2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Poor decisions have consequences. My parents immigrated from India, and my father's birth records were destroyed during the partition (he was born in what is now Pakistan and moved as a toddler, lost family members). My in-laws are ethnically Chinese but born in Cambodia -- they escaped and came to this country as refugees from the Killing Fields. 

If they can get a license, I'm not crying a river for people born here.

 

Sure, but you shouldn't forfeit a basic right. I'm not sure how every state handles this, but it's just something to think about. If you're going to require voter ID, then there are host of situations that can interfere with it. Ironically, it might actually be easier in some states for an immigrant to obtain an ID than someone born here. Even if these are outliers, we need to account for them so that everyone's rights are upheld. Ultimately, some states might need to change their laws to make it feasible for some people to get the necessary documents. If you're willing to put in the effort, you shouldn't run into a dead end trying to do so.

18 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Sure, but you shouldn't forfeit a basic right. I'm not sure how every state handles this, but it's just something to think about. If you're going to require voter ID, then there are host of situations that can interfere with it. Ironically, it might actually be easier in some states for an immigrant to obtain an ID than someone born here. Even if these are outliers, we need to account for them so that everyone's rights are upheld. Ultimately, some states might need to change their laws to make it feasible for some people to get the necessary documents. If you're willing to put in the effort, you shouldn't run into a dead end trying to do so.

There is no right to vote. Literally and legally, it does not exist.

14 minutes ago, TEW said:

There is no right to vote. Literally and legally, it does not exist.

 

There is a "right of the Citizens of the United States to vote" acknowledged in several amendments. The way that right is regulated and administered is left to the states, however.

44 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

I could actually see voter ID being a boon to Democrats, because it would remove the #1 source of the right's arguments attacking our electoral process. If we had fair ID laws in place and Republicans were still losing at the ballot box, they'd have nothing else to grasp onto about "election integrity." So, as long as the ID is universally accessible, I say give them what they want, then laugh when it still doesn't fix their central problem of having unpopular policies.

most individual democrats have no issue with voter ID. it's this perception that voter ID disenfranchises minorities that they can't get over. 

Abrams coming out swiftly in support of a bill that had voter ID requirements should have been eye-opening. 

the only thing voter ID should represent is a bargaining chip for democrats. they should be willing to bargain it away for something, and that's where I think they are right now - they'll extract some kind of price for it but ultimately it won't make much difference in election outcomes and it will take away one more thing for the right to complain about when it loses elections. 

(don't worry Trumplicans, your guy will continue to manufacture all kinds of excuses for why you lost)

9 minutes ago, TEW said:

There is no right to vote. Literally and legally, it does not exist.

The 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments all have to do with voting rights.  And once an amendment is ratified it’s permanently a part of the Constitution.  Fwiw

12 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

There is a "right of the citizens of the United States to vote" acknowledged in several amendments. The way that right is regulated and administered is left to the states, however.

No. There is no such "right.” The only thing the amendments in the BoR’s do is guarantee equal treatment for voters on account of race and gender. It does not establish a right.

3 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

The 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments all have to do with voting rights.  And once an amendment is ratified it’s permanently a part of the Constitution.  Fwiw

See above

53 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

It was intended to be somewhat hyperbolic, but your point is well-taken. I just don't like the strong-arm tactics here.

i hear what you're saying. im just trying keep things as civil as possible. i know, me of all posters. 

also, i hear your points on some people having some difficulties getting an id. its tough on some i get it. maybe the government in all of their grand wisdom & freedom to spend our tax dollars could help these individuals obtain their id's without all of the BS red tape involved. 

33 minutes ago, TEW said:

No. There is no such "right.” The only thing the amendments in the BoR’s do is guarantee equal treatment for voters on account of race and gender. It does not establish a right.

I dunno man, looks pretty clear to me.

Quote

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Edited to add @TEW, the wording of this amendment is very similar.  So is it not a right ????????

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

6 minutes ago, TEW said:

No. There is no such "right.” The only thing the amendments in the BoR’s do is guarantee equal treatment for voters on account of race and gender. It does not establish a right.

See above

Yeah, it’s only reiterated as a "right” over and over again in constitutional amendments.

Great point, TEW.

9 minutes ago, TEW said:

No. There is no such "right.” The only thing the amendments in the BoR’s do is guarantee equal treatment for voters on account of race and gender. It does not establish a right.

See above

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments. You're right to the extent that those first ten amendments make no mention of an individual's right to vote. Others do, however, at least indirectly acknowledge that such a right exists. They do not specify the extent to which it exists, but they do specifically describe ways that it cannot be restricted. By extension, these amendments acknowledge that the right is somewhat conditional, and that states may determine the conditions under which it may be exercised.

Literally the first two words are "the right”

Smh…

15 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

The 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments all have to do with voting rights.  And once an amendment is ratified it’s permanently a part of the Constitution.  Fwiw

Now for the 8,000,001st time.

THERE IS NO UNIVERSAL RIGHT TO VOTE IN THE US CONSTITUTION. 

If there were, the amendments you just cited wouldn't have been necessary, because every citizen would have had a right to vote. You can't be denied the right to vote based on race, gender, age (if over 18) and ability to pay a poll tax. That's it. There's a reason that only white, land owning males were able to vote at first and it was perfectly Constitutional at the time.

Logic...isn't it amazing?

5 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments. You're right to the extent that those first ten amendments make no mention of an individual's right to vote. Others do, however, at least indirectly acknowledge that such a right exists. They do not specify the extent to which it exists, but they do specifically describe ways that it cannot be restricted. By extension, these amendments acknowledge that the right is somewhat conditional, and that states may determine the conditions under which it may be exercised.

THANK YOU

4 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Now for the 8,000,001st time.

THERE IS NO UNIVERSAL RIGHT TO VOTE IN THE US CONSTITUTION. 

If there were, the amendments you just cited wouldn't have been necessary, because every citizen would have had a right to vote. You can't be denied the right to vote based on race, gender, age (if over 18) and ability to pay a poll tax. That's it. There's a reason that only white, land owning males were able to vote at first and it was perfectly Constitutional at the time.

Logic...isn't it amazing?

THANK YOU

So when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed Texas’ all-white primaries, what’s your big take-away there?

5 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

So when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed Texas’ all-white primaries, what’s your big take-away there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Would you look at that? They violated the 14th and 15th amendments. Way to go history professor, this took all of 38 seconds on Google.

https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/archive/html/vce/features/0503_01/smith.html

Quote

 

After the Civil War two amendments were added to the U.S. Constitution that explicitly guaranteed the rights of African Americans as citizens. The 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868) prohibited states from denying the "equal protection" of its laws to any person. The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified in 1870) affirmed that "[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Though they were written into the foundational document of our government, these guarantees were not very well secured in the states of the former Confederacy in the decades after Reconstruction. Various legal and illegal tools were developed on the state level to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities.

One tool particularly favored in Texas was the "white primary," originally established by internal political party rules and later by state law. The basic idea was to explicitly prohibit non-whites (African Americans primarily, but also Mexican Americans in south Texas) from joining the Democratic Party or participating in its the primary elections.

Because the Democratic Party dominated the political systems of all the Southern states after Reconstruction, its state and local primary elections usually determined which candidate would ultimately win office in the general election. Thus, any voters excluded from the Democratic primary were effectively excluded from exercising any meaningful electoral choice.

In Texas after the turn of the twentieth century many local party leaders adopted rules that barred African Americans (and Mexican Americans in south Texas) from voting in Democratic Party primary elections. But, when the Texas Legislature passed a law in 1923 explicitly barring African Americans from participating in the Democratic Party primary, it fired the opening salvo in a two-decade long legal and political struggle whose outcome hinged on whether a party could or should be regarded as a private entity with the right to establish its own internal rules.

The 1923 law was overturned as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Nixon v. Herndon (1927) for violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The decision addressed only the facts of the case before it, which concerned state law not the policies of individual political parties. In response the Texas Legislature passed a new law allowing the executive committee of each state party to decide who could vote in its own primary. In Nixon v. Condon (1932), again citing the "equal protection" clause, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the statute and the executive committee resolution banning African American participation in the Democratic primary.

In response the Texas Democratic state convention adopted a resolution banning African Americans from participating in the Party's primary. Against the advice of the NAACP private citizens in Houston promptly challenged the resolution in court. In Grovey v. Townsend (1935) the Supreme Court unanimously decided that the Democratic Party was a private organization whose state convention could determine membership qualifications. Later, these same Houstonians – this time working together with the NAACP – fought back, bringing the case of Lonnie E. Smith, a Houston dentist, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Smith v. Allwright (1944), eight justices on a Supreme Court with several new members overturned the Grovey decision. The majority concluded that several state laws made the Texas primary more than just a function of a private organization. Instead, these laws made it an integral component of the electoral process. As a consequence, the court ruled, it was unconstitutional to prohibit African Americans from voting in the Democratic primary, including votes for party officials.

Smith v. Allwright did not prevent other attempts to disenfranchise African Americans. But it effectively ended the white primary in Texas, a major step along the path to securing equal voting rights.

 

 

7 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Was the U.S. Supreme Court protecting people’s right to vote or not?  

3 hours ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

This is just the first in what will likely be a series of increasingly desperate maneuvers by the TX GOP to stop TX from inevitably flipping blue.

Ummmm, the G.o.p. didn't pull the desperate move, the democrats did

5 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

Was the U.S. Supreme Court protecting people’s right to vote or not?  

They were enforcing the Constitution. Which is, you know, their job.

It's not that friggin hard to understand. If there were a universal right to vote, why did we need the 15th, 19th, 24th or 26th amendment? They would be unnecessary since every citizen would already have a right to vote. 

Logic...it's amazing. 

Uh oh, professor...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/88/162

Quote

It is clear, therefore, we think, that the Constitution has not added the right of suffrage to the privileges and immunities of citizenship as they existed at the time it was adopted. This makes it proper to inquire whether suffrage was coextensive with the citizenship of the States at the time of its adoption. If it was, then it may with force be argued that suffrage was one of the rights which belonged to citizenship, and in the enjoyment of which every citizen must be protected. But if it was not, the contrary may with propriety be assumed.

Quote

In this condition of the law in respect to suffrage in the several States it cannot for a moment be doubted that if it had been intended to make all citizens of the United States voters, the framers of the Constitution would not have left it to implication. So important a change in the condition of citizenship as it actually existed, if intended, would have been expressly declared.

 

23 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

They were enforcing the Constitution. Which is, you know, their job.

It's not that friggin hard to understand. If there were a universal right to vote, why did we need the 15th, 19th, 24th or 26th amendment? They would be unnecessary since every citizen would already have a right to vote. 

Logic...it's amazing. 

So how many voting rights amendments do you think are needed to give people the right to vote?  10?  20?  50?

I mean we’ve done race, gender, age, and class. What else is there?

Look, I know it was just landholding white men who could vote in the 1700s.  And that states regulate it.  But if you think it’s edgy to say people don’t have a right to vote in America, that’s silly to me.  It’s been protected over and over again.  This ain’t that hard.

6 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

Look, I know it was just landholding white men who could vote in the 1700s.  And that states regulate it.  But if you think it’s edgy to say people don’t have a right to vote in America, that’s silly to me.  It’s been protected over and over again.  This ain’t that hard.

And based on the wording of all those amendments, if you don't have the right to vote, then you don't have the right to own a gun.  They are worded almost identically.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

1 hour ago, TEW said:

No. There is no such "right.” The only thing the amendments in the BoR’s do is guarantee equal treatment for voters on account of race and gender. It does not establish a right.

See above

Much to your disappointment, as we all know.