The Craziest Thing About This Supreme Court Case Isn't That One Plaintiff Believes Unicorns Are Real

[LiberalArkie]

By Stephanie Mencimer

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will examine the bedrock principle of "one person, one vote" in a major case that could yield the Republican Party a critical advantage in future elections. In Evenwel v. Abbott, the court is being asked to change how states draw legislative districts in a way that would boost the electoral power of white, rural voters, who lean Republican, at the expense of Latinos and African Americans, who tend to vote Democratic. The plaintiffs behind this high-stakes legal challenge are an unusual pair. One is a Texas tea party activist who has promoted a conspiratorial film suggesting President Barack Obama's real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a supposed propagandist for the Communist Party. The other is a security guard and religious fundamentalist who believes the Earth doesn't revolve around the sun and that unicorns were real.

Texas residents Sue Evenwel and Ed Pfenninger want the court to create a uniform national standard for drawing legislative districts based on the total number of eligible voters in them, as opposed to the total number of people, which is the standard that Texas and many other states use now. Such a change would effectively diminish the political clout of urban areas, which have large populations of people who can't vote, such as felons, children and noncitizen.

If the court agrees, states throughout the country could be compelled to shift their legislative districts to conform with the ruling, causing a massive upheaval in the political system with serious repercussions for minority voters. Some experts have said such a change is completely unworkable because of the unreliability of voter registration data. And many civil rights groups see it as nothing but a GOP power grab. "These plaintiffs in Texas are interested in stemming the growth of Latino political power," contends Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Who are the plaintiffs who want to redraw the political map? Evenwel is a Texas GOP and tea party activist who was a big supporter of former Gov. Rick Perry, who appointed her to serve on the Texas Funeral Service Commission, which oversees the funeral industry. She's the longtime chair of the Titus County Republican Party and a member of the Texas state Republican Party executive committee. In the past, she's been a political booster of tea party favorites including former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Sarah Palin, and former Florida Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.). Lately, she's championed the presidential bid of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Evenwel did not return a call or email requesting comment.

Snip

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/evenwel-abbott-supreme-court-redistricting

[randys1]

1. Jesus fucking christ. I cant take anymore

I simply cant.

As it is the GOP gets MILLIONS less votes than the Dems yet controls our fucking House, this is going to make it even worse.

[LiberalArkie]

3. I used to say as a young adult that the only sane people were in the mental institutions.

[Orangepeel]

2. "Whole number of persons in each state"

How is this even a case?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text

[LiberalArkie]

4. If they can get it to only be registered voters, then it is easy to get it back to

only landowners can vote.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Right from the start, the division of seats was not tied to number of inhabitants

It's the number of seats that each state gets that is determined by "representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." The amendment then goes on to define a way to discourage denying "any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States" the vote. So they've made a distinction between the 'number of persons' and male adult citizens.

And remember that the original constitution had the infamous 'three fifths' clause in, again making a distinction between the number of seats a state gets, and the people who stood a chance of voting - male, free citizens, as opposed to the slaves, who didn't get three fifihs of a vote, but none at all.

Also, this particular case is about how a state is divided up, so the constitutional rules about how many seats an entire state gets don't directly apply - though they might be used as a guideline. But there is a case that the constitution would be happy with dividing them up by eligible voters. Forcing all states to do it that way seems a stretch, to me.

[KamaAina]

6. Unicorns are so real!

Where do you think this comes from?





But srsly, folks, are unicorns ever mentioned in the Bible?

Her co-plaintiff, Ed Pfenninger, has expressed some equally eyebrow-raising views. A Christian fundamentalist who works as a security guard in Porter, Texas, Pfenninger operates a YouTube channel where he's posted hours of videos of himself expounding on his beliefs. ...

And then there's the unicorn, which appears repeatedly in Pfenninger's online posts. Arguing with a commenter to one of his YouTube videos, Pfenninger wrote in 2013 that the "unicorn was a real creature known for it's (sic) great strength, and is also referred to in ancient literature."

[ryan_cats]

7. Yes

Yes they are.

[procon]

8. The government taxes everyone regardless of their voter eligibility status.

Many potential voters in red states are disenfranchised or victims of voter suppression laws by various state governments. The actions of the government affects everyone who lives within a legislative district, not just those who might be eligible to vote on election day. There is no law that requires anyone to register to vote, or even vote at all, but the government affects everyone equally.

This is just another Republican tactic to tip the ballot box in their favor and marginalize large masses of people who predictably vote for Democrats. Their voter base is shrinking and demographics are against them, so without cheating they can't win a national election.

[Downwinder]

9. That will mess up the Florida GOP plans for prison populations.

[struggle4progress]

10. The language of the Constitution, Article I, Section 2

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, ... three fifths of all other Persons

seems clear enough; and the report of the first census in 1790, signed by Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, confirms the obvious reading: the whole number was counted, including white males both above and below age sixteen, free white females, other free persons, and slaves

The 1790 census curiously has data for ME (bracketed with MA) and for KY (bracketed with VA), but none listed separately for VT: ME didn't enter as a state separate from MA until 1820; but both VT and KY joined shortly after 1790 and were each assigned 2 seats temporarily by 1791 statute. Applying the Jeffersonian apportionment method to the 101 seats (of the 105 made available by Congress, disregarding the 2 provided for Vermont and the 2 provided for Kentucky by statute), leads to the exact apportionment used (after the usual experimentation with divisor, which works with the divisor 33000 reported at that time, and taking into account the 3/5 rule for slaves)

The historical evidence therefore makes it quite clear that the apportionment based on the 1790 census was based on the whole count of the free population, voting or not