Does the "Will of the People" Exist? Conference at the Scalia Law School this Friday

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Justice's Center for Judicial Engagement and Scalia Law's Liberty and Law Center, you can attend in-person or virtually.

A CENTER FOR JUDICIAL  ENGAGEMENT EVENT

Does the Will of the People Actually Exist?

Friday, September 10, 2021
At 8:30a.m EDT

Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University
3301 Fairfax Dr, Arlington, VA

When a court refrains from declaring a law unconstitutional it often explains that the law represents the "Will of the People" and that mere judges should invalidate that "Will" very sparingly. But what actually is the "Will of the People?" Does it even exist in the first place? And even if it does to some degree, how many of our laws really exist because of it? Further, what do the answers to these questions have to say about judicial review? If the "Will of the People" isn't all it's often thought to be, does that mean courts should be more engaged with finding laws to violate the Constitution?

This conference brings together leading experts on these issues from law, political science, and economics to address the same central questions (1) Does the "Will of the People" exist and if so to what extent? And (2) what does the answer to question (1) have to say for judicial deference to the political branches on questions of constitutionality? Several experts will present their essays answering these questions, and others will provide commentary on these overlooked issues of American democracy and constitutional law. The essays will later be published in the George Mason Law Review. Please join us in person or online for a fascinating day of conversation.

If you come in person, a free lunch and, if you're a Virginia lawyer, we have been approved for 3 hours of CLE!

The conference features, among other luminaries, the VC's own Ilya Somin and Keith Whittington. More details about the program and registration at this link. 

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

I would think the Constitution itself, having been adopted by a supermajority process, has a greater claim to being 'the will of the people' than any mere statute.

[DaivdBehar]

You have to specify the location of the people who's will is being expressed.

Is the lawyer too dumb to understand? The will of the farmer in Wyoming is not the same as that of the degenerates in San Fran.

[M L]

No, see, you can hold a worldwide election or a just a sham poll and see that it supports a global socialist state by a 0.1% plurality, and bam, there's your will of the people.

[DaivdBehar]

Since the cell phone, all polls have been fake polls. So how does one determine the will of the people? Will this excellent question by ML be addressed by the lawyers d-word?

[DaivdBehar]

Suggestion for future seminar.

Do Critical Thinking and Formal Logic Exist? Should they influence Dumbass Lawyer Thinking at All?

[M L]

Even better if you start awful wars that plague the world, maybe wait for some really bad accidental lab-grown viruses, economic devastation and whatever else, then you can have people begging for the "solution."

[DaivdBehar]

How about this seminar? Is there a selfish bastard will of the oligarchs? Why does it always prevail with the dumbass lawyer profession that runs government?

[James Pollock]

It's the Triumph of the Will that matters.

[Bob from Ohio]

"you start awful wars that plague the world"

We have not "started" a war since 1898. Even Iraq was a continuation of the Gulf War.

[Aunt Teefah]

I guess, in the sense that technically it isn't war if congress has not declared it. The U.S. has, however, bombed, droned, shot, couped and regime-changed a whole bunch of people since then, though.

[DaivdBehar]

Won't all of you be very surprised and impressed if any of these Ivy indoctrinated lawyer uses the word, oligarch?

[James Pollock]

" Will this excellent question by ML be addressed by the lawyers d-word?"

Nobody tell this d-word what the L in ML stands for.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Setting aside the fact that all those people are dead, it was actually a supermajority of a very limited class of eligible voters who ratified the constitution. The "people" didn't include, women or natives, or slaves. 43% of South Carolina was held in bondage.

[Ed Grinberg]

Yes, leftists hate the Constitution, we know.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Just pointing out that saying that constitution reflects the "will of the people" because it required a "supermajority process" is kind of disingenuous considering that most people that were excluded from that process.

Also, if you think pointing out a basic and indisputable fact is "hate" well, that's more of a you problem, than a problem with me or leftists.

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, a super majority of everyone who was asked.

You want to claim the will of the people, maybe you need to ask the people that specific question.

[Krychek_2]

Well, in Stalin's Russia, every time Stalin issued an order it was a supermajority of everyone who was asked -- 100% of Joe Stalin.

The problem with your side is that it honestly doesn't get that not even pretending to be democratic robs it of legitimacy.

[James Pollock]

"OK, a super majority of everyone who was asked."

More "a supermajority of the people whose opinions were taken", really.

A major problem for people who forget that Scot v. Sanderson was a decision in accordance with that original Constitution.

[Krayt]

I dispute the implication you seem to draw from your conclusion.

Their concept of freedom was fine. Theh just didn't extend it to everybody. Subsequent history was a long and messy process of doing so. Now everybody benefits from living in a land where they have rights inherent to themselves. "Shall not be denied or abridged", and so on. Not you are hereby granted...

Also, the problem the Founding Fathers were trying to avoid, of tyrant kings, are slowed or halted by this constitutional design, which simply blanket forbids certain powers to government.

To say, well, they are dead now, so we should do whatever a demagogue says who got 51% of the vote is the ultimate example of not learning from history.

"But I didn't say that." Yes, you did.

This is what a constitution looks like when you realize politicians are self-centered corrupt evils shining you on so you vote for them.

[Sarcastr0]

The alternative to blindly following the (a mythopoeic understanding of the) Founders is not following a demagogue. That's a false choice

They concept of freedom they had was not fine. The Constitution does not contain a promise of liberty, and implements pretty anemic protections for it (allowing individual states to be quite unfree no problem). That's why the Civil War as baked in.

And considering what many of them wanted for George Washington, kings were OK, just not tyrant kings.

Not that our Constitution is badass, but that should not be taken as received wisdom. Populism and expertise both have their places in our Republic - that's why it's badass.

[James Pollock]

"To say, well, they are dead now, so we should do whatever a demagogue says who got 51% of the vote is the ultimate example of not learning from history."

Er... Team R hasn't gotten as many as 51% of the votes in most of the recent Presidential elections they have "won". Neither has Team D if you count staying home on election day as a vote for "not any of the candidates available"

[James Pollock]

"Their concept of freedom was fine."

Their concept of freedom allowed slavery.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I notice you left out minors. Are they not people too?

[Krychek_2]

I notice you gave one of your usual nonsensical false equivalencies.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Interesting retort. It kind of implies that just as we know from science and experience that there are good reasons why minors, who of course are people, don’t have the full ability to participate in society, there are in fact good reasons to exclude natives, women, and black people held in slavery from the body politic. So what are those reasons?

[DaivdBehar]

Working on a book, Adult at Fourteen.

[Aunt Teefah]

Finally, some actual libertarianism in the VC comments!

[DaivdBehar]

Not just adult, but superior adult in every way.

Say it takes 100 correct answers to score an IQ of 100 at 16. The age corrected score at age 40 might be 50 correvt andwers to get an IQ of 100. The average intelligence old man would qualify for Life Skills Class if back in high school.

That's who is running the country under the lawyer dumbass.

We need a new word for when a country is run by retards. Retardocracy is not snappy enough.

[James Pollock]

"We need a new word for when a country is run by retards"

It's guaranteed in the Constitution. All the states must have "a republican form of government".

[Krayt]

Pretty much. Putting girders on the ability of charismatic demagues so they can't do anything they want with a 51% transitory majority is no crime against the people. Indeed it is the exact opposite of how mass murderous historic megacrimes come about.

In the 1990s, Robert Byrd stood on the floor of the Senate during debates to send a balanced budget amendment out to the states, tears literally streaming down his face, saying a supermajority will of the people somehow was thwarting the simple majority will of the people.

This from the all time king of porkbarrel.

When you read "the will of the people" from the mouthes of politicians, it's always in a context of them increasing their power in a constitutionally sketchy manner.

[M L]

The will of the people may exist, but it is certainly not represented by or reflected in any actions of the federal government. The federal government today is far too large and imperial and bureaucratic to be compatible with any remotely coherent notion of self-government. The will of the people is reflected in the constitution as a document but that is just a dead letter.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, "The will of the people" doesn't meaningfully exist on the vast majority of topics, because most people won't even have an opinion on them. Rare indeed is the topic where a large enough fraction of the population have developed an opinion regarding something that you could honestly say "the people" have an opinion.

[CJColucci]

I heartily endorse this as a descriptive matter. I'm not sure we agree on the normative implications, but that's for another day.

[M L]

Imagine believing that an act of Congress, of all things, has anything to do with the "will of the people." Congress, the body with approval ratings in the 20s and even less belief they do a good job of following the Constitution. And "the people" are supposed to be 330 million in 50 different states with many different cultures and languages and so on.

[James Pollock]

50 different states and various territories and possessions.

[James Pollock]

"The will of the people may exist, but it is certainly not represented by or reflected in any actions of the federal government. The federal government today is far too large and imperial and bureaucratic to be compatible with any remotely coherent notion of self-government"

The big, scary, imperial, bureaucratic federal government isn't keeping you from leaving to join a country you find more ideal.

[Cal Cetín]

I recall a saying by the columnist Mike Royko (or possibly Dave Barry) that "power to the people" means "power to me and few of my friends who know what's good for the people."

[LawTalkingGuy]

Basically describes the Constitutional Convention.

[Darwinnie]

Except the constitution was then voted on by the people in each state (if we ignore the facts that blacks and women couldn’t vote back then). Wait, now I see it.

[James Pollock]

"I recall a saying by the columnist Mike Royko (or possibly Dave Barry) that 'power to the people' means 'power to me and few of my friends who know what’s good for the people.'"

That's Dave Barry.
From the era in which he recommended sending Reagan-administration officials to Central America to fix all the problems there, because they were uniquely qualified for the job.

[ReaderY]

Maybe the whole idea of representative democracy is nothing but a fraud. Maybe it’s total bullshit. After all, it’s completely true that there is no perfectly perfectly representive system. We either get elites who discuss and compromise among themselves in a manner that inevitably creates some social and policy distance from the people who elected them, or we get rule my mob, Twitter or otherwise, in a manner that tends to amplify posturing and visceral reactions, and which also doesn’t tend to reflect what people would do in a less socially charged and prodded situation.

But does the well-known fact that the legitimate instrumentalities of popular representation aren’t perfect mean that there is no such thing as a “popular will.”

There’s certainly one group of people who would really, really like you to believe that.

People who want all power for themselves - want to be able to enslave you, rape you, do what they want with you — certainly want you to think that way.

After, all, if they can convince you that you don’t actually have a will yourself, or that attempting to assert your will is totally futile and it’s not worth bothering trying, it will make it that much easier for them to impose their will on you.

And you can bet that if you let them, they will.

If you want your will to count for anything, if you want to have any say in what goes on, you have to be willing to believe that your will exists.

Errors in the system, and no doubt there are many, can be fixed. But without a belief that there is such a thing as a popular will, democracy of any kind is impossible. There is only tyrrany.

[M L]

The whole idea is not a fraud. But it only works on a small scale of jurisdiction. The larger a supposed "representative democracy" becomes through imperialism, war, military industrial complex, money printing, social engineering, violation of government documents etc, the more of an outrageous fraud it becomes in practice.

[James Pollock]

But at least you get bread and circuses out of the deal.

[apedad]

You're only focusing the "demos" part.

First, we have a federal form of government which helps spread power, then within each level of government, we have an executive (which is far enough remote from the "demos") as to not actually be fully representative of them), and a judiciary which is also far enough removed from the "demos."

1A allows the fourth branch to also exhibit power.

We're not the best and longest form of govt in the world by accident.

I am content with our form of govt.

[James Pollock]

"We’re not the best and longest form of govt in the world by accident."

nor are we the longest form of govt in the world, period. Besides the obvious (our country begins with independence from England. Does England still exist? Look up when the Japanese monarchy began. Was it after 1776?

[Brett Bellmore]

The thing is, 'the will of the people', to the extent it actually exists, is usually expressed through the instrumentalities of popular representation, constrained by a constitution which actually binds them. When somebody appeals to 'the will of the people' as a reason to circumvent those instrumentalities, or especially to escape the constraints of that constitution, be very, very dubious.

Because any demagogue can claim to have 'the will of the people' on their side. And by that circumvention, they might defeat the ability of the actual will of the people to stop them, sort of revolutionary extremities.

[James Pollock]

The "will of the people" is, basically, "don't bother me"... which is why only a small portion of American citizens can be bothered to turn up to polling places, even when "polling places" is categorically extended to "anywhere you happen to be". Occasionally, the government takes actions that motivate enough people to turn up on election day to say "let's give someone else a go". Which happened in 2006 (why are we fighting a war in Iraq?) and in 2020 (let's put an adult in charge). 1980 was at least as much "enough of Mr. Carter" as it was "yay! Ronnie"

[David Nieporent]

There’s certainly one group of people who would really, really like you to believe that.

People who want all power for themselves – want to be able to enslave you, rape you, do what they want with you — certainly want you to think that way.

After, all, if they can convince you that you don’t actually have a will yourself, or that attempting to assert your will is totally futile and it’s not worth bothering trying, it will make it that much easier for them to impose their will on you.

This couldn't be more backwards if it were Behar trying to analyze a legal issue. The people who want power want to convince you that there is a will of the people, and that they represent it. It's the people fighting for liberty who reject the idea that there is a will of the people.

[ReaderY]

So you admit that you and your friends are fighting to force something on people who don’t want it (they don’t will it).

And you expect me to believe this something is…liberty?

Yeah, right. And peace, right? And truth. If I tell you I don’t know, you’ll probably say that means I have strength.

[Michael P]

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, all that jazz.

If only leftists stopped their demagoguery at voting largesse from the public treasury. Unfortunately, that light at the end of the tunnel is probably an oncoming train.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah yes, do what you say or else you're going to ruin the nation. Are you cool with that rhetoric when it's about global warming?

[Michael P]

Do you think that the federal Department of Education "investigating" states for prohibiting mask mandates in state-run schools, on the theory that "schooling like it's 2019" illegally discriminates against children with disabilities, is any of: what Democrats said they were going to do, an expression of the will of the people, or helpful to the country?

But "climate change is anthropogenic global warming" was not written in the Democrats' instruction book. It's too long to be a good propaganda slogan.

[Sarcastr0]

State-run schools are federal. Federal law applies. So you're pretty wrong.

That's also a different topic to the comment I replied to. A common tactic among ideologues is if you've lost on one arena to try and switch to another without acknowledging defeat.

[Don Nico]

"State-run schools are federal."
Care to explain what you mean?

[Sarcastr0]

Public schools are under the US Constitution and regulated by sederal law.

As such, a federal agency investigating states for not following federal law is not a tyrannical plot, but rather how you do things.

[M L]

The DOE is unconstitutional, and nothing in the Constitution empowers the federal government to regulate education.

[Sarcastr0]

We don't, except for 14A stuff like school prayer.

Public schools, though - they want our $$, they play our tune. If they don't, well, there are plenty of private schools around.

You went to law school, you know the cases. Don't unlearn what you have learned because it doesn't fit your ideological priors.

[James Pollock]

"It’s too long to be a good propaganda slogan."

Consider the possibility that some people want the people running the country to have minds that can hold policy objectives that won't fit on a bumper sticker.
If that were true, then "that won't fit on a bumper sticker" would not be considered a valid criticism.

[Sarcastr0]

As always, the idea that DMN is an evil liberal because he's not a nutjob says a lot about modern conservativism.

[James Pollock]

"This couldn’t be more backwards if it were Behar trying to analyze a legal issue."

Oh, snap.

There is a substantial component of the American political arena who thought their contribution to political debate could be summarized as "ditto". If they didn't get their outrage-of-the-day from their AM radio masters, they had nothing to say.

Today, you have people walking around in hats that say America isn't great complaining about how their political opponents "hate America".

[Lee Moore]

Since I rather doubt that any of the invited experts will be expressing the view below, I offer King Charles I's (surprisingly libertarian) thoughts on the importance of the "Will of the People", expressed on the scaffold, on the occasion of his execution :

"I must tell you that the liberty and freedom [of the people] consists in having of Government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in Government, Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things."

[M L]

Interesting and pretty different from the American view.

[Lee Moore]

Well it was also different from the people who beheaded him !

But the English people so enjoyed the next eleven years being ruled directly by "the people's representatives" , that they invited his son back to resume the monarchy - albeit the monarchy on a leash that his father would not have accepted.

[Cal Cetín]

Poor Chuckie was all over the map politically, but when he realized they were going to kill him, he resolved to make a dignified and inspirational exit.

[James Pollock]

There's nothing as sharp as a headsman's ax to help you focus your thoughts.

[Aunt Teefah]

Conservatives had no doubt that the "will of the people" existed when the people were generally with them (e.g. in the 1980s). And they had no qualms about bashing the "judicial activists" when they thwarted that will. Now, though, the people have abandoned them, so we can expect more of these sophomoric debates ("what even IS 'the people'???") aimed to undermine democratic decision-making and arrogate power to the right wing judiciary.

[shawn_dude]

They do seem to have come to the conclusion that democracy isn't working for them anymore.

[Bob from Ohio]

"the people have abandoned them"

The GOP [proxy for conservatives] is much stronger top to bottom than in the 1980s.

Dems controlled the US House [by at least 243-192] and most governors and state legislatures, and regained Senate control after a 6 year hiatus.

GOP is strong at the state level and highly competative at the federal level now. 50/50 senate and 5 vote Dem margin in the House.

Your premise is faulty.

[Aunt Teefah]

Well, if you want to use the GOP as a proxy for conservatism generally, sure they do well when "the people" are sliced and diced in ways that give them an advantage (artificial gerrymandering in the case of the House, more structural gerrymandering in the case of the Senate and Electoral College). But when American voters are asked nationally, writ large, to buy what the GOP is selling, they've said "no" every single time save one going back more than three decades.

If conservatives actually had confidence that the people really were still with them, they would not be fighting to preserve their gerrymanders or be trying to make it harder to vote in every state where they can.

[Brett Bellmore]

Do you not understand that the reason Democrats held the House for so long, and only lost it in the 90's, was exactly that THEY had it gerrymandered? And that gerrymandering is actually at close to a historical low right now? (At least net gerrymandering; Both parties do it, and it almost perfectly cancels out.)

What Democrats mostly call 'gerrymandering' today isn't actual gerrymandering, but simply the failure to deliberately draw maps to negate some basic structural inefficiencies Democrats suffer from having their votes so concentrated in areas they carry overwhelmingly.

But the definition of "gerrymandering" isn't, "fails to replicate the outcome proportional representation would have produced". It's more like, "Drawing warped districts to guarantee a particular outcome."

[Aunt Teefah]

If that had any validity, it seems like it would be even more reason to ban partisan gerrymandering. Sounds like it would be no harm, no foul as to current composition, plus it would make it more difficult for Democrats to unfairly entrench themselves in power like they did before the 90s. Surely, then, you would not object to such a common-sense reform, right? Right???

[Brett Bellmore]

Absolutely we should ban partisan gerrymandering. But how you define partisan gerrymandering is the entire game, set, and match, if you do.

And Democrats really have been trying to redefine it as any failure to negate their own disadvantages. They're not trying to ban drawing districts to dictate political outcomes, they're trying to ban not drawing districts to dictate the political outcomes they want.

[Aunt Teefah]

As long as the standard is tethered to making sure the representatives approximate the partisan views of the voters at large as much as possible, there should be no problem. In our system, the people are (supposed to be) sovereign, and the politicians are (supposed to be) their agents. If the standard reflects this principle, it would be fine by me. It should be just as illegal for the Dems to do in Illinois and Maryland as what the GOP has done in North Carolina and Ohio.

[Brett Bellmore]

See? You're demanding gerrymandering. You're not willing to have the districts drawn blindly, without regard to political effect. You're demanding that they be drawn to produce a particular political outcome: Negating the Democratic party's inefficient vote distribution.

Here's my proposal: Have a computer draw thousands of potential maps, completely without any regard for past voting behavior, just respecting equal population, compactness, and other objective criteria. Then for n ballot qualified parties, each party gets to eliminate 1/(n+1) of the maps. Three parties qualified for the ballot? Each gets to eliminate a quarter of the maps, in a process similar to voir dire during jury selection.

Then pick one of the remaining maps at random, using a bingo cage, in public.

Totally eliminates any possibility of gerrymandering.

[James Pollock]

"See? You’re demanding gerrymandering. You’re not willing to have the districts drawn blindly, without regard to political effect."

Yes, criticizing gerrymandering is a demand for gerrymandering.

"Totally eliminates any possibility of gerrymandering."

You want to eliminate the effectiveness of gerrymandering? Here's how you do it. Have the losers draw the maps.

[Don Nico]

Cute idea. Teefah (not to mention James P) won't go for it.

[Sarcastr0]

The issue is more that the political parties won't go for it.

The Supreme Court these days seems reluctant to allow anyone but state legislatures do redistricting, (which is a partisan issue somehow).

[Don Nico]

That is Teefah's "you counted wrong" theory od democeacy

[James Pollock]

"The GOP [proxy for conservatives] is much stronger top to bottom than in the 1980s."

All those purges worked?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Popular will is often closely divided, and while thus so, nearly weightless in deciding public affairs. When popular will is close to unified, it is all-powerful.

In principle, the nation is governed by that possibility of unified popular will, sometimes in abeyance, sometimes in action. It remains always a power greater than government's, which in its capacity as the nation's joint sovereign can step in at pleasure, and without constraint, to correct any misstep owing to misgovernment.

[Martinned]

Popular will is often closely divided

It really isn't. It's just that those topics where it is take up everyone's attention.

[James Pollock]

Precisely backwards.
political focus goes to where there is a difference of opinion, not to where there is broad concensus. Everybody agrees that we need better roads and less traffic. So what do the pundits want to talk about? Who gets to marry who, and where they can go to the bathroom.

[Martinned]

Yes, that's what I said.

[Darth Buckeye]

The Force can have a strong influence on the weak minded.

[James Pollock]

"The Force can have a strong influence on the weak minded."

Also plenty of money to spend on misleading advertising can have that effect.

[Krayt]

Never forget: The Vote is just an abstraction of might makes right, and if you foolishly open up anything a charismatic demagogue wants to do as authorized by it, it is scarcely different from building a merely sizeable thug corps with supporters, and ruling that way, only a few percentage points away.

Oh wait. History shows they have massive support.

"So this is how Liberty dies, with thunderous applause." - Senator Padme

[James Pollock]

So don't put JJ Abrams in charge of making sequels. The applause dies out.

[bernard11]

The first question is not whether "the will of the people" exists, but whether it is knowable.

[Commenter_XY]

That was my initial thought, too.

[Martinned]

No, the first question is whether such a creature as "the people" even exists. Only once we've discussed that can we ask ourselves whether this creature has a will, and whether it is knowable.

[James Pollock]

For a disturbing number of people, anyone who disagrees with them (about anything) has trouble qualifying as "people".

[Jimmy the Dane]

If the will of the people exists then the democrats will surely find a way to usurp it. Like stealing elections. That is a prime example.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“ When they say the 2020 election was stolen, Trumpists are expressing their view that the votes of rival constituencies should not count, even though they understand, on some level, that they do. They are declaring that the nation belongs to them and them alone, whether or not they actually comprise a majority, because they are the only real Americans to begin with.”

[Brett Bellmore]

" When they say the 2020 election was stolen, Trumpists are expressing their view that the votes of rival constituencies should not count,"

It's a really useful rhetorical device, declaring that when your foe says something, they're really saying something awful you'd like to accuse them of. But it's a fundamentally dishonest rhetorical device.

When they say the 2020 election was stolen, they're really saying that it was stolen. Nothing less, nothing more.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Two things:

1. It’s backed up by their behavior and rhetoric. They do the whole “real America vs coastal elites thing.” They focus all their fraud inquiries on majority-minority areas. Trumpists aren’t subtle and except us to ignore subtext.

2. “ It’s a really useful rhetorical device, declaring that when your foe says something, they’re really saying something awful you’d like to accuse them of. But it’s a fundamentally dishonest rhetorical device.” IS LITERALLY YOUR ENTIRE SCHTICK. You assume bad faith and hidden motives in EVERYONE. How. How can someone be so oblivious?

[Michael P]

Project much? You literally accused the GOP of saying one thing and meaning another, and when he called you on it, you accused HIM of assuming bad faith and hidden motives.

[Sarcastr0]

Meaning != doing.

The right-wing paranoia is about what the liberals sekretly wanna do.

That is not the same as pointing out what the GOP actually has and is doing.

[Brett Bellmore]

What's secret about it? Democrats used Covid as an excuse last year to systematically violate election laws all over the country. You were quite open about it, it wasn't secret.

Now you're trying to leverage a narrow House majority and a tied Senate to make your violations the law of the land, imposed by the federal government. Ballot harvesting? Every state would have to permit it. Voter ID? You'd ban it. States would be forced to accept ballots arriving in the mail weeks after the election, so long as you couldn't prove they hadn't been mailed in time. States would be forbidden to clean up their voter rolls.

You're trying to take every emergency measure you used Covid as an excuse for illegally implementing, and take it national.

[Sarcastr0]

FFS, they're not violations just because you misread a court case.

And expanding ballot access in a crisis that otherwise makes people choose between going to the polls and staying safe is not an insidious plot.

I mean, you're calling *passing a fucking law* a secret plot to do the things the law will do. You're a great example of right-wing paranoia off the rails.

[Brett Bellmore]

"FFS, they’re not violations just because you misread a court case."

Breaking the law the legislature wrote doesn't become complying with the law, just because you found a tame judge willing to write you a permission slip.

"I mean, you’re calling *passing a fucking law* a secret plot to do the things the law will do."

It's a plot, to be sure, but it isn't exactly secret.

[Sarcastr0]

It was a conflict between the legislature and the executive. The courts looked at state constitutions and resolved the conflict.

You have been told this many, many, many times. This has become a personal problem. You continue to twist yourself towards endorsing big lie assholes like Jimmy because of it.

What you describe is not a plot, it's just policy. So nothing like 'declaring that when your foe says something, they’re really saying something awful you’d like to accuse them of.'

[Michael P]

FFS, they don't stop being violations just because you are ignorant of them. Michigan and North Carolina, and probably other states, had changes illegally made to their election procedures. Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and others had gross ballot mishandling. Those are the kind of breaches of election integrity that H.R. 1 attempts to federalize.

[Sarcastr0]

Courts say otherwise, chief.

[Toranth]

Which courts? The courts have repeatedly said - in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia to name a few - that Democrats illegally changed the voting rules. They just refused to do anything about it.

The most absurd example is Pennsylvania's "The law clearly says they are wrong, but we're going to allow them to ignore the law this election only for... reasons."

[Sarcastr0]

Not what courts said. They actually said the rules were changed legally each and every time.

This was not some wrong without a remedy situation.

[James Pollock]

In the alternate universe where Donald Trump won re-election (in a landslide!) because there was no vote fraud, it's also possible that courts in multiple states OKed violations of election law. The thing is, THAT universe is not the one any of us lives in. Deal with it.

[Don Nico]

S_0,
Anyone who is truly serious about making an accurate determination of the public's preference on election day would applaud strict and rigorous procedures.
You would expect that discipline in any valid scientific measurement. Why be so sloppy with voting, why allow ballot harvesting? There can be only one reason. Manipulation of the outcome. You call that democracy, but it is crass machine politics with different make-up

[Sarcastr0]

I'm all for rigorous procedures that don't depress the vote. Plus, there's demonstrated bad faith in the GOP in trying to depress minority votes via voting restrictions (see LTG on Thomas Hoeffler in this thread)

You want voter ID? Bully! Just make sure it's free for everyone.

But all that is nothing compared to declaring court cases opening up procedures due to Covid don't count. That's beyond good or bad policy to the politics of declaring the other side illegitimate.

[James Pollock]

"You want voter ID? Bully! Just make sure it’s free for everyone."

Why? It's not like there's any reason not to implement poll taxes or anything.

[James Pollock]

"Anyone who is truly serious about making an accurate determination of the public’s preference on election day would applaud strict and rigorous procedures."

They'd also be highly skeptical about any attempts to disallow any of the citizens from casting a ballot.

[James Pollock]

" Voter ID? You’d ban it."

No, we just wouldn't let you use it as an excuse to suppress voters who don't support your party.

Want to convince me you aren't trying to suppress voters? Show me how you ensured that every voter already has a document sufficient to meet your new "voter ID" rule(s), and if they don't, how you're going to provide one, for free, to every voter who needs one.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s not projecting. He literally does it all the time.

[Michael P]

I'm not sure why you think it's convincing to point out that he frequently points out your assumption of bad faith in your opponents.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No, he frequently assumes bad faith in his opponents. He’s literally doing it below about voting access. So it’s pretty rich for him to accuse me of assuming bad faith, particularly when both rhetoric (“Real America” “coast elites” “rat-infested Democrat cities” or even “liberal degenerates”) and the actions: (single out majority minority urban centers for fraud claims, impose restrictions that have little to nothing to do with cutting down fraud like limit Sunday voting hours etc)* support Adam Serwer and I’s position.

*Oh and let’s not forget all the gerrymandering documents that were discovered from key GOP map drawer Thomas Hoeffler who very explicitly was trying to figure out how some people shouldn’t have their vote counted.

[Don Nico]

And yet the D's abhor to instill strict rigor in every aspect of the election process, from registration to voting window to who casts ballots to counting etc.

Your rant is simply in bad faith. Watch the German election in 4 weeks and learn a thing or two.

[Sarcastr0]

It's not that Dems hate rigor, it's that the GOP's 'rigor' seems invariably to be more about depressing minority votes.

Targeting Sundays, creating procedures tailored to ban GOTV procedures used in black neighborhoods like bussing, getting rid of poling places in minority voting. And also admitting it a couple of times.
Plus giving legislatures the power to overturn elections on their own recognizance. What the crap are you thinking putting that time bomb against our democracy into law?

Dem pushback isn't opposition to rigor, it's opposition to nonsense. And, of course, the GOP isn't into bargaining on the issue at all.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Signature matching is a really good example of something that sounds like a common-sense rigorous security measure, but is a lot closer to a Jim Crow-style voter suppression idea. Basically what happens is you give the right officials a facially neutral regulation to implement. Those officials have very broad and unreviewable discretion to implement something that has no standards whatsoever. The result is that disfavored voters get disproportionately removed from the rolls or discounted. Moreover, vote suppressors today are practical. Even if the VRA was completely repealed, there wouldn't be a need to make sure there was never a black vote or a black office holder like the Jim Crow Democrats wanted. Like with gerrymandering, there is no point in being a purist: you just need to do just enough to ensure that you'll mostly always win most of the time no matter the overall popularity of your agenda.

[James Pollock]

It's best to just ignore the "I'm not a sheep" sheep when they try to defend vote suppression.

[James Pollock]

"When they say the 2020 election was stolen, they’re really saying that it was stolen. Nothing less, nothing more."

When they say the 2020 election was stolen, even though it wasn't stolen, they're really saying that they have a weak grasp on reality. Nothing less, nothing more.

[Cal Cetín]

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

We, the people, finding that self-government is hard, and anyway we're too racist and heteronormative to deserve to exist as a polity, do give and bequeath all our sovereignty to the People's Republic of China. Please be gentle.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Hate to discount a whole conference, but at least the first part of the agenda has previously been treated with a depth and subtlety which likely outdoes whatever the participants can come up with. Just give everyone a copy of historian Edmund S. Morgan's, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America and send them home to read it.

Then get back together and let the lawyers—now better informed—play in their own sandbox.

[DaivdBehar]

Leadership is a job like cooking, teaching, or plumbing. It reauies making decisions that impact the future without enough information for any certainty.

Our current elite are in failure. They need to be fired. The idiot savant bookworms need to be fired. They should be replaced by people who have successfully led smaller jurisdictions. Past performance is the best bet on future performance.

We are sick to death of these Ivy indoctrinated lawyer dumbasses, the stupidest people in the country, messing up our country and everyone's life.

[James Pollock]

" They should be replaced by people who have successfully led smaller jurisdictions."

Recent Presidents who got the job after being state governors:
GW Bush
WJ Clinton
RW Reagan
J Carter

This lot didn't even succeed enough to all get second terms in office, and there is some catastrophic misleadership covered in the ones who did.

[Martinned]

The will of people exists. It is neither necessary nor sufficient for the functioning of democracy that such a thing as "the people" exists, or that it has a (knowable) will.

[James Pollock]

The key question is whether or not the politicians can guess what it is sufficiently closely.

They aren't alone in this. the executives who schedule network television also depend on accurately assessing the public will, and also people who decide what movies get made, and what records get pressed, and what books get printed. For example, several such people guessed quite wrongly about whether or not the public would like to read books of nonsense verse about fanciful animals one might see on Mulberry Street, or the adventures of a boy wizard.

[Martinned]

It is not the job of politicians to guess what anyone thinks of anything.

it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

[James Pollock]

"It is not the job of politicians to guess what anyone thinks of anything."

That's a fairly authoritarian way of thinking: We don't have to know or care what you think; we'll tell you what to think! Conform, dammit!

[shawn_dude]

Example: Abortion. Recent polls show that 61% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases during the first trimester. Is that the "will of the people?"
48% of Texas voters approve of restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy. Is that the "will of the people?" Less than half of voters?
Rather, what seems to happen is that primary voters, who tend to be more to the extremes on partisan issues, select party candidates. So are primary voters really the "will of the people?" And in the case of abortion rights, are Republican primary voters the de facto will of the people on this issue?

In which case "the people" are a small minority of the population.

[James Pollock]

"Example: Abortion. Recent polls show that 61% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases during the first trimester. Is that the “will of the people?”
48% of Texas voters approve of restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy. Is that the “will of the people?” Less than half of voters?"

Here's how that will play out. People who were against abortion before will mostly continue to not have any. So will people who think the choice is up to the person whose uterus is occupied whether or not it should be occupied. In both cases, roughly 50% of the opinions will be held by people who do not possess uteruses (uterusi?)
The people who actually want abortions will get them. Some in Texas, and some outside Texas.

[James Pollock]

"Rather, what seems to happen is that primary voters, who tend to be more to the extremes on partisan issues, select party candidates."

YMMV. In states that have a party that has a clear edge in registered voters, you'll get this. In states that are closer to evenly divided, the primary voters will pick the candidate they think can win, which means appealing to voters who are not affiliated with their party, which means you get the centrist candidate.
Biden didn't win the D nomination because he was the favorite candidate of all the D voters, he got the nom because they thought he had the best chance of showing Donnie the T the door.