Mid-Term Elections Swayed by Supreme Court

[Mike]

Now that the up-coming Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has been leaked, I predict a massive voter turnout that will sway the mid-term elections to the left, reversing the expected gains by the Republicans and giving the Democrats even greater power than they currently enjoy.

I am amazed the Court would make such a hot-topic decision immediately prior to the November elections.

[Truckman]

With the President beating the drums, you could be exactly right...

“What happens,” the president asked, if “a state changes the law saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that legit under the way the decision is written?”

...Ben

[Kevin]

What I don't get is why bother with the leak in the first place? I doubt it was someone trying to sway the election since the decision, whatever it was going to be, would have been released in June anyways. My guess is that one of the justices supporting the case was getting wobbly.

But yeah, stripping away a Constitutional right that has been in place for over a generation is going to get some blowback.

[Kevin]

With the President beating the drums, you could be exactly right......Ben

He asks a legitimate question. The main idea in Roe, that there are parts of your body that the government has no business in regulating, was enumerated in Griswold. Alito's snotty decision (I read it, it is snotty in a way that Scalia pulled off with his flair for a well-turned phrase and a rapier intelligence) says that idea isn't in the Constitution and so, must be reversed and made a state issue. Other unenumerated rights in the 14th Amendment that have been adjudicated are the right to inter-racial marriage, contraception, gay marriage, and sodomy. By Alito's reasoning, those could be challenged as well. He states that abortion is different because another life is involved and he does not believe that these other decisions are in jeopardy but as we have seen with the latest rash of justices, they say one thing but do another, so right now, I doubt any of the potentially affected groups are resting easily.

[Phillbo]

I have not a clue what is happening.....

[UTAH]

I'm not as certain this will bring countless Democrats to voting stations. For, Biden's low polling numbers are making the next presidential election a toss-up. If a strong Republican rises up, they may be able to win.

Hunter

[FredK]

It'll never change until the electoral college is eliminated. Why the population tends to be more to cities than rural, yet because there are more rural counties voting repubilican it will be an unequal sway to the states legislators. Slowly changing here in AZ NM and Texas.

Maybe women, gays and others in those area will figure it out before this next election. Somehow I'm not holding my breath.

[Dave Grubb]

I object to this passage in my morning reading:

The draft decision has been a clarifying moment for the country. Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin told journalists to stop referring to the convulsions in the country today as “culture wars,” as if they were “a battle between two sides over hemlines or movie ratings.” Instead, she wrote, “This is religious tyranny…in which the right seeks to break through all restraints on government power in an effort to establish a society that aligns with a minority view of America as a White, Christian country.”

We are heading for a whole new world of selfish intolerance, this is only the beginning of such attacks. To me, such intolerance is not a Christian trait.

The current list of rights that I see under attack are not going to impact my life----but they will impact others, who do have skin in that game, and I will support them as if they were also my causes.

May the rinos get blown out

[Kevin]

What also bugs me is how opponents always cast the anti-abortion position as based solely on religion. There is a civil rights argument to be made for protection of life, as well as a logical objection for setting the line for when human life begins at any point except conception.

[FredK]

........ human life begins at any point except conception.

100% agree Kevin. Agree that consenting couple want to have a children, but there are those that weren't, perhaps even in a "marriage", that were consenting to have a child. I know we can get into the finer debates about this, but I'm glad I'm not the one that is faced with this decision. Neither should this court.

[Scooter]

The there is the whole argument that Abortion is not being outlawed. They just went from making it a federal decision to letting states decide what is proper for their state, which is the whole basis of how the federal government is supposed to work. They forget that the states are supposed to be in control of the feds, and not the feds in control of the states. That simple idea would change the whole dynamic of how our government works.

[Kevin]

Article VI, clause 2.

Federal law trumps state law. Has right from the beginning. Fought a civil war over it. So no, states are not supposed to be in control of the feds. What each state decides when they choose to become a state is Article VI, clause 2. Yes, a confederacy of states with a limited federal government is what some back in 1776 envisioned but it did not come to be. "That simple idea" is simply not what the Constitution says and each state agreed to that language when they ratified the Constitution and became a state. Anything else is wishful thinking. Slavery proponents used the "states trump federal law" argument to justify that peculiar institution. It was used to justify segregation. It was used to justify denial of voting to women, to blacks. It was used to deny education to blacks. The Dixiecrats used it to run a nakedly racist platform. George Wallace declared segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever under that argument. It is a supremely bad argument to make.

If state law trumps federal law (and hence, the Constitution) then there are no Amendments to the Constitution a state is bound to obey. Freedom of religion? Gone. Free press? Gone. Your right to a firearm? Gone. Your right to due process? Gone. Your right against self-incrimination? Gone. Slavery? Still here. Women voting? Nope.

The Civil Rights Act? Nope. The Voting Rights Act? Nope. State would still be free to force blacks to get their food from a door in the alley behind the restaurant, to use designated water fountains, not be able to vote. You really don't want to make this argument.

[Kevin]

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/es...ication-crisis

The link above is about the Nullification Crisis, which was based on the idea that states control the federal government. It is long but it is an important milestone in our nation's formation. Basically, the point is that John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, a huge proponent of slavery, was looking for a way to protect that institution and picked a fight about federal tariffs to do so. He wanted to be able to protect slavery by claiming that states had the right to nullify any federal law they thought unconstitutional.

His point of view was completely in line with the Articles of Confederation that preceded the Constitution, but the Constitution explicitly said that federal law trumps state law.

He also had this idea of concurrent majorities - the idea that laws should only be enacted if all states agreed. Disagreement by one would be a veto of the proposed law. You can see how this would allow states to protect slavery. You can read about it here: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/ac...e-constitution

Calhoun was a towering figure in the antebellum period. It is worth a trip to his Wiki page to read about him. You'll hear echoes of his political philosophy right here on this board.

[UTAH]

Our friend Kevin has adroitly nailed an extraordinarily accurate summation to our church door. I am seriously in awe of his efforts to do so.

Hunter

[Dave Grubb]

Our friend Kevin has adroitly nailed an extraordinarily accurate summation to our church door. I am seriously in awe of his efforts to do so.

Hunter