Thursday Open Thread [4.30.15]

Dana Milbank:

The Civil War era’s 14th Amendment, granting automatic citizenship to any baby born on American soil, is a proud achievement of the Party of Lincoln. But now House Republicans are talking about abolishing birthright citizenship.

A House Judiciary subcommittee took up the question Wednesday afternoon, prompted by legislation sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and 22 other lawmakers that, after nearly 150 years, would end automatic citizenship.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution… cannot be repealed by legislation, Mr. King. It can only be modified or repealed by another Constitutional Amendment. So here is what you need to do, Congressman:

Step 1. Pass your bill by a two-thirds majority vote in the House (impossible).
Step 2. Pass your bill by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate (impossible).
Step 3 through Step 38. Have the legislatures of three-fourths of the states (38 states) pass your bill by a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber (impossible).

So this is nothing but a racist signal to the racist base of the racist Republican Party.

“I respect the courts, but the Supreme Court is only that — the supreme of the courts. It is not the supreme being. It cannot overrule God.” — Mike Huckabee, quoted by CNN, on the pending same-sex marriage ruling.

Mike, the Supreme Court is the last word on constitutional rights bestowed upon American citizens by the Constitution and its Amendments. The case before the Supreme Court right now concerns the constitutional right of individuals to marry, which is currently being denied by a number of states. The case before the Supreme Court does not concern any rights bestowed in the Bible, or by heavenly decree.

Mike, I am concerned about your intelligence. You seem to confuse man made law and Biblical law all the time. Indeed, I almost think you think they are, or should be, one and the same, much like Church and Government should be one and the same. Thankfully, much smarter people than you established a separation between Church and State many centuries ago during the Founding of our great nation.

Rick Hasen: “In a surprise and very important development, the Supreme Court has rejected a First Amendment challenge to Florida’s ban on the personal solicitation of campaign contributions by judicial candidates. Even more surprising, the Court’s opinion (a plurality in part) is authored by Chief Justice Roberts, who usually sides with First Amendment challengers in these election/campaign cases. This is a case which makes it much more likely that limits on money and speech in judicial elections will be upheld, and it seems to offer some broader important nuances on the scope of narrow tailoring in analyzing First Amendment challenges under the First Amendment.”

“This is a HUGE win for those who support reasonable limits on judicial elections—and getting Roberts on this side of the issue is surprising, welcome, and momentous.”

Christopher Ingraham: “Political polarization is on the rise, and with it come lots of clever new ways to visualize that polarization … A group of researchers recently gave it another go in a paper published in PLOS One. You’ll see that they’ve created network diagrams for each House of Representatives from 1949 to 2011. They’ve drawn dots for each representative, and lines connecting pairs of representatives who vote together a given number of times. Finally, the dots for each representative are placed according to how frequently the Representatives vote together overall.”

“One of the apparent side effects of the religious freedom controversies in Indiana and (to a lesser extent) Arkansas: More Americans now oppose such laws than before,” the Washington Post reports.

“While a Pew Research Center poll conducted in September showed Americans were split on whether businesses with religious objections should be able to refuse service to a gay wedding (with 47 percent in favor), and a January AP-GfK poll showed a clear majority (57 percent) thought they should be able to, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll suggests increasing skepticism of religious freedom laws. The new poll shows just 41 percent think businesses should be able to refuse service to gay weddings, while 57 percent disagree.”