isn't a harm that gives the body standing.
Two, the Constitution gives the state legislature the authority to regulate its own election regulations (subject to federal oversight). In Arizona State Legislature, the legislature consisting of both Senate and House of Representatives brought suit. In this case, it is only Virginia's House of Delegates that is bringing suit, an a single chamber of a bicameral legislature cannot presume to speak on behalf of the entire body.
I apologize if this isn't as interesting to other people, but I was interested in seeing how this case was going to compare with Arizona. I also found the splits within the "liberal" and within the "conservative" justices to be noteworthy.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 83 (855678)
06-21-2019 2:52 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Chiroptera
06-19-2019 7:47 PM


House of Delegates v Bethune-Hill: The dissent
I've just read the dissent, written by Justice Alito and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer and Kavanaugh.
I must say I can see both sides of this argument. Alito makes a good case why past precedent suggests the Virginia House of Delegates should have standing, but I can also understand Ginsburg's argument that the cases cited are not to the point enough to really be used as precedent.
I guess I find Ginsburg's arguments slightly more persuasive, but I don't think I could have argued if the standing decision had gone the other way.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Changed subtitle

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Chiroptera, posted 06-19-2019 7:47 PM Chiroptera has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 7 of 83 (856084)
06-26-2019 11:12 AM


Hofeller and the census question
From The New York Times:
Reopened Legal Challenge to Census Citizenship Question Throws Case Into Chaos
Short summary of the issue for our international cousins:
Every ten years, the US Constitution requires a census tobe taken. This is used, primarily, to apportion seats in the House of Representatives to the states in proportion to the states' populations. However, it is also used to obtain detailed demographic information to be used in allocated resources for services, and to assess the effectiveness of enacted policies. For that reason, the census forms contain a number of questions.
The next census is to be taken next year, in 2020. The US Dept. of Commerce is currently in the process creating the forms.
The current controversy:
The Trump Administrations wants a question asking whether the responders are US citizens. The problem is that this will undeniable reduce the response rate, not only among illegal residents, but also in immigrant communities that are in the country legally. Let's be clear about this: the purpose of the census is to count every single person, citizen or not, legally in the country or not. Adding the citizenship question to the census will result in an inaccurate survey, defeating its purpose.
It is also clear that the citizenship question will reduce the count in areas that vote Democrat. A credible charge has been that the Republicans are not sincerely interested in counting citizens vs noncitizens as they are in gimmicking the election districts to maintain artificially inflated majorities.
The smoking gun is the flashdrive discovered by the daughter of Thomas Hofeller, a Republican strategist who was the technical expert in the Republicans' partisan gerrymander schemes. Among the data was information showing how the citizenship question could affect district boundaries as well as talking points, many of which were included almost word for word in the Dept. of Commerce documents outlining its reasons for including the question. It's pretty clear that not only are the Republicans deliberately, consciously engaging in gerrymandering for partisan purposes, but the citizenship question is a deliberate part of these plans.
The article from the NYT is the latest development in the case. There is a suit going through the court system right now challenging the inclusion of the citizenship question, claiming that the question will reduce the accuracy of the count and that its true purpose is to give the Republicans a partisan advantage.
The Supreme Court was just about to consider the case when the Hofeller drive was discovered. The district judge that heard the original case asked for permission to reopen the case in light of the new information provided by the Hofeller drive. An appeals court has given that permission, which now delays the final decision.
This presents a problem. The Right wing nihilists are determined to include the question, so they will hold off printing the forms until the know whether they can. Thus, they are creating a Constitutional problem: the census must be completed by December 2020. For this reason, the distribution of the forms should begin in January. For this reason, the printing process is schedule to begin in July.
Of course, the Supreme Court can still save the Republican white supremists' bacon. They can vacate any stay on including the question, allowing the Trump Administration to go ahead with the question even while the judicial process continues. They can also go ahead and take the case back from the lower courts and issue the final decision themselves.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 83 (856133)
06-27-2019 1:25 PM


Angry white people have a right to an artificial majority!
From the New York Times:
Supreme Court Bars Challenges to Partisan Gerrymandering
The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that partisan gerrymandering is constitutional.
Their reasoning?
The drafters of the Constitution, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority, understood that politics would play a role in drawing election districts when they gave the task to state legislatures. Judges, the chief justice said, are not entitled to second-guess lawmakers’ judgments.
“We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts,” the chief justice wrote.
Of course, the majority are precisely second-guessing the Framers' intentions. The Framers wrote explicitly about the dangers of partisan politics and made it clear that they thought that they were developing the types of checks that would avoid the worst problems of political partisanship.
-
Just a reminder; we aren't talking about the drawing of election districts that just happen to give one side an advantage. These districts were deliberately drawn to give the Republicans an overwhelming advantage, despite the fact that statewide elections show an almost even split between the two parties.
Despite Roberts' ruling, I think this issue is going to come up again before the Court sooner than he thinks.
Added by edit:
I should add, this particular case involves the Congression districts drawn in North Carolina.
Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 83 (856134)
06-27-2019 1:41 PM


But, weirdly, angry white people don't have a right to partisan census questions.
From The New York Times:
Supreme Court Leaves Census Question on Citizenship in Doubt
Chief Justice Roberts joined the liberal wing in not upholding the Trump Administration's citizenship question.
Writing for the majority, Roberts pointed out that Secretary of Commerce Ross was being less than truthful when he explained the reasons for including the question on next year's census.
Executive branch officials must “offer genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public,” the chief justice wrote. “Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise. If judicial review is to be more than an empty ritual, it must demand something better than the explanation offered for the action taken in this case.”
The case is being sent back to the lower courts, where the Administration can try to do a better job in explaining why they feel the citizenship question is important.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Incomplete edit before posting.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

Replies to this message:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 83 (856140)
06-27-2019 5:21 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Taq
06-27-2019 2:45 PM


Re: But, weirdly, angry white people don't have a right to partisan census questions.
New evidence supports the claim that the real reason for their actions is partisan politics.
Well, the North Carolina gerrymander case suggests the conservatives on the Court aren't too concerned about partisan politics.
I got the impression from the article in the Times that Roberts was insulted by being blatantly lied to in the census case. If Ross had said, "Hey, we're including the citizenship question because we can, and those other guys can just screw themselves," Roberts would've been fine with it.
Edited by Chiroptera, : typo.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

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 Message 10 by Taq, posted 06-27-2019 2:45 PM Taq has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 83 (856184)
06-28-2019 11:12 AM


Gerrymandering and permanent minority rule
I'm currently reading the Court's opinion on the gerrymandering cases, but in the meantime this morning's The New York Times has several articles on both the gerrymanding and census decisions.
Here is a piece written by Nate Cohn:
The Gerrymandering Ruling and the Risk of a Monopoly on Power
It's in the "National" section, but it's really an opinion piece.
Summary: Extreme partisan gerrymanding probably won't lock in permanent Republican rule, but the risks aren't insignificant either.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 18 of 83 (856201)
06-28-2019 12:14 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Faith
06-28-2019 3:05 AM


Re: The 2018 election showed how districts can change partisan orientation - dramatically
Hi, Faith.
There is nothing illegal about this....
That is true, especially since the Supreme Court decided that it isn't illegal.
But to repeat Taq's point, there is also another question: is it ethically right? Even though it's legal, is it really okay for politicians to do this? Or is it a scummy thing to do? When a politician advocates and engages in this kind of extreme, blatant gerrymanding, do we just shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh well," or should we be outraged by it? Should our answer depend on whether it's our side which does it, or whether it's our side which is the victim?
Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Another typo.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

This message is a reply to:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 29 of 83 (856284)
06-29-2019 11:14 AM


Ruch v Common Cause: The decision
Having read the gerrymandering decision, I'll summarize it here and offer some "editorial comments."
The decision was written by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
This case combines two cases.
The first case, Rucho v Common Cause, is the North Carolina case where redistricting resulted in 10 Republican members of Congress and 3 Democrats even though, statewide,48% of the voters voted Democrat. I'll remind our readers that this was exactly as intended: the gerrymanders openly admitted that they were trying to achieve 10 Republicans as opposed to 3 Democrats.
The other case was Lamone v Benisek, the case from Maryland where district boundaries were deliberately redrawn to flip one district from Republican to Democrat. Again, the gerrymanders made no secret of their goals.
In both cases, lower courts ruled against the gerrymandering. The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the question on partisan gerrymandering is a political question and therefore not a question that can be considered by the judicial branch. The decisions by the lower courts were overturned.
The Court did point out that some questions about redistricting could be decided by the courts. For example, the Supreme Court ruled that districts must be of equal size under "one man, one vote", and the Court has ruled racial bias in redistricting to be unconstitutional. But this causes some confusion, in my opinion.
The main argument seems to be that the Founders were well aware of the problem of gerrymandering but gave the task of creating districts to the political branches anyway. [Pointing out, as Taq has, that the Founders were unaware of modern computer technology and demographic data would be "second guessing" the Founders intent, which is bad until the conservatives want to claim to be "originalists" and... second-guess the Founders intent.]
[Also, the Founders were also aware of districts that violated "one person, one vote", yet the Court found this a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. What makes partisan gerrymanding different enough that it doesn't violate the Fourteenth Amendment? Roberts doesn't say.]
The second point that Roberts stresses is that it is difficult to determine what a standard of fairness would look like and so a question left to the political branches.
[ Yet the Court has been able to determine when districts violate "racial fairness"; what makes "partisan fairness" more difficult? Roberts doesn't say.]
Roberts also makes the point that the actual behavior of voters don't always follow predictions and can change overtime.
[Which is true, except in the two cases the Court was looking at, the results were exactly what was intended; furthermore, the intent of the North Carolina case is to lock in a long term partisan advantage.]
Finally, Roberts points out that many states have, through the political process, instituted nonpartisan means of drawing districts, and the Elections Clause gives Congress the authority to regulate the process.
[I've only glanced at Kagan 's dissent right now, but I did notice she pretty much questions Roberts' sincerity on this point.]
A few other points:
Roberts likewise dismisses the First Amendment objections to the gerrymandering. I'm not very familiar with this argument, so can't comment on it. Maybe Kagan's dissent will enlighten me.
Also Roberts dismisses the argument based on the "guarantee of a republican form of government clause". I do think this clause should be used more, but I agree there isn't a lot of precedence for its use. Anyway, I also think it's been largely subsumed into the Fourteenth Amendment.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 32 of 83 (856707)
07-02-2019 11:25 AM


Rucho v Common Cause: The dissent
Justice kagan wrote the dissent, to which Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined.
And what a blistering dissent is; it's pretty clear the minority is angry at the outcome. (Sometimes I wonder what the private discussions on these cases are like.)
Kagan accuses the Court of avoiding its obligations.
And not just any constitutional violation. The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives. In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.
Kagan starts by outlining the redistricting process used in the Maryland and North Carolina cases, noting they open admitted their goal to give one party or the other a partisan advantage. These cases weren't some obscure borderline cases; they were the obvious and blatant examples you begin with when you start developing remedies.
Kagan points out the majority themselves admit these cases are a gross violation of democratic norms and subvert the whole notion of democratic government.
In response to the argument about the Founders leaving redistricting to the political branches while being aware of gerrymandering, Kagan makes a point I made earlier:
After all (as the majority rightly notes), racial and residential gerrymanders were also once with us, but the Court has done something about that fact.
Kagan also makes a point that Taq made in an earlier post: Modern technology allows an incredible level of accuracy in terms of pinpointing demographic data that would have been unimaginable to the Founders, as well as providing the capability of generating and testing thousands of alternative maps to choose the most advantageous.
To answer the majorities claim that gerrymanders have made mistakes in the past and that voters are unpredictable, Kagan points out the in these cases, the results were exactly as predicted. Thanks, modern technology!
[In response to the majorities claim the demographic patterns change, I'll point out that modern technology allows gerrymanders to keep track of the most up-to-date demographic data and to redistrict before each election if necessary.]
Kagan then cites how the gerrymandering is a violation of voters' Fourteenth Amendment rights (voters are being deprived of their right to have an influence on government policy) as well as their First Amendmentment rights (since voters are being discriminated against based on past voting history and political preference).
Yet partisan gerrymanders subject certain voters to “disfavored treatment””again, counting their votes for less”precisely because of “their voting history [and] their expression of political views.” Vieth, 541 U. S., at 314 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). And added to that strictly personal harm is an associational one. Representative democracy is “unimaginable without the ability of citizens to band together in [support of] candidates who espouse their political views.” California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U. S. 567, 574 (2000).
Kagan then takes on the Court's opinion that finding "a neutral baseline" on which to base a judgement is beyond the capabilities of the courts. Kagan points out the lower courts did exactly that. The lower courts, in fact, did judge the gerrymanders unreasonable by comparing them to a neutral baseline.
Furthermore, the baseline weren't even developed by the courts. The baselines were based on the states' own criteria of drawing districts. The plaintiffs just removed the partisan bias part, and used the other, usual criteria to generate maps, and noted that the biased maps were at the very extreme ends of the partisan bias.
Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, the District Courts did not have to”and in fact did not”choose among competing visions of electoral fairness. That is because they did not try to compare the State’s actual map to an “ideally fair” one (whether based on proportional representation or some other criterion). Instead, they looked at the difference between what the State did and what the State would have done if politicians hadn’t been intent on partisan gain. Or put differently, the comparator (or baseline or touchstone) is the result not of a judge’s philosophizing but of the State’s own characteristics and judgments.
Next, Kagan questions the majority's sincerity when they point out that the political process provides the remedy [at least, I read Kagan as accusing the majority of being disingenuous].
First, once too many "elected" representatives owe their position to gerrymandering, Kagan questions how likely it would be for them to fix it.
Kagan scoffs when the majority points out that in some states, voters have created nonpartisan methods of redistricting by voter initiative. But besides the fact some states don't have voter initiatives,
Some Members of the majority, of course, once thought such initiatives unconstitutional. See Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S., at ___ (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1).
[And with the Courts track record on voter suppression, there's little that leads me to believe that federal laws to provide a remedy would pass constitutional muster.]
The majority’s most perplexing “solution” is to look to state courts.... But what do those courts know that this Court does not? If they can develop and apply neutral and manageable standards to identify unconstitutional gerrymanders, why couldn’t we?
Concluding paragraph:
Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections. With respect but deep sadness, I dissent.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 33 of 83 (856782)
07-02-2019 8:18 PM


Citizen question dropped from census form
From The New York Times:
2020 Census Won’t Have Citizenship Question as Trump Administration Drops Effort
The Trump Administration decided to drop the question on citizenship from the census so that they can start printing them.
The decision was a victory for critics who said the question was part of an administration effort to skew the census results in favor of Republicans. It was also a remarkable retreat for an administration that typically digs into such fights.
Still work to be done, though:
The groups’ [the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund] victory on Tuesday may have eased that threat, but hardly eliminated it. The public controversy over the issue has already stirred fears of retribution among many immigrants, who say they will avoid filling out the census form even if the question is not asked.
“Now is the time to shift gears and begin robust education and outreach campaigns to ensure each person in this country is counted,” said Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, which was also among the plaintiffs suing to block the question. “Everyone counts, therefore everyone must be counted.”

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 35 of 83 (856945)
07-04-2019 11:16 AM


Aaannnd... the citizenship question is back
From the New York Times:
Justice Dept. Reverses Course on Citizenship Question on Census, Citing Trump’s Orders
So the Justice Dept. is looking into a way to include the citizenship question after all. When asked. Why they changed their minds, they replied that they have no goddamn idea what's going on either.
Joshua Gardner, a Justice Department special counsel for executive branch litigation, responded [to a federderal judge'squestion about this]: “The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the president’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and Your Honor.”
He added: “I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture other than what the president has tweeted. But, obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on.”
Mr. Gardner said that census forms would continue to be printed without the citizenship question, and that federal court rulings barring its inclusion, upheld in part by the Supreme Court, were still in force. But he added that he could not promise that would remain the case.
“This is a fluid situation and perhaps that might change,” he said, “but we’re just not there yet, and I can’t possibly predict at this juncture what exactly is going to happen.”
That seemed an apt summation of the entire census process, which has lurched from lawsuit to crisis and back since the citizenship issue arose, and seemed on the verge of being upended on Wednesday.
And this, in a nutshell, is the incompetence that characterizes the entire Trump Administration.
And remember, this Administration of boobs retains the support of over a third of Americans.
No matter that policies the Administration pushes are actually opposed by large portions of its "base ", they still retain their support.
No matter the cruelty they willingly inflict on other people disturbs large portions of their "base", they still retain their support.
No matter how unqualified they continue to show themselves to be, no matter how venal they are, they retain the support of their "base".
Yet, some how calling the supporters "deplorable" is inexcusable.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo in the title.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

Replies to this message:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 37 of 83 (857673)
07-10-2019 9:21 AM


The census question: lawyer tag-out is blocked
From The New York Times:
Judge Rejects Justice Dept. Request to Change Lawyers on Census Case
Blatant and unashamed lying isn't working out so well for the Trump Administration, so they're going to try another tactic which doesn't seem to be "tell the truth". In order to get the citizenship question onto the census, they're switching out the team of lawyers defending the inclusion of the question in court. Unfortunately, they need to explain to the court why they want to replace their lawyers.
On Sunday, the Justice Department said it was replacing the legal team defending the citizenship question. It offered no explanation for the change, which came in the middle of a prolonged clash over whether the administration’s arguments for adding the question could be believed.
But on Tuesday, as a new team of lawyers began to notify the court of its appearance in the case, Judge Furman barred the old lawyers from leaving until they met a legal requirement to satisfactorily explain their departure and show that it would not impede the case. He excepted only two lawyers on the team who had already left the department’s civil division, which was overseeing the lawsuit.
On its face, Judge Furman’s order only enforces a court rule governing changes of legal counsel. Practically, however, it presents the department with a difficult choice: Either reverse course and leave its old legal team in place, or produce sworn explanations that could prove both embarrassing and damaging to the administration’s case.

It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman

  
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