This is as good a time as any to remind people that, in a recent dissent, Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the right to vote and serve on juries belonged "only to virtuous citizens." Her opinion also suggests that all civic rights are subject to virtue-based exceptions.
Unsurprisingly her opinion makes no mention of how such "virtuous citizen" restrictions were used after the Civil War and the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments to deny African Americans the right to vote.
At a time when the right to vote is under extreme attack, we should be critical of those who endorse outdated notions rooted in white supremacy as a justification for denying millions of Americans the right to vote.
The full opinion (which concerns whether someone convicted of a felony can prohibited from owning a firearm), as well as Judge Barrett's dissent and her tangent regarding the right to vote can be found here: cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/image…
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Do Trump judges believe Brown v. Board, the landmark case that ended “separate but equal,” was correctly decided? The short answer is… maybe. But scores of them refuse to say so publicly.
A quick thread on one startling example of the right-wing takeover of the federal courts.
In the early days of the Trump administration, Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee began asking Trump appointees whether they thought Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. These judges, not wanting to admit that they didn't agree with Roe v. Wade, would dodge the question.
The most common way for Trump's radical nominees to dodge the question was for them to give a response along the lines of "I can't comment on that case, as that issue (abortion) might come before me as a judge." They framed their evasiveness as an attempt to remain impartial.
"You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April."
February 10, 2020
"[China] — they’ve had a rough patch, and I think right now they have it — it looks like they’re getting it under control more and more. They’re getting it more and more under control. So I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away."
As we keep seeing images of long voting lines, its important to remember there is nothing inspiring about people having to wait hours and hours to vote. Long lines are discriminatory, suppressive, and a direct result of the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act.
A thread:
A 2016 study found that minority voters are six times as likely as whites to wait longer than an hour to vote. Another study found that “voters in heavily black neighborhoods were 74 percent more likely to have to wait at least 30 minutes in order to vote.”washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
It would be wrong to write off long lines simply as an annoyance. Research has indicated that long lines lower the probability of an individual voting in the next election by about one point for every hour in line. When it comes to close elections, margins like this matter.
Today is the anniversary of Tommie Smith and John Carlos' famous Black power salute at the 1968 Olympics. The image of Smith and Carlos with fists raised is one of the most recognizable sports photos in history. The story behind the famous image, however, is less well known.
Earlier in the year Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis. A police mob in Chicago had beaten anti-war protestors at the Democratic National Convention. Muhammad Ali was still banned from boxing and fighting his conviction for refusing to be drafted.
Days before the Olympic games began in Mexico City, police and troops gunned down hundreds of student activists who had gathered in the city's Three Cultures Square to protest. All of this was fresh in the minds of Tommie Smith and John Carlos when they ran the 200-meter race.
New reporting has exposed the ways in which the Trump campaign used targeted digital ads to intentionally and methodically deter Black Americans from voting. This is twenty-first century voter suppression and must be countered. #DeterringDemocracy channel4.com/news/revealed-…
Netflix's 'The Social Dilemma' made clear the frightening power that social media and its tech overseers have on our lives. Now we see that same power wielded to suppress Black turnout. It’s old-fashioned voter suppression with shiny new tools.
The Trump team disproportionately marked Black Americans for “Deterrence” and fed them ads designed to keep them home from the polls. Some 3.5 millions Black Americans were marked as “Deterrence.” Remember that only tens of thousands of votes handed Trump the Electoral College.
In a 2016 paper, Amy Coney Barrett described the Fourteenth Amendment as "possibly illegitimate."
The Fourteenth Amendment requires due process and equal protection, and has served as the basis for such Supreme Court decisions as Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, and Obergefell.
This should be disqualifying. The Fourteenth Amendment, in addition to providing for due process and equal protection, is what applies the Bill of Rights to the states. It was passed shortly after the Civil War as a necessary corrective for a Constitution that condoned slavery.
To suggest that the Fourteenth Amendment is "possibly illegitimate" is to suggest that all people are not equal under the law. It is a rejection or more than a century and a half of progress towards greater civil rights.