I’d love to see Trump do this, and force the state out of the Union, as happened the last time the Democrats defied the federal government to deny citizens their rights. And it shouldn’t be allowed back in as a single state. Let most of the territory in as multiple states, but force the coast to get its act together before being allowed back into the Union.
33 thoughts on “California’s Illegal Voting Law”
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As a native born (and now, happily former) Californian, this pains me…
But, the California voter pool has now been corrupted: We cannot be certain who is legally eligible to vote in a federal election, or not. The state’s claims notwithstanding.
So, California votes should not be counted towards any Federal election, including Senator or Congresscritter….
That torpedo they launched has circled about…
Rand writes:
“I’d love to see Trump do this, and force the state out of the Union, as happened the last time the Democrats defied the federal government to deny citizens their rights.”
[scratches head]
Um, when did this happen? Secession from the Union is one thing, as happened in 1860-61, but expulsion from the Union ….?
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland
It would admittedly be a precedent, but a useful one…
You can’t kick California out of the Senate, not even by constitutional amendment. See article V of the Constitution: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, […. ]Provided that [….] no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
See http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/unamendable.html for a long discussion of how powerful the little bit of Article V is or isn’t.
“the last little bit of Article V”
So you’re saying that any state is free to extend the vote to… well, anyone, really… with no repercussions?
Why doesn’t California just let the whole of Mexico vote in its elections, and be done with the pretense that it’s still part of America?
Nope, I’m just saying there is one unamendable aspect of the Constitution, and I think expelling a state would require the Constitution to be amended in exactly the way it can’t be amended.
I said nothing about other repercussions. The American Thinker article proposes the reprecussion of not seating California’s representatives. I don’t know whether that would work or not. I just don’t think Rand’s suggestion of expelling a state from the Union would work, and I think it doesn’t work for an interesting reason: that there is one thing about the Constitution that you (arguably) can’t amend.
You can’t kick California out of the Senate
Article V has nothing to do with the structure of the Legislative Branch. Nor does Article V have anything to do with what states are or are not part of the United States. Try Article I or VI before making foolish arguments based on irrelevant parts of the Constitution. Or perhaps you plan on just linking to discussion of the 18th Amendment just to scroll the comments section and discourage informed debate?
Leland, I’m saying I think it requires a constitutional amendment to expel a state against its will, and the rest of my comment was about why Article 5 means that such an amendment wouldn’t be constitutional. I can’t tell from your reply to me whether you think there *is* a constitutional way to expel a state against its will — do you think there is?
If a state is in rebellion against the federal government (which California is, whether they recognize it or not), their right to statehood is forfeit. Again, look into the Insurrection Act.
Leland,
I don’t find Article V irrelevant at all. A Convention of States would be extremely helpful for laws that Congress refuses to pass.
If you think Article V applies; perhaps you can point to the Amendment admitting California as a State?
Jon, you are discussing another topic apparently. We could forget Article I, II, and III of the Constitution, and just handle all matters by calling on Article V and having a Convention of the States. In that case, sure Article V would be relevant for passing laws that Congress isn’t passing or the Executive isn’t enforcing or the Judicial isn’t interpreting correctly.
Rand said: “If a state is in rebellion against the federal government (which California is, whether they recognize it or not), their right to statehood is forfeit. Again, look into the Insurrection Act.”
I did. At least, I think I did. I read the text at the following links:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/251
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/252
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/253
and some of the surrounding text, which seems less relevant (eg “Guam is to be considered a state”, etc).
So, what I see is that the State legislature and/or Governor can ask the President to send in troops, or the President can send troops unilaterally to enforce federal law. I don’t see anything about a state forfeiting its right to be a state, nor do I see anything about expelling a state from the Union. If you want to say “well, it is basically the same thing”, I disagree that it is the same thing at all, but if that’s what you are saying, at least I’ll understand what you are saying. Thanks for any clarification.
Did you actually read the original link of the post? The argument is that in refusing to obey federal law, California is effectively seceding.
Rand, I did read the Lowell Ponte’s article in American Thinker, and in my answer to Edward Grant above, I conceded that one of Ponte’s proposals (that Congress refuse to recognize California’s representatives) might work.
But Ponte doesn’t discuss legally expelling states from the Union – his proposals concern how to negate California’s political power within the Union. His cheeky “Goodbye California” refers to that negation, not to your hypothetical expulsion.
Maybe you too were writing in a cheeky off-the-cuff sort of way when you spoke about forcing the state out of the Union and not letting it back in and forfeiting its rights right as a state, and so forth? Maybe I was mistaken to think you are talking about formal legal expulsion?
There is no Constitutional provision to compel a state to formally leave the union, but not recognizing its vote in federal elections is a pretty effective way of functionally doing that. If your electoral votes don’t count in the presidential election, and you have no congressional representation, in what sense are you a state?
” If your electoral votes don’t count in the presidential election, and you have no congressional representation, in what sense are you a state?”
Well, I think that’s a really interesting question with a lot of possible answers. W could start by asking e”as opposed to what?” As opposed to:
1) not being in the United States at all?
2) having a status like Puerto Rico?
3) having a status like the Southern states during reconstruction?
I originally thought you meant (1), but now I’m not sure. If that’s what you meant, clearly there are lots of advantages to being in a US State beyond the two you listed.
If you meant (2), then here’s a out of left field answer from the Republican Party of Puerto Rico, regarding your wallet:
http://republicanpartyofpuertorico.gop/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PR51-Card3-English.pdf
It points out that only taxpayers in the 50 states qualify for some of the incentives for economic development in the IRS tax code, that only taxpayers in the 50 states qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and so on – a list of economic advantages to statehood.
It would be a functional territory, no longer able to screw up national politics.
Look up the Insurrection Act.
The Constitution is useful to look at but it is so dated and we need to look at precedents set over time and also reinterpret it for the modern age through the lens of social justice.
In order to do this we should look at the precedents set by the constitutional scholar, smartest President of all time, and person who was so pure he should be acknowledged as the god among mortals that he is, Barack Obama. According to the Obama Doctrine, if congress doesn’t act, then the Constitution obligates the President to do what they want.
Much like Democrats have been saying the founders really meant for the state to restrict free speech, possession of firearms, and that coming to the USA is a universal human right, Trump should apply the power of social justice to mutate the Constitution. Since California is holding non-citizens captive in order to boost population counts and disenfranchise American voters, he should tell congress that because they didn’t act that he can take whatever steps deemed necessary to free the victims of human trafficking being abused by Democrats in California.
By the precedents set by past Democrat Presidents, especially recent ones, and relying on the mutability of the Constitution as espoused by Democrat activists, there are no limits to what Trump can do.
No, wait, I’ll bite. I don’t see how allowing all of Mexico to vote in California’s elections “dilute[s] the votes not only of Californians, but of all American citizens by giving foreigners political power in selecting American lawmakers and presidents.”
Sure, it dilutes the vote of Californians, but how does it affect other Americans? Why doesn’t the structure of Congress and the Electoral College keep the votes of other Americans completely undiluted?
Because California intends to submit a Census that includes “all of Mexico”, so to speak, as its population. That is the mechanism by which Congress and the Electoral College are defrauded.
It’s like the 3/5ths Compromise, except that instead of 60%, the number is whatever they claim it is.
For a start, it ensures California will always vote Democrat, even if American Californians would have elected Republicans. And allows the left to continue claiming ‘Trump lost the popular vote’ when he would have won it if not for the corpses and Mexicans who voted illegally.
The whole intention here is to ensure that Republicans can never win another national election.
Population is used to determine how many seats states get in the House of Representatives. This means illegally boosting a state’s population disenfranchises other states and the people in those states.
It is crazy to see Democrats saying breaking the law like this is no big deal but then trying to quote the Constitution to stop a response, while at the same time on other issues saying the Constitution doesn’t matter.
In addition to what has been said, California has been passing laws that apply penalties to doing things they don’t like in other states. For example, no car manufacturer may do business in California unless they stop selling so many internal combustion engines in the rest of the country.
I’m pretty sure letting non-citizens vote, even only in non-federal elections, is in violation of the Guarantee Clause.
Surely the Founders intended that Congress should have some power to remedy such violations.
No matter what solution is debated and passed, we can count on the judiciary to step in and invalidate it
The American Thinker article is in error where it states “California began to automatically register illegal aliens who have driver licenses to vote.”
California’s 2015 Motor Voter law (which is only now going into effect due to voter database issues) creates a system where DMV customers who are conducting driver’s license transactions and who affirm that they are US citizens have their data transmitted to the Secretary of State (though citizens are given the choice to opt out, unlike in Oregon where the DMV based registration of eligible voters is automatic). The Secretary of State is then responsible for verifying their eligibility and, if appropriate, adding them to the voter rolls. DMV explicitly states that “To be eligible, you have to be a U.S. citizen,” and there are supposedly safeguards in place to ensure non-citizens are not registered.
It is possible that the safeguards are insufficient, and a non-citizen who falsely claims to be a citizen could be erroneously registered, and that should be investigated and reported upon, but it is far from the stated claim that the system “automatically register illegal aliens”.
Refs: [1] [2]
Looking at how corrupt the Democrat party is, we can’t trust them to do their due diligence.
The links you provide are a little confusing. One says the system requires someone to opt out of registration, so it isn’t “automatic registration”. It is automatic if someone doesn’t opt out. The default is opting in.
The other link says voters will be automatically registered in one paragraph and then says in the next they wont. It claims there are safeguards but doesn’t say what any of them are. How do they verify who is a citizen and who isn’t?
Some more Motor Voter program refs: [3] (DMV), [4] (Sec. of State), [5] (FAQ)
Woden, I don’t know what safeguards are in place, and as I said, this is something which should be investigated and reported upon, but there is no indication that citizenship verification is any less strict under this program than it was under their previous federally mandated (since 1995) Motor Voter program. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that instead of having a separate voter registration form available, they merge that form into the general driver license / ID card application form.
It appears that DMV driver license customers are now asked if they are eligible to vote (US citizen, not imprisoned or on parole for a felony, not deemed mental incompetent by a court). If they declare, under penalty of perjury, that they meet all voter eligibility requirements, they are then asked if they wish to opt out of registration. Interestingly, data for eligible voters is sent to the Secretary of State whether or not they chose to opt out. The Secretary of State then verifies their eligibility (insert secret sauce here) and then adds them to the voter roles or, if they opted out, sends them a postcard suggesting that they register.
…
If the “secret sauce” is simply accepting the registrants at their word, then that is clearly problematic, but they do have a lot more to work with. The application for a regular CA driver license requires identification documents (such a Birth Certificate, Passport, American Indian Card, Permanent Resident Re-entry Permit, Refugee Travel Document, etc. [6] [7] [8]) which would indicate both citizenship and legal resident status.
Much has been made over California issuing driver licenses to undocumented immigrants, but these AB 60 program licenses for applicants unable to meet the citizenship or legal resident identification requirements for a regular license use a separate application, and per the Motor Voter FAQ (ref #5 above), “State law prohibits DMV from sending information for AB 60 applicants (undocumented driver license applicants) to the Secretary of State.”
this is something which should be investigated and reported upon
Yes, I think this is the case all round. Regardless of one’s political perspective, we are not getting good information from the media. This is a problem because media outlets often report on what other media outlets say without drilling down into the details.
But you did more research than any of the reporters, thanks for doing that.