Department of Injustice: diluting a citizen’s vote

**Posted by Phineas

"...but some animals are more equal than others"

Found this post by Christian Adams over at the Election Law Center: the Department of Justice wants illegal and legal non-citizens counted as part of redistricting:

In the City of Irving case, the Department of Justice has asked for permission to make oral arguments that illegal aliens and noncitizens should be counted for state and local redistricting purposes. As reported earlier at ELC, this position has the effect of diluting the legislative power of American citizens and shifting power to noncitizens and illegal aliens. In areas with high citizenship, 100,000 citizens (for example) would have one legislator. In contrast, areas with high illegal alien populations (say 20,000 illegal aliens, 10,000 green card holders and 70,000 citizens) would also get a single legislator.

ELC’s earlier discussion of vote-dilution is here. In essence, since districts must be of equal size in terms of population, that means a district with 100,000 people who are all citizens will receive less representation than a district of 100,000 people, only 70,000 of whom are legal citizens and 30,000 are illegal aliens or legal (non-citizen) residents. Apparently the courts require counting all people for House races, but haven’t spoken about state and local races.

This is clearly an attempt by DoJ to extend its power over states’ and localities’ ability to draw their own electoral districts. This is already done in some parts of the country under the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, but those laws are meant to protect the rights of citizens to a fair vote. Justice’s argument in Texas is an effort to dilute citizen’s votes.

Like Operation Fast and Furious, it is a perverse inversion of what the Department of Justice is supposed to be doing.

On reflection, DoJ’s push to count non-citizens seems to be an effort to create more “minority-majority” districts, many of which would likely turn into safe seats for the Democratic Party, which is nearly moribund at the state level in Texas. The DoJ is using a racial spoils system to favor one party by diluting the votes of some citizens.

And that stinks.

RELATED: I recently reviewed Adams’ new book, “Injustice: exposing the racial agenda of the Obama Justice Department”

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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