We talked about Judge Posner’s admission that he made a mistake in the Indiana voter ID case – that case cleared the way for the voter suppression efforts we’re now seeing all over the country.
Posner’s admitting a mistake is a big deal in voting rights circles because he’s a very high-profile conservative and his owning up takes away one more fig leaf for these laws. However, Posner blamed the advocate in the case for not presenting enough information. The lawyer who argued the case wrote this in response:
As the lawyer who argued the constitutional challenge to the Indiana Voter ID law in the Supreme Court in 2008, I was both fascinated and pleased to hear that Judge Richard Posner – the author of the Seventh Circuit majority opinion affirmed by the Supreme Courtin Crawford v. Marion County Elections Board – has now publicly stated that he was wrong. It is refreshing, if not unprecedented, for a jurist to admit error on such a major case.
I was a little less pleased to see that he attempted to excuse his error by blaming the parties for not providing sufficient information to the court. As he put it in an interview quoted in the New York Times, weren’t given the information that would enable that balance to be struck between preventing fraud and protecting voters’ rights.” Really? The information provided was enough for the late Judge Terence Evans, dissenting from Judge Posner’s decision, to say quite accurately: “Let’s not beat around the bush: The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by folks believed to skew Democratic.”
There had never been a single known incident of in-person voter impersonation fraud in the history of Indiana and there have been precious few nationally – yet the Indiana law targeted only in-person voting. The law was passed immediately after Republicans took complete control of the legislature and governorship of the State of Indiana.
Every Republican legislator supported the law, while every Democratic legislator opposed it.Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, the primary supporter of the bill, himself stated that there are certain “groups of voters for whom compliance with [the Voter ID law] may be difficult” because they are “registered voters who do not possess photo identification; who may have difficulty understanding what the new law requires of them; or who do not have the means necessary obtain photo identification.” As examples he mentioned “elderly voters, indigent voters, voters with disabilities, first-time voters, [and] re-enfranchised ex-felons.” Moreover, the district court had conservatively estimated that there were 43,000 voting-age Indianans without a state-issued driver’s license or identification card, and that nearly three-quarters of them were in Marion County, which includes Indianapolis. In other words, the persons most likely to be affected were poor and minority residents in the state’s largest city, who tended to vote Democratic and lived in a city that was trending Democratic.
And by the time of the Seventh Circuit ruling, the facts also showed that following passage of the Voter ID law, voter turnout in Marion County in the 2006 midterm general election had fallen significantly, relative to turnout in the rest of the state, as compared to the 2002 midterm general election that preceded the passage of the Voter ID law. In 2002 Marion County turnout was only three percentage points lower than turnout in the rest of the state. In 2006, the gap rose to eight percentage points.
But the unfortunate approval of the Indiana law that the Seventh Circuit provided cannot fairly be blamed on how the case was litigated. As Judge Posner now recognizes, voter ID laws are “widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.” But Judge Posner’s dissenting colleagues recognized that all along.
Wrongfully denying people the right to vote creates a real conundrum. The targeted voters can’t throw out the politicians who passed the laws because they can’t vote as a result of the laws. In that way, voting laws and restrictions are unlike other legislation, say, a law like Obamacare.
We really can’t allow elected politicians to put in election laws that protect them from the political repercussions of the election laws they put in.
On the other hand, this might be another dumb strategy. The GOP voter suppression efforts in 2012 drove up turnout among Democrats. Florida voters were downright inspiring in their absolute determination to get around the mix of incompetence and malice with which their state chose to administer an election.
Villago Delenda Est
So, pray tell, what is Posner going to do about his “mistake”? Apparently SOME of the judges on the 7th Circuit were paying attention…the ones who dissented from the majority opinion, but not Richard Posner, sooper genious.
My suggestion to Posner is that he find a second and do the honorable thing.
Oh, wait. He’s a Rethuglican. They have no honor.
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
It does help, though. The thing about the voter ID laws is, they go in and then they are tightened up. We’ve seen it again and again and again. It would be one thing if conservatives claimed there was a problem and they needed to fix it, but they don’t stop. They get one in and then go for round two. There’s no logical end to the efforts to “prevent voter impersonation fraud” because there wasn’t any grounding in fact to begin with.
Looking at the progress of the laws, one can’t help but think they’re putting one in, holding an election, looking at precinct turn out and then putting additional restrictions in. We just saw it with the new push to limit early voting. They put in early voting, Democrats turned it into a GOTV organizing tool, and all of a sudden early voting is under attack. Latino’s began to be a real political force in local and state elections. Now all of a sudden there’s a huge fraud problem with non-citizen voting, and we need a two-tier voting system. I mean, these laws are so clearly IN RESPONSE to GOP losses.
schrodinger's cat
Kay@top
How many states now have these Voter ID laws on the books now?
Burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh, come on.
What would you like him to do?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
It’s not even very thinly veiled. Of course, it’s difficult to get effective redress in the courts, given that so many are stacked with Federalist Society jurists. Aka IGMFY, legal division.
These fuckers can play the long game more effectively that any group I’ve ever seen. Ultimately they will lose, but it will be hell getting to that point. As we’re seeing.
Thanks for all the great posts on the topic Kay.
schrodinger's cat
@Burnspbesq: The least he can do is not blame others for his own mistake.
schrodinger's cat
OT for this post but on topic because it is Caturday. New weapon in the NSA arsenal?
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think it’s 36. Again, it’s not the first law. It’s that they change them constantly and tighten them constantly.
The Ohio law was a huge fight. Democrats had some power in the statehouse when it went in, and they got a lot of reasonable mitigation efforts in; things like allowing a utility bill as ID, like that. Still, with all that, I was a pollworker in the election following the law and it was a mess. It takes a while for even well-intentioned people to understand how the rules work when you’re dealing with real people.
Republicans in the statehouse try to tighten it up every session. You really get the feeling they’re trying to hit a number.
Elizabelle
Kay: what do you think about this? In Virginia, GOP-led Board of Elections cobbled together a list of 57,000 voters allegedly registered in other states as well; BoE left it to county registrars to remove or retain the voters. About 40,000 were ditched, depending on locality. That would seem to be unequal treatment.
While Democrats argued underlying list was inaccurate,
Virginia is a mobile state, with so many military and government employees.
And this is being done hastily, three weeks before Election Day, when the GOP ticket is down in polls.
The judge ruled there would be no “irreparable harm”, since the stricken voters could vote a provisional ballot.
It would be interesting to have someone spotcheck the underlying list. Is it accurate or not?
Virginia Democrats have not announced whether or not they will appeal.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
You and I can see that at a glance. WTF was Posner’s problem, other than he understood precisely that going in and compromised his intellectual integrity anyways?
He needs to atone for this. I don’t know how, but weaseling out of his own responsibility for that decision because one of the lawyers arguing against that law didn’t step up to the bench and slap him around like a red-headed stepchild to see reality isn’t going to cut it.
Personal responsibility, my ass. No excuses, Posner. Own up to your failure. Admit your error and THEN take positive action to do something about it with NO FUCKING EXCUSES.
raven
go dawgs
Mark S.
@schrodinger’s cat:
No kidding. Maybe Posner needs to spend less time writing books about how Bush v Gore was correctly decided and more time doing his fucking day job.
Chris
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
If I can go off on a tangent for a sec – why do they call themselves “the Federalist Society?” Is it just a pretty, old-fashioned name with a Time Of The Founding Fathers vibe and no more meaning than that? Or is there actually something about Federalist Party ideology that they’re trying to reference, and if so what is it?
Botsplainer
I prefer the idea of second amendment solutions being employed against pasty faced, pudgy poll challengers on Election Day.
Drill a few with a round in the forehead, and this shit stops.
gene108
I wonder, if Judge Posner realizes that the Jim Crow South persisted for as long as it did because of laws that restricted the African-American franchise?
Plenty of places in the Old South had majority African-American areas, prior to the Great Migration.
To be compliant with the 15th Amendment, the laws couldn’t say “niggers can’t vote”, but in effect they amounted to the same thing, such as literacy tests and poll taxes and a racist complicit court system – including the Supreme Court of the United States (the one that approved “separate but equal’ in Plessy v Ferguson) – enabling the disenfranchisement
I have a hard time believing any judge really has such a clueless grasp of history and how the 15th Amendment has been deliberately shitted on, in the history of this country, that they could not comprehend that politicians would pass laws to restrict people’s access to vote, in order to preserve power.
Hell, we don’t even need to go back to “ancient history”. The voter purge in Florida, in the 2000 election, showed politicians willing to disenfranchise voters to give their candidate a punchers chance at a win.
Posner is just covering his ass after he got to make sure the conservative agenda advances, sort of like Sandra O’Connor’s mea culpa on Bush v Gore. The fucker Posner’s a regular at the Federalist Society, which was set up to push right-wing jurists into the folds of the larger conservative movement and push a unified conservative ideology onto the courts to forward the conservative cause.
He knew what he was doing and he’s glad he did it.
Fuck his crocodile tears.
gene108
@Chris:
Why did the first right-wing think get named The Heritage Foundation? Something about that era of movement conservatives that seemed to want to invoke an old-timey vibe.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
It’s like “National Socialism”. It’s a marketing tool.
schrodinger's cat
@Villago Delenda Est: They are tools, alright.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
This guy is Federalist Society. They hate the Enlightenment itself, and want it to be repealed.
batgirl
Hasn’t Posner been doing the “oops, I was wrong” a lot lately? Fuck him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
They had better.
This shit needs to stop, NOW. If it doesn’t, the consequences are unthinkable. As John Kennedy once said, if you don’t allow for peaceful change, you’re going to have violent change.
smintheus
Posner’s mea minime culpa was pure BS. He knew damned well that there were no examples of voter impersonation. Thus the law was fixing nothing. He knew it would create obstacles for other voters, and he argued them away. Basically, his pov was that any voter too lazy to get an ID didn’t really want to vote at all.
It was an arrogant, mean-spirited, undemocratic opinion in defense of an arrogant, mean-spirited, undemocratic law.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Go Fighting Fashion Nightmares in pink helmets!
gene108
@Elizabelle:
In 2008 or 2012, my mom in North Carolina, got a GOTV’er at her door asking if I was planning on voting because I was registered to vote but hadn’t since 1996. I moved out in 1996, but my mom was still getting my voter card for a long time.
I theoretically could’ve voted twice. I’d get up really early and vote in NJ. Then hop in my car and drive to NC and vote again.
The fact it’d be a pain in the ass to pull off and have minimal impact on any election, not withstanding, I was registered to vote in two states for a looooooong time.
(a) People move and don’t get removed from the voter rolls in the old state and (b) it has an immaterial impact on elections.
For whatever reason, people who vote seem to be fairly honest about the process and don’t impersonate others and don’t try to vote twice.
eemom
As I’ve said before, Posner is very likely the most arrogant asshole to ever put on a black robe. The guy literally thinks he’s God.
So of course he’s not going to unqualifiedly admit he was wrong…..and there is literally nothing he can do to undo it at this point. Nevertheless, as Kay says, it’s still a huge deal that he said what he said.
JGabriel
@Burnspbesq:
Well, I can’t speak for Villago, but my first choice would be for Posner to reverse his decision. But since it’s not possible for Posner to go back and change it at this point, would it be impolite to suggest he commit hara-kari instead?
hildebrand
While I appreciate Posner admitting he screwed up, the admission feels completely hollow. Unless he plans to try to figure out how to undo his catastrophically bad decision, its simply a way for him to try to sleep better at night. He sleeps better, the country is still screwed. Yep, sounds like a Republican to me.
schrodinger's cat
@eemom: Should we give him a cookie for figuring out the obvious.
aimai
I’ve always hated Posner and his law and econ shtick but people seem to like him personally. Every time I’ve let my guard down and thought “maybe the guy has some redeeming qualities” he (and his party) just hit the floor and keep on falling. The original decision was bad enough but the reconsideration, blaming the lawyers for not arguing the case forcefully enough, is just the lowest form of intellectual dishonesty. Better to keep silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it really applies in this case.
gene108
@Kay:
What scares me is the fact Scalia and Kennedy are only in the their mid-70’s, about the same age as Brier, and therefore will be on the court for 10-20 years. Thomas is in his 60’s and will probably be on the court for another 20-30 years.
Ginsburg’s 80 and has cancer and she ain’t quitting.
We have to win Presidential elections all the way through 2024 to have a shot at replacing Scalia or Kennedy and probably will have to win in 2028 before those two get old enough to even think about retiring.
aimai
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t know the particulars of the case but the truth is that a purge of voters from a previous set of voter rolls may be moot at this point. The question is what is happening with the current voter rolls and current voters. Between the time the 48,000 were purged and now a whole lot of people may have moved and re-registered. That kind of movement happens all the time and that is why we have regular voter registration purges–here if you don’t answer your census form (local one) you can be bounced off the voter rolls because its presumed you no longer live at the address they have for you. I’d be curious to see what the issue going forward is in Virginia–another law suit might not be as relevant to voter registration now for the next round as you think.
smintheus
That would be minima culpa.
@hildebrand The thing is he didn’t admit he screwed up. He said he ruled based on the facts as presented and as known at the time. If true, then he’d have been well within reason to reject the argument that the law would be discriminatory. But he’s lying. The facts were known, and he argued around them.
gene108
@Burnspbesq:
Admit he’s in over his head and retire, thus allowing Obama to have a puncher’s chance of getting a nominee through the Senate to replace him.
schrodinger's cat
BTW who is this Posner person, not being a legal eagle I have no idea. Sully usually quotes him approvingly? In addition to being a judge is he a faux intellectual with a conservative agenda?
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel:
That’s why I suggested he find a second. To finish the job.
WereBear
Damn straight! They are the Party of Cheating.
Anoniminous
O/T
Somebody please tell me this is a joke.
Because if it’s was meant seriously I’m going to go out into the yard and hit myself in the head with a shovel.
scav
@Anoniminous: Well, if the Spirit moves you, one can only imagine the moves.
ETA we can also now better understand why they hand out those reeeeeeeaaaaaallllllly tiny green bibles free on college campuses.
PurpleGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: You had the right idea to begin with. I’d be quite satisfied with an act of seppu ku on his part and on the part of any number of rethuglicans. Personal responsibility and shame is definitely something they could learn from the Japanese.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think there’s a lot of confusion on cleaning up voter rolls and that has given conservatives an opening to purge too aggressively. You’re right with “mobile state” and the fact is very few voters remove themselves from one state’s list before they add their name to the new state list. I did it for my daughter (took her off OH because she’s on PA) and they had to look for the form at the BOE. No one does it. I’ve never done in any of the states where I voted and then moved.
But it gets reported as evidence of fraud. It’s crazily over the top : “dead people voting!”
So states always used a lot of caution removing people, they let them drop off after “inactivity”, and now we’ll see aggressive and politically motivated purges because they’re not making the distinction between registration and actually voting clear. They’re two different things.
It drives me crazy because the people writing the “dead people voting” articles in newspapers VOTE. It’s not like they have to study the state statute. This isn’t an obscure state recording process that very few use. All they have to do is walk thru HOW they, personally, vote. Does registering to vote mean “voting”? Of course not.
smintheus
@schrodinger’s cat: Posner is the @ss hole who wrote Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a time of National Emergency. You can just imagine from the title alone what delightful arguments it advanced. Basically, liberals shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads about civil liberties abuses. The Constitution permits basic rights to be nullified as soon as somebody is accused of terrorism. In other words, Posner’s a wanker.
schrodinger's cat
Stupid Question: Why not just have a National Election Commission and have the same rules across all the states so a fiasco like Florida doesn’t happen.
Chris
@gene108:
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh, I was sure “old timey vibe” and “marketing tool” were a big part of it. I was just wondering if there was anything more to it than that (why would you choose “Federalist” and not the rival “Jeffersonian,” for example, which is just as old timey and even more recognizable and Founding-Father-y, for example?) But I suppose that’s giving them credit for too much historical knowledge. They probably just put up a list of eighteenth century political terms, threw a dart at it and went with whatever word it landed on.
Chris
@WereBear:
I’ve always found it funny that electoral “cheating” when done by conservatives invariably means stopping people from voting who are entitled to it (too many examples to list), whereas when we supposedly do it, it’s always stereotyped as stuffing ballot boxes with more votes than should be allowed to be there (e.g. Chicago Graveyards for Daley, etc).
They want to restrict voting, we want to expand it… and going by the stereotypes, apparently, we can’t get away from that basic disagreement even when we’re both cheating.
ETA: and yes, I know the ballot stuffing thing is hugely overblown and practically nonexistent nowadays.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Why call themselves Federalist when they are more states-rightist. Probably has something to do with the Federalist Papers.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
“State’s Rights!” “Big Government Overreach”! “No respect for local custom!” “Darkies might actually be voting!”
Elizabelle
@gene108:
@Kay:
I lived for two years in California. The first year, I requested an absentee ballot from Virginia. I was a Virginian, living in California, temporarily at the time. I stayed, though, and the second year, I registered in California and voted there, as a resident. (For Governor Jerry Brown. Woo hoo!)
When I moved back to Virginia, I was surprised to find that I did not have to re-register — I was still on the Virginia rolls.
We are a mobile society. Canvassing, I have found young adults listed at their parents’ addresses. Their folks tell me the son is registered and voting in Pennsylvania, where he is in college. The daughter is in Maryland … and who knows what she’s doing? But she’s just in Maryland for the year; very likely to come back to VA for grad school.
This does not mean that ANY of us are voting in the same election in different states or jurisdictions. It’s just that voting registration does not update automatically, or rapidly.
Which is good, because people do flow from state to state and return, as well.
Mike E
Methinks he doth complain too little. Check’s in the mail.
Baud
I think that during the W. years Posner was angling for a Supreme Court appointment. He’s not a liberal by any means, but I think he was probably trying to act especially conservative during that time.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree we should have a National Election Commission for federal elections.
It’s time. The localities are not handling it that well, and a uniform standard that can be enforced by the DOJ would be great.
States should not have the right to fuck with a federal election and launch the candidate who got less votes — by a wide margin — into the White House.
(Looking at you, Florida. Although that whole kerfuffle could not have happened had Palm Beach Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore not rolled out a “butterfly ballot” that was confusing to voters. 20,000 votes lost, and no remedy. Al Gore could have won that state without the damn Palm Beach ballot. Katherine Harris would not have had a chicken to dance with.)
wiki:
I did not know they’d had a similar problem in 1996. It’s just that Clinton v Dole was not close. Whoa.
All the more reason for federal oversight of federal elections.
JGabriel
@schrodinger’s cat:
That’s the perfect Jeopardy! question to the answer “Richard Posner”. Tell our contestant what she’s won, Don Pardo!
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I wish they would just re-purpose the Post Office and make it the national voter registration agency.
We have this huge really good system for recording names and addresses with an outpost in every town and the postal service already know how to do this. They’re good at it! They’ve had 150 years of practicing name + address+ moving. Why we have to do a half-ass replica in every county is beyond me.
States can keep voting. Give registration to the postal service. They can deliver the list of registered voters to the BOE.
Villago Delenda Est
Totally OT, but interesting. Saudi Arabia was elected to the UN Security Council, but announced it will decline the seat, citing the UN’s inability to resolve the Syrian civil war as its primary reason.
The Wahaabist assholes are lying, of course.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
The Post Office is a great idea.
Although I still worry about localities and ballot boxes.
The Post Office would not have prevented a Palm Beach butterfly ballot.
Full Metal Wingnut
@gene108: If she really felt bad about it, she would’ve retired after the President she helped select left office. I hold her and spineless Senate Democrats responsible for Alito.
Anyway, that sort of mea culpa is worth less than nothing. It’s insulting. As my father used to say to me (far too many times hehe): a day late and a dollar short. Apologize long after the fact, and when you no longer have the power you once did. That sounds more like a mea culpa motivated by the hot breath of the Reaper.
Jay C
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think it is a fundamental Constitutional issue, in that the individual states retain the authority to conduct elections – as has to explained to everyone every four years, even the Presidential/VP election (the only truly “national” one) is an aggregate of state results, the gross popular vote (as in 1888 or 2000) is virtually irrelevant.
OTOH, though: voter-qualification laws DO, IIRC, have to meet certain standards: states can’t, frex, pass a law restricting the vote to white male Christian property-owners (not that some of them wouldn’t try, I’m sure); hence the GOP obsession on the nearly non-existent “problem” of “voter fraud” to pass their restrictive rules: it’s one of the few legal “outs” they have.
PIGL
@Burnspbesq: I think what he has in mind is a slow disemboweling on the steps of some august public building, after which his second cuts his head from off his shoulders.
What do you think is an appropriate punishment for complicity in an attempt to rig all future elections by disenfranchising your political opponents under cover of law? If the plan works, there is no remedy.
dogwood
@schrodinger’s cat:
I never got the sense that Posner was a “faux” intellectual in the vein of Scalia. That’s why he never got a Supreme Court nomination when it was always clear he would be easily confirmed. I think that while republicans admired him and agreed with most of his decisions there was a bit of a fear he might not be hackish enough. While his recent criticisms of the Republican Party and his admission that his decision on Crawford was wrong don’t amount to a hill of beans in the real world, I imagine republicans are relieved he never got the SCOTUS nod.
CarolDuhart2
@Kay: Great idea. It also should be combined with an idea of mine-that the Post Office should be a combination of check cashing, photocopy place, seller of prepaid cards and all around resource place. Think of one-stop shopping for mail, copies, shopping and check cashing.
Baud
@dogwood:
I think the right didn’t trust on social issues, since Posner’s more of a law and econ guy. I can’t recall, but Posner might have even come out as pro-choice.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Right, but the butterfly ballot wouldn’t have mattered if Jeb Bush hadn’t wrongly purged all those AA voters. The tactics in FL started well prior to the butterfly ballot. The ballot was probably the most innocent part of that whole shameful episode. The lying about military ballots and media’s inability to understand or accurately relate how absentee ballots work played a role too.
schrodinger's cat
@dogwood: So he did not pass all their purity tests, got it.
West of the Cascades
@Elizabelle: Regarding the Virginia electoral roll purge … is there any information on how many of those purged were registered Democrats, and how many registered Republicans? I’m assuming that there’s a discrepancy (more of the former), hence the challenge by the Democratic Party, but it’s not clear that would necessarily be the case — i.e., many of the most mobile Virginians are likely to be in the military, which tends to skew Republican.
It sure does seem like the lack of standard methodology for removing voters ought to not be legal (although I mistrust relying on Bush v. Gore), and the timing seems fishy — but I’m curious whether this is a case of the Democratic Party protecting disproportionately Democratic voters, or just trying to ensure good governmental practice?
If it’s mainly the latter, then perhaps it makes sense not to appeal and try to get the law fixed through the legislature after the 2013 elections – with an evenly-divided Senate, Democratic Governor, and likely improved situation for the Democrats in the House of Delegates.
Kay
@CarolDuhart2:
I thought if it as FEDERAL one-stop shopping. First we’d have to federalize registration.
But they could use it as a SS/Medicare/Obamacare portal too. Also, the lists for the FEMA camps :)
They got selective service and passports and no one objected. Those things are pretty important. We gave them to the union thugs without a second thought.
First class mail is down. They already exist. Give them another duty.
Davis X. Machina
@CarolDuhart2: The US Post Office provided basic banking services from 1911 down until the ’60’s.
From the Postal Service’s history section. (PDF)
fuckwit
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s that one.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
One day or night, maybe we could all draft some letters (we could work together here in a thread) and write to our local newspapers and congresscritters with your idea.
I think it’s a good one. Cost effective, experience is there, and in the public interest.
It’s another function to keep in mind the next time the “free trade! Corporations do everything better!” types take another whack at destroying our postal system.
aimai
@Baud: Right. I also think he falls into the category of guys they were happy to have on their masthead when they still entertained the notion that they had some intellectual and moral heft–he really was a well known scholar from top schools. But after the balance of gravity shifted to places like Liberty Law School and the legion of mental pygmies and ignoramuses who began rising to the top of the Republican heap, or filling out the bench (to mix my metaphors) I think Posner, like the Prop 8 lawyers, may have found that they don’t like the company they have been keeping. Its getting a little down and dirty and obvious, even to these guys. Of course at this point the revolution doesn’t need their imprimature, its got Ted Cruz and the Cooch if it wants legal information.
The Pale Scot
Is it possible to locate people who’ve been removed incorrectly and have them sue the state? Make class action and a RICO case because of an ongoing conspiracy.
When I’m in commissar mode I dream of having them arrested for “fascist acts and behaviors” but that’s only when drinking vodka.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
The public interest is the very last thing these aristocrat wannabes want to see served.
It’s why they ignore everything but “invisible hand” in The Wealth of Nations.
“Cost effective” also gets in the way of private profit. BAD!
fuckwit
@Botsplainer: That’s a disgustiing idea. I don’t want any part of wherever you’re going with that. Worse than wrong, it’s wrong-headed. The whole point of voting is to resolve disputes and transition power peacefully. If it turns into a bloodbath then it’s over, and we are all well and truly fucked.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Pale Scot:
I assume there are different grounds for arrest when you drink scotch? Like, for example, being an Englishman wearing a kilt with underwear?
Villago Delenda Est
@fuckwit:
Unless we can fix this peacefully, there will be a bloodbath.
That’s where we’re going with these teatard assholes.
Michael
Posner isn’t a right-wing hack, in fact he’s not nearly as conservative as some are suggesting here. Sure if you cherry pick his most conservative opinions he’ll look that way, but not if you highlight his opinions blasting mandatory minimums, upholding large punitive damages awards against big corporations, or look at his highly-public and contentious grudge match with Scalia (who he quite obviously thinks is a total hack). Posner was more conservative when he’s young but these days I think it’d be more accurate to call him a pragmatist legally.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Michael: Yeah if he were on the Court I suspect he would be more Kennedy than Scalia. Still not desirable but could be worse.
Kay
@Michael:
Tokyokie
@Kay: You’re absolutely right. Just the shenanigans that largely prevented Florida A&M students from voting (enrollment was about 12,000+) was enough to cost Gore the election.
eemom
@Michael:
One issue is that the word “conservative” has lost all actual meaning at this point. It has basically become synonymous with the inconsistent mess of things the far right agitates for, which has zero coherence under any kind of political, intellectual or moral unifying principle. As one who likes for words to have meanings, I wince every time I hear it.
Posner, at least in his earlier years, was a free market ideologue. He’s never been any kind of a hack.
CarolDuhart2
@Kay: I can see that, and I”d include the other stuff as well. It’s not unprecedented. Up until 1998 the Post Office sold Money Orders (I remember paying rent with them). Buy them there, and then promptly place them in a pre-stamped envelope and send them to the recipient while there.
And if you could do all your Federal stuff there too (Social Security, Obamacare, and all the rest), and some coffee and rolls to go with it, and greeting cards…
As for registration-one advantage besides accuracy, is that it would be considered truly non-partisan.
aimai
@CarolDuhart2: One thing we should want, I think, is insta-print ballots, downloadable at point of voting. A huge amount of energy and anger is expended getting the right ballot to the right precinct when we could simply print them on demand. In a rational world I’d like to see voters issued with a one time use card that they could use to debit/print their ballot and vote their ballot. One card, one precinct/ballot, one voter but any computerized voting station. Its ridiculous that people who work should have to take time off work to go vote in place.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
One of these days I really gotta read “Wealth of Nations.”
And the Bible, more methodically. (As literature, if you will.)
I am pretty sure neither book makes the case that “conservatives” (ie radical rightwingers and Christianists) think they make.
PS: One of my brothers in law read the Bible to his kids, in order, at night.
He was amazed at how much “this group was fighting with this group was fighting with this group” was in it.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Elizabelle:
He should be arrested for child abuse. What the fuck?
dogwood
@eemom:
What republicans were so effective at through the 1980’s was linking the term “liberal” to radicalism. Essentially it worked because while the majority of voters didn’t’ always agree with republican policies, their temperament and sensibility were basically conservative. Now, the tables are turning thanks to the tea party.
The Pale Scot
When the choice is Aquavit “it’s a Viking we’ll go”
or Grappa ( a theme to The Godfather earworm)
Bourbon is for Civil War enactments;
Brits never wear kilts, it’s got something to blancmanges I hear.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
You’ll be shocked when you read it.
You’ll see why Marx was inspired by it.
You’ll be amazed that any “conservative” who claims to have read it actually understood it.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
Agree. I got about 60% through it, but it really has little to do with current conservative economics.
rikyrah
I knew you’d be on this Kay.
Thanks for so much for this.
drkrick
@West of the Cascades:
There’s no registration by party in Virginia. If I understand it correctly, when the Dems started getting soft on white supremacy the Byrd machine didn’t want to be associated with them but it was too soon to associate with the Party of Lincoln. So Harry was an independent Senator for his final terms and registration by party was written out of the code.
JoyfulA
One problem with voter ID is that most middle-of-the-road middle-class people don’t get the problem.
We need to publicize all the cases of people for whom getting voter ID is impossible (e.g., no birth certificate) or very difficult (e.g., closest location is 75 miles away and open only during working hours or on Tuesdays).
sherparick
@Elizabelle: I think the a lot of Republican voters who are in or work for the military will be in for a surprise when they go vote since these guys are just as likely to have once been registered in another state as college students, who I think the Rethugs are aiming at in Virginia.
Reference Judge Posner, the real damage he did the country was about 40 years ago when he took “rational expectations” and “efficiency” to provide goods and services to “consumers” as give theoretical justification to the evisceration of anti-trust law. But in other ways, he is a “classical neoliberal,” as he certainly finds the Christianists who now dominate the Republican Party “goofy.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Posner
Ruckus
@eemom:
Conservative hasn’t lost meaning, the meaning has changed a bit.
It used to mean people who didn’t want change, who liked things the way they had been, either in their lifetimes or in some imaginary way before they were born.
Now it means people who don’t want change from some imaginary way they think the world was at some arbitrary point in time, generally before they were born.
Neither the old nor the new conservatives have empathy for others, they are still selfish, and they regard anyone not of their clan to be lesser individuals. This has not changed. The tactics of getting what they feel is their due has changed only to a degree, not in kind.
Ruckus
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
I felt the same way when my mom made me go to sunday school/church. I didn’t care if I had to do chores in place of going, I just learned that bullshit comes in many forms at an early age. Of course going to sunday school was one of the ways I learned this.
eemom
@Ruckus:
I agree to the extent it used to, at least plausibly, mean they were opposed to change….but I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to apply that definition to today’s far right, which in fact does want to effectuate horrific and radical changes to what have been norms for generations now…..voting rights, reproductive rights, social security, separation of church and state….
Certainly agree with you re the vileness of who they are as human beings, though, and that hasn’t changed a bit.
Slaughter
We have a two-tier system in Arizona. No ID, you get a ballot with just federal races. You need to present ID to vote in all races. One other state is doing that. Florida, maybe?
Ruckus
@eemom:
I think you are making the mistake of confusing tactics with goals. The conservative goal has always been the least amount of government they can force everyone else to give up. We just have more government now than we did in the past. All those things you mention? Those are all recent things that we have or are in the process of making happen. That in the conservative hive mind are all the things that have to be taken away so that they can return government to the smallest size and least authority possible. Same as it always is.
Gretchen
@Slaughter: They’re trying to do the two-tier system in Kansas, too. Lucky us, Kris Kobach, the architect of all these voter suppression laws, is our Secretary of State.
Hobbes
@Villago Delenda Est: Given that in order to be elected they would of had to actively campaign, I wonder what changed between the campaign stage and the election.