I like what Congressman Lewis said. Bravo to him. It’s about d&*n time that something is done.
@LasMa: I am extraordinarily proud of my senator and representative.
I don’t understand why there is such concern over taking away the Constitutionally protected right to bear arms from someone who may be mistakenly on the terror watch list, while there seems to be no concern at all over taking away someone’s Constitutionally protected right to vote if they don’t have some sort of approved photo ID.
Am I missing something? Why be concerned about mistakenly taking away one right, but not the other?
ETA: I’m afraid we’re tiptoeing into “political” territory with this thread and that we’re all going to get banned from CC. Maybe I shouldn’t have posted my latest comment.
I was a political science major as an undergrad and usually think I know at least a little more than the average American about how government works, but I got a lesson in how the House works yesterday. We all hear about the filibuster in the Senate as a tool for one member to control the discussion as long as they last, but I never knew how little access the minority party gets to speaking on the House floor, offering amendments to legislation, etc. When you add the education about the body to the history of the moment, I found yesterday fascinating. I heard someone say that no one has more moral authority than John Lewis and I would tend to agree.
Lewis was the commencement speaker at Bates this year. He told the students to “go out and make trouble - good trouble”. This sit in is an example of “good trouble.” Lewis practices what he preaches.
yes, there is something you are missing in your analogy, veryhappy. A person is secretly put on a terrorism or no-fly list, and there is no standard as what qualifies one for such a list, and no standard for how to be removed. Under current law and policy, they might not find out about being on such a list unless they try to fly, and then they find out at the airport. With voter id laws, people are advised well in advance and have opportunity in advance to comply with the law. If they are a citizen but haven’t the photo id you mention, they have the opportunity to correct the issue before it’s time to vote.
I won’t comment if I agree with either, but just to point out there is a large difference.
July 5th is going to be interesting.
@younghoss - I think we can “build a better mousetrap” in both cases.
People can find out how to register and vote but people are not informed when they’ve been taken off the voter rolls, they find out at the polls when it is often too late to do anything about it. Then there are the polls that close early, etc. It seems every election has some scandal involving the loss of voter rights.
Obtaining a photo ID has a cost. If such ID is required to vote, that is essentially a poll tax, which is unconstitutional.
“I don’t understand why there is such concern over taking away the Constitutionally protected right to bear arms from someone who may be mistakenly on the terror watch list, while there seems to be no concern at all over taking away someone’s Constitutionally protected right to vote if they don’t have some sort of approved photo ID.”
What I find interesting is when posters say (when discussing the Orlando shootings, the San Bernardino shootings – oh, heck, any of those massive numbers of shooters that seem to only happen in the US because we’re too stupid to have meaningful gun control) – oh, there was some kind of “sign” because the person appeared to like online videos promoting violence, something oughta have been done, the FBI dropped the ball, etc. Absolutely no recognition that you can’t just go arresting people or depriving them of their freedom for pre-crimes or thought-crimes and people have a right to like and advocate things that we all don’t like. THEN, they don’t care about the Constitution one bit.
But the moment there’s the least little motion to maybe-please get rid of gun loopholes? Well, then, let’s chant the Second Amendment nonstop and chain ourselves to it.
Suppose cars had just been invented. The same kind of gun-clingers would, if cars were new on the scene, be objecting to car inspections for safety / emissions, car registration with the state (including recording when title is transferred), license plate renewals, mandatory car insurance, driver training. Why, they’d even object to mandating that we all drive on the right side of the street for our own collective good and call it a “police state” if the police gave out tickets to enforce such.
Publish the names of those on the no-fly list. Then there are no secret ‘lists’ you don’t know you are on. If you are on it wrongly there should be a prompt procedure to get off. The issue is that when few trust the government, the idea of the government keeping secret lists, with no rules as to how one gets on or off the list, is frightening.
From what I heard last night on CNN, only 1,000 of those on the list are Americans. The rest are foreigners who cannot buy guns here anyway. So publish the list. Transparency and all that.
Re: 67
Right, but isn’t it also unconstitutional for someone who is not a citizen to be able to vote?
Do we have a conundrum?
How do we make it so that a person provides proof of citizenship without bringing into play the “poll tax” issue? Free ID?
Edit: @thumper1’s post below was helpful.
I’m an election poll worker, and moderator in our town. There are multiple forms of ID a person can present. It doesn’t have to be one that costs money.
If you are a political junkie, it’s now time to shift over to SCOTUSblog. 3 boxes of opinions this morning.
@greenwitch Their visits home are also going to be interesting. 90% of their constituents are not happy with them.
“Publish the names of those on the no-fly list.”
There couldn’t possibly be any national security reasons not to publish such a list. No siree.
Wow! SCOTUS upheld AA in Fisher! 20 page opinion, 50 page dissent from Alito. Safe to say this will be another day that moves the campaign to the B block of the news just like House sit-in did yesterday.
Because of the political ramifications. In an election year, members of Congress generally don’t want to cast votes that will be used in an attack ad by their opponent later. It’s just handing your rival ammo (npi).
They don’t want to take a vote because it would show their constituents they care more about the NRA then them. Something like 85%-90% of Americans favor restricting gun purchases of people on no fly list and expanding back ground checks.
So in other words, thoughts and prayers and business as usual. And of course business as usual has come to mean thoughts and prayers. Doing their job and being held accountable for it? Why is that not in the job description?
I couldn’t be more disgusted. And that’s become business as usual, too.
I hate to say it, but possibly only if some crazed shooter does something stupid in DC that personally affects them night something change…