FollowUp 8: Voting Rights

Florida has been in the headlines recently, with Governor Rick Scott ordering a purge of thousands of registered voters from the rolls.  The New York Times Editorial Board weighed in against this blatant attack on Democratic voters.

They have cut back on early voting, tried to stamp out registration drives, and imposed onerous identification requirements. (A federal judge reinstated the registration drives on Thursday.) Now, hoping to gain a new edge, Gov. Rick Scott is trying to clear voter rolls of noncitizens, a menace that only he and a few other Republican governors have been able to detect.

Last year, Mr. Scott ordered the state’s elections division to compare the rolls to the federal Homeland Security Department’s immigration database, a request the federal government sensibly refused. Then, a few weeks ago, the state pressed the Department of Motor Vehicles into comparing the voter rolls to its list of driver’s licenses, which often has out-of-date citizenship information. It came up with nearly 2,700 voters considered suspicious and sent them letters demanding that they produce proof of citizenship within 30 days if they wanted to vote.

The Miami Herald explored the data and found that it is discriminatory.

Miami-Dade is the state’s most-populous county and has the largest foreign-born population. As a result, its residents are most likely to be flagged in a sweep of potential noncitizens.

Hispanics are the state’s largest immigrant group. As a result, they account for 58 percent of those flagged as potential noncitizens, a Miami Herald analysis found. Hispanics make up 13 percent of the state’s 11.3 million active registered voters.

Independent voters and Democrats are the most likely to face being purged from rolls. Republicans and non-Hispanic whites — the backbone of the Republican Party — are the least likely to face removal.

The Justice Department has stepped in.

The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered Florida to halt its effort to purge noncitizens from the voter rolls.

The Justice Department says that Florida's effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which governs voter purges.

But, Republicans in Florida are determined to continue, despite opposition in every county.

Despite the warning, [Florida Secretary of State] Detzner's representative said on Saturday the state intends to go forward with its campaign. "We have a year-round obligation to ensure the integrity of Florida's elections. We will be responding to (the Justice Department's) concerns next week," Chris Cate wrote in an email to Reuters.

While Florida's state officials continue to champion the plan, its 67 county election supervisors said Friday they will discontinue the effort to purge voters.

Vicki Davis, a Martin County elections supervisor who is also president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, told the Palm Beach Post they believe the state data is flawed and that they intend to heed the Justice Department's warning. "There are just too many variables with this entire process at this time for supervisors to continue," Davis said.

Florida is too close for the Republicans to risk a fair election.  This is far from the only place where dirty tricks may sway elections.  Tuesday's recall election in Wisconsin will feature Republican attempts to prevent fraud at predominately Democratic voting locations.

[Wisconsin] Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen plans to dispatch criminal investigators and lawyers to the polls during Tuesday's recall elections to discourage fraud.

Van Hollen, a Republican, plans to deploy teams of special agents and assistant attorney generals across the state, including dispersing seven groups to the polls in Democratic-leaning Milwaukee. He said the agents and attorneys will help local election officials ensure voters comply with state election laws.

When there is real voter fraud, it must be stopped.  Being a minority or not having a driver's license or birth certificate does not constitute fraud.  These attempts to prevent American citizens from voting, these dirty tricks, are unAmerican.

3 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings article.
14 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
6 November, FollowUp 3.
14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
8 March 2012, FollowUp 6.
2 April 2012, FollowUp 7.

Repudiation: ProLifeCon

A short history of legal action around the medical condition of Terri Schiavo

In 2005, following an extended legal battle in the state of Florida, then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, himself a surgeon specializing in heart transplants, and his fellow Republicans endeavored to extend the life of Terri Schiavo.   The problem was that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistant vegetative state (PVS).  Three years after that diagnosis, after repeated efforts with various treatments, Michael Schiavo asked the hospital to stop resuscitating his wife.  Ms. Schiavo's parents objected and sued.

For details of Ms. Schiavo's medical condition, see the New England Journal of Medicine.  The bottom line is that she was PVS.  Her brain, following too long without oxygen, had atrophied.  Her body functioned in that her heart was still beating and her lungs worked, but she could neither drink nor eat.  In other words, the body was alive but the brain was dead.  If you believe in a soul that is separate from corporal existence, that soul had already rejoined God.

But that did not stop Senator Frist from pushing for legislation, signed later by President Bush, that would move the Schiavo case from Florida state courts to federal courts.  This despite having run the gamut of the Florida appellate system, Mr. Schiavo never losing the right to make end of life decisions for his PVS wife.  Based on a memo from Florida Senator Mel Martinez, many speculated that this was not about real morality but about positioning the Republican Party for the 2008 election cycle.

Dr. Frist gave a speech against terminating the life of Ms. Schiavo on the floor of the Senate.  He was accused of having done a long-distance diagnosis of her condition.  USA Today discussed this along with other points.

Frist, R-Tenn., said in the full Senate that he supported what he called "an opportunity to save Mrs. Schiavo's life." A heart surgeon, Frist had viewed video ordered by a court and taken by a board-certified neurologist who had concluded she was not in a persistent vegetative state.

So, while Dr. Frist did not conduct the diagnosis himself, he was supporting a long-distance diagnosis that reached the opposite conclusion of the the team of doctors caring for Ms. Schiavo.  Still dubious, but not quite as horrible as the allegation that he was diagnosing long distance in a field in which he did not specialize.

Later, Sen. Frist opined on the case (still from the USA Today article).

Asked on NBC's Meet the Press if he had any regrets regarding the Schiavo case, Frist said: "Well, I'll tell you what I learned from it, which is obvious. The American people don't want you involved in these decisions."

So, the government should not be second guessing doctors and state courts.

ProLifeCon

On Monday 23 January 2012, as part of the protest events around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Family Research Council (FRC), mostly known for the anti-equality stand on homosexuals, is hosting ProLifeCon, a rally of pro-life activists.  FRC boasts that one of those featured will be Collin Raye, a singer and the spokesman for the Terri Schaivo Life & Hope Network.

It is bizarre that the Terri Schaivo Life & Hope Network exists in complete denial of Ms. Schiavo's PVS condition.  Now the FRC, who regularly lie about homosexuality in pursuit of continuing the denial of equality to the LGBTQ Community, welcome those who lie about a past medical condition to protest a Supreme Court decision that helps keep abortion rates low.

Protesting Roe v Wade is counterproductive to those who want fewer abortions, but it does raise a lot of money for the organizations coordinating the protests.  The Washington Post ran an opinion piece on 17 January.

The annual carnival in Washington around the Jan. 22 anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision (Happy 39th, Roe!) has become more farcical with each repetition. As technology and state-policy changes make the landmark case less important, anniversary observances have devolved into fact-free spectacles that have less to do with abortion than with raising money for advocacy groups on both sides.

I don't mind if religions choose to preach almost anything in their sanctuaries.  They are welcome to call me a terrible person and damn me to hell if they so choose.  I do object to their endeavor to inflict their belief system on the rest of us.

Let's face it, a zygote and an early embryo are each alive in the same sense that Ms. Schiavo was in her PVS.  The flesh is alive, but no one is home.  In the first two, the spirit has not yet been breathed into the body.

Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  Genesis 2 : 7.

In the latter case, the spirit had departed years before the body was allowed to stop.  If someone objects to an abortion, they should not have an abortion.  If someone does not want their spouses body to stop breathing despite being in a PVS, they should be allowed to pay for continued care.  But the laws should not be suited to just that particular religious view of life.

Praise: Diane Feinstein, Jerrold Nadler, and the Respect for Marriage Act

The effort to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) from 1996 has been slowly gaining momentum.  On 15 March 2011, California Senator Feinstein introduced the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) to do so.  At this time, she has thirty co-sponsors (twenty-nine Democrats and one Independent).

Respect for Marriage Act of 2011 - Amends the Defense of Marriage Act to repeal a provision that prohibited a state, territory, possession, or Indian tribe from being required to recognize any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a same sex marriage.

Amends the federal rules of construction added by such Act concerning the definitions of "marriage" and "spouse" to provide that, for purposes of any federal law in which marital status is a factor, an individual shall be considered married if that individual's marriage is valid in the state where the marriage was entered into or, in the case of a marriage entered into outside any state, if the marriage is valid in the place where entered into and the marriage could have been entered into in a state. Removes the definition of "spouse" (currently, a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife).

The news this week is that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, who once voted for DOMA, is now supporting RFMA.  Sadly, it does not matter if this is voted on in the Senate as it is languishing in the House.

Since New York Representative Nadler introduced the RFMA in the House of Representatives, he gained 134 co-sponsors (133 Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida).  It has been sent to the sub-committee on the Constitution where it is likely to stay until it is re-introduced in a future Congress.

Repudiation: Personhood Amendments

It would have been difficult to miss the news from Tuesday that Mississippi's Personhood Amendment failed at the polls.  It failed by a considerable margin and many think that the issue is now over and done.  That is, many who are outside the anti-abortion movement.

There are national and state-based efforts to get Personhood Amendments (the plural in the title was not a typo) like Mississippi's Initiative 26 in states including Nevada in 2014, Alabama perhaps in 2012, Ohio in 2012, Florida in 2012, Wisconsin in 2012, and more being pushed by a national organization based in Colorado.  It isn't over.

There are a few reasons that this is a bad idea.  The science behind the Personhood Amendments is wrong and the theology is flawed.

The Personhood Amendment does not allow for any abortions, including those needed for medical reasons.  So, a woman with an ectopic pregnancy would be prohibited from getting the medical care that she needs to save her life.  In other words, the attempt to prevent her from aborting a doomed zygote (by definition, there is a conception resulting in a zygote, but not a properly implanted embryo) would not save the zygote but would kill the woman.

The Personhood Amendment does not allow for hormonal contraceptives (such as "the pill"), as these allow for two cells to join before washing them out of the woman's system.  The most common forms of birth control would be outlawed.

A woman who is raped and conceives would be forced to carry and give birth to the child of her rapist.  In a sense, she would be raped a second time and not be allowed to leave the rape behind her short of giving the child that she did not choose away for adoption.

Aside from those very real issues, there is a theological dichotomy between religions that should have these Personhood Amendments fail as unconstitutional because of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  There is no agreement as to when a cluster of cells becomes a person.

Those in the anti-abortion movement claim that as soon as the sperm and ova combine, there is a human person deserving of all rights of any citizen.  They base this claim not upon science but upon the Bible.  In particular, Psalm 139:16 speaks of how God knew David while his body was unformed.  They interpret this to mean that the spirit is formed immediately upon creation of the zygote.  An alternate interpretation is that the spirit, separate from the physical body, is known by God long before it is part of any human flesh.

Similarly, Jeremiah 1:4-5 talks of how God knew Jeremiah before he was in the womb.  Note, this does not mean in the womb, but prior to conception.

There are additional passages in the Prophetical Writings that have a similar vein.  In Judaism, these are not part of the Bible.  These are written by humans, not by God.

The writings of God, for Jews, consist of exactly five scrolls or books.  The germane verse is Genesis 2:7, where God breathed the spirit into Adam.  The spirit is associated with birth, not with conception.  The two Hebrew words that may help understand this distinction are ruach and nephesh.  The Christians think of the soul in terms of ruach.  The Jews think of the spirit in terms of nephesh.  Click on the links for some details.

The debate is also fueled by the first commandment in Genesis 1:28, where God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply.  We have done so.  Their descendents include more than seven billion alive today.  We exceed the number of stars that can be seen with the naked eye.  We exceed the number that our planet can sustain without environmental degradation.

The point is that the Personhood Amendment is based on dangerous theories that may harm the lives of women.  It is based on religious dogma that is not universal.  And those who want to see this pass are not about to stop trying.

4 December 2011, FollowUp 1.

19 January 2012, FollowUp 2.

FollowUp 3: Voting Rights

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported on 23 October that New Smyrna Beach High School teacher Jill Cicciarelli may be fined thousands of dollars for helping students legally register to vote.

Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida's new and controversial election law. 

Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours. The law also reduces the time for early voting from 14 days to eight and requires voters who want to give a new address at the polls to use a provisional ballot.

At least the school is not upset with her.

For the students involved in the voter registration drive, the incident has proven an unsolicited lesson in real-life civics, New Smyrna Beach High Principal Jim Tager said. 

"You're talking about a high-energy teacher who cares about her kids, cares about her community and cares about her country," he said. "We want to do things by the rules. We just didn't know about these. In the end, I think this has become a good real-life lesson."

What is upsetting is that this law is limiting the ability of educators to empower their students.  To deny those who are legally entitled to vote the easy opportunity to do so is unAmerican.  Thanks to Care2.

3 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings article.
14 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.

14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
8 March 2012, FollowUp 6.
2 April 2012, FollowUp 7.
3 June 2012, FollowUp 8.

FollowUp 1: Voting Rights

As I wrote a week and a half ago, Republicans appear to be determined to make it more difficult to vote.  This week there are two interesting developments, one in Florida and the other in Wisconsin.  Florida is suing to remove Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the section that requires preclearance of changes to voting rules in parts of the country with a history of suppression of voting rights of minorities.  Wisconsin is considering changing how it participates in the Electoral College.

The Miami Herald reports that Florida Republicans are upset that the Justice Department did not allow four of the measures that they had tried to enact.

Those four sections reduce the number of early voting days, slap new requirements on groups conducting voter registration drives, require voters changing out-of-county addresses at the polls to cast provisional ballots and make it more difficult to get citizen initiatives on the ballot.

Only one of these measures has anything to do with preventing fraudulent voting, that being provisional ballots for those who have recently moved.  The other three measures just limit democracy.  The ACLU has a stronger opinion.  According to an article on Care2, the SCOTUS under Chief Justice Roberts is eager to take an activist stance and undo Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Like Pennsylvania, the Wisconsin legislature is considering a bill to change from having a state majority determine the Wisconsin delegates to the Electoral College to having the delegates selected by Congressional district.  This would mean that the state would offer a split vote for President instead of a majority takes all vote.  Think Progress considers this to be a strictly partisan maneuver to limit President Obama to one term.

On general principle, I think that the Electoral College is a relic of days gone by that should be reconsidered.  It is not difficult to argue that the Electoral College denies representative democracy for the Executive branch of United States government.  Chopping away at it on a state by state basis is partisan and, if done, likely to favor the other party in a subsequent election.  If the Electoral College is to be changed or eliminated, it should be done for the entire country, not on a piecemeal basis.

3 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings article.

22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
6 November, FollowUp 3.
14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
8 March 2012, FollowUp 6.
2 April 2012, FollowUp 7.
3 June 2012, FollowUp 8.

Repudiation: Wolf Killers, Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife

This is not a fantasy tale of werewolves or something fun.  There are only fourteen wolves in the state of Oregon.  Those fourteen are about to drop to twelve, including the planned murder of the pack leader.

It is not easy to defend wolves.  Our society has a long history of vilifying the wolf.  The Brothers Grimm always had the wolf as the murderer.  We fear for our pets, our children, and our livestock if there are any wolves in a very wide vicinity.

Let's clear up some of the myths.  Wolves are very good at culling the weak and the elderly from wild herds of deer and other smaller animals.  They do not kill for sport or because an outer garment is a nice shade of red.  Wolves are an endangered species because, in our irrational fear, we have hunted them to near extinction.  Since being placed on the Endangered Species List, wolves have made somewhat of a comeback.  Still, we prefer to bring in sharp shooters to control deer populations than risk living with wolves within a hundred miles of us.  Wolves do not prefer human prey.  As scary as they are, wolves fear us even more than we fear them.  Wolves do not tend to spread diseases.

There are more myths out there.  Learn more about wolves from National Geographic, the International Wolf Center, Western Wolves, and Defenders of Wildlife.  While these are wild and sometimes dangerous animals, we do not have to live in terror of them.

For the moment, the hunt is on hold by court order.  That order may be lifted soon.  The Center for Biological Diversity is seeking help to stop the hunt.

The fewer species that we have on our planet, the thinner the web of life that supports and sustains us.  We need to stop wiping out species.  The latest Department of the Interior Report on Endangered or Threatened Wildlife and Plants in the Federal Register notes on its next to last page the loss of two more species in Florida:

Florida Fairy Shrimp and South Florida Rainbow Snake

Because the information presented by petitioners as well as information in our files suggests that the species are already extinct, they do not meet the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species under the Act (section 3(6) and 3(20), respectively). Therefore, an analysis of the five threat factors was not appropriate.

Political Landscape: Voting Rights

The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law has published a review of Voting Law Changes in 2012.  These changes restrict voting rights for millions of citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote.  The entire sixty-four page document is worth reading.  Here are a few highlights of types of changes and my opinions.

1.  Photo ID laws.  The idea of requiring a government issued photo ID in order to vote makes sense on a gut level.  No one wants voter fraud and showing your id would decrease the likelihood of fraud.  The Brennan Center has a study that indicates that there is little voter fraud in the United States.  Is there another view?  Of course, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners believes that the numbers are much higher in an article they published in 2006.  There are many other studies out there (Google it).

My opinion:  a picture ID is a reasonable requirement only if it is reasonably easy to obtain and free; to do otherwise is a new poll tax.  In Alabama, US Representative Sewell is concerned about people's ability to get to a location where they can get the new ID.  In Kansas, the ACLU is concerned about residents born out of state acquiring valid birth certificates in order to qualify for the new ID.  Rhode Island is different among these states in that any official Rhode Island or federal photo ID is good.  In South Carolina, the new ID requirement may cost hundreds of thousands the opportunity to work; twenty-five were given free rides to acquire their ID.  There is concern in Tennessee about the elderly being able to vote.  In Texas, the voter ID law is being challenged because it may be discriminatory to minorities.  In Wisconsin, the DMV is charging $28 for the new voter ID unless people happen to know to request that it be free.

It does not look like these are all being implemented in a fashion that is free and fair.  Again, I favor requiring a photo ID for voting ... as long as it can be easily obtained by those entitled to vote and that it not be a new poll tax.

2.  Proof of Citizenship laws.  As with photo ID, this makes sense on a gut level.

My opinion:  the problems with these laws are the same as those for photo ID.  In Alabama this slows down automobile licensing and eventually voting.  Republicans feel this enhances the integrity of voting in Kansas.  There are concerns in Tennessee about ambiguous requirements.

3.  Making voter registration harder.  Maine removed same day registration to vote.  Ohio removed same week registration to vote.  Florida and Texas are restricting voter registration drives.  Florida and Wisconsin are changing requirements to vote after moving.

My opinions:  Same day voting sounds problematic at the gut level.  However, we have citizens who are legally entitled to vote whose jobs keep them on the road.  We have ex-patriots who return to the United States for the purpose of voting (or vote using an absentee ballot) all legally.  Requiring them to stay in town for extended periods could be a hardship ... and unfair burden.  There have been experiments with provisional ballots that make more sense than restricting registration.

Restricting registration drives does not make sense.  It simply doesn't.  The principle of one person - one vote (originally one man - one vote) has long been enshrined as a hallmark of American democracy.  Unlike requiring a photo ID, this limits new voters only.  It is partisan and flatly unAmerican.

Similarly, restricting eligibility to vote based on moving does not make sense.  If moving means that there is a need to double check and make sure that the voter is not voting twice, then use provisional ballots until there is verification.  Don't stop people from legally voting.

4.  Reducing early and absentee voting.  I have mixed feelings here.  Eliminating the option for either early or absentee voting would be wrong.  Limiting it depends upon the details.

Florida's early voting has more hours for eight days with extended hours instead of fourteen days.  Georgia is cutting back from forty-five days to twenty-one days but adding a Saturday.  Ohio's new restrictions in early voting appear to be on hold.  Tennessee and West Virginia have tightened their schedules as well.  Early voting for all states is on-line at long distance voter.

5.  The most controversial of the laws, Florida and Iowa have made it more difficult, if not impossible, for ex-cons to regain their voting rights.  While ex-cons are always uncomfortable to discuss, these are citizens who have already paid their dues to society for their crimes and have been allowed to rejoin society.  Never allowing them to become full citizens again seems wrong.

Conclusion:  While photo IDs may be implemented as a reasonable requirement to vote, I question them way many states are doing so, particularly Wisconsin with its "free if you are in the know" IDs.  The governors and legislatures enacting these laws claimed that their goals were to reduce taxes and increase jobs.  Restricting voting does neither.  Most of these restrictions appear to have the goal of disenfranchising new eligible voters.  Limiting access for those who are legally entitled to vote is unAmerican. 

More changes may be in the works.  Governing the States and Localities has an interesting take on the future of voting regulations.

14 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
6 November, FollowUp 3.
14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
8 March 2012, FollowUp 6.
2 April 2012, FollowUp 7.
3 June 2012, FollowUp 8.