{"id":49691,"date":"2013-06-18T09:36:38","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T15:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=49691"},"modified":"2013-06-18T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T16:16:15","slug":"the-supreme-court-and-the-effective-end-of-a-federalist-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=49691","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court and the Effective End of a Federalist System"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you hadn’t already heard, the Supreme Court by a vote of 7-2 struck down<\/a> an Arizona voter proposition that had required that potential voters augment their federal motor voter forms with proof that they have the legal right to vote — be it by showing a copy of a license, a passport, a social security card, or any other similar kind of documentation.\u00a0 The people of Arizona, who are enjoined by SCOTUS from being able to police their own borders — that authority, the Court ruled, being vested solely at the federal level, with the federal government having at its discretion the right to ignore federal immigration laws entirely — were likewise (and as a consequence of the former) having their votes canceled out by fraudulent votes from ineligible voters, many of them illegals.\u00a0 So they determined by ballot initiative to protect the integrity of their voting system within the state, something Justices Scalia, Roberts, and Kennedy — along with the left liberals — now say they cannot do.<\/p>\n

This despite what is a clear history of the separation of state and federal authority over election responsibilities, with the states, as a condition for ratifying the Constitution, retaining for themselves the right to determine who is eligible to vote (within the bounds of civil rights and citizenship concerns). This is precisely why we have Constitutional amendments<\/em> post-slavery and with respect to women’s suffrage:\u00a0 the states had to ratify by 2\/3 those changes.<\/p>\n

The upshot is, the Court, incorporating a “conservative” textualist and a “conservative” federalist (along with whatever the hell it is Anthony Kennedy might be) among the majority opinion,\u00a0 has essentially removed the state buffer from federal election jurisdiction, a move that completely inverts the intent of the framers<\/em> (and ratifiers), who viewed the states’ sovereignty as a necessary and profoundly important (and moral) check on the power of an always insatiable centralizing impulse.<\/p>\n

And just like that, together with Wickard<\/em> and Kelo<\/em> and Raich<\/em> and a ruling in favor of federal jurisdiction over immigration policy, it has enshrined precedent that corrupts the integrity of a constitutional republic.\u00a0 In fact, it neuters it entirely, changing it into something else entirely.<\/p>\n

Or, to put it another way, the “conservative” SCOTUS has now concluded that of course<\/em> the government can write health care plans for private companies, force those private companies to sell them, fix the prices of those plans, and force Americans to purchase them under penalty of a “tax” on not doing what they were told; it has ruled that states who joined the union only after insisting upon a Bill of Rights that included the 9th and 10th amendments as a protection against potential and inevitable attempts at federal overreach have no legal right nor recourse to protect their own borders and thereby protect the property and franchise of their legal citizens, that concern, per SCOTUS ruling, falling entirely to the Executive in the swamp city of Washington DC, leaving the fate of border state residents to a man who has already shown he will use his agencies to punish those who don’t toe the progressive \/ establishment line (be it through the EPA, HHS, Interior, or most obviously the IRS), and who understands that the way to turn reliably red states blue is to take away their ability to tamp down on the voter fraud that comes by way of illegal immigration, itself a crime that the President and his Justice Department, along with DHS, don’t feel compelled to pursue or prosecute; it has concluded that though states can’t really protect their own sovereignty, their enforcement officers can<\/em> collect DNA as a condition of arrest — a procedure they determined wasn’t unduly intrusive — all this taking place in the context of a law enforcement milieu in which officers cannot ask about citizenship status.<\/p>\n

All of which is proof that we no longer live in the country of our founding.\u00a0 And the people who have changed it are politicians and jurists at the federal level whose power and wealth grows as a direct result of their willingness to repudiate intent — and of a public’s willingness to abide a linguistic incoherence that I’ve demonstrated time and again moves us inexorably leftward.\u00a0 And is designed to do just that.<\/p>\n

It’s all over but for the shouting.\u00a0 Lie back and think of England. And King George.\u00a0 Because that’s where we are now, anyway.\u00a0 Only the wigs have changed.<\/p>\n

****<\/p>\n

update<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0 not<\/a> everyone agrees with me.\u00a0 (h\/t jls, who doesn’t agree with me, either).<\/p>\n

J Christian Adams notes that the left got only one of 5 things it wanted.\u00a0 So it’s batting .200, while election integrity proponents are batting .800 (his scoring).\u00a0 To which I reply, how is it a win for election integrity opponents when they lost 20% of election integrity?<\/p>\n

Adams has it backwards.\u00a0 This isn’t a win. It’s part of losing more slowly.\u00a0 Does Adams not think progressive activist groups will have access to federal forms?\u00a0 Does he not think they’ll be making sure certain voting blocs are provided those forms through their institutions and front groups?\u00a0 Does he not realize that states run by Democrats will scuttle any state forms — that Colorado, for instance, has undergone a logistical and political shift thanks to rulings like these?\u00a0 Adams is saying it’s a win so long as red states stay red and are at all interested in voter integrity.\u00a0 But once states go blue, they are gone.\u00a0 Forever.<\/p>\n

All of which is irrelevant. I’m not interested in who won the politics<\/em> of the battle. I’m interested in what this opens up constitutionally for new attacks on state sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m wrong.\u00a0 Maybe I’m “confused and bewildered” having never litigated a case involving voter fraud (although Landmark Legal participated in this case, and it’s my understanding that Levin came down on the side of the minority, as well).<\/p>\n

Or maybe I just don’t see “only lost a little this time” as a big win to celebrate.\u00a0 Other than through the lens of some sort of republican fatalism.<\/p>\n

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In case you hadn’t already heard, the Supreme Court by a vote of 7-2 struck down an Arizona voter proposition that had required that potential voters augment their federal motor voter forms with proof that they have the legal right to vote — be it by showing a copy of a license, a passport, a social security card, or any other similar kind of documentation.\u00a0 The people of Arizona, who<\/p>\n

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