Since 1991, Vermont’s only member of the US House of Representatives has been either a socialist who couldn’t run as one (until now) or a Democrat (same difference). It has one district, the entire State of Vermont. You can’t gerrymander that.
And despite its open borders and sanctuary city-like leanings, the state is still 93% white. That number is subject to ‘adjustments’ depending on whether you vote for progressives, Democrats, or Republicans. If the latter, your skin color, whether black, brown, or something else, becomes white adjacent, white-hyphenated, and you are, for all intents and purposes, a racist, white supremacist.
But I digress.
Everyone still has the same rights except non-citizens who arrived illegally, but when the US Supreme Court declared that it is unconstitutional and a violation of the Voting Rights Act to use discrimination (race) as a means of drawing congressional districts, Vermont had to act.
A day after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that critics say will erode voting rights, the Vermont House passed a measure designed to protect those rights.
The Vermont Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color or minority status and assures voting assistance where needed. It also criminalizes intimidation of voters and interfering with voting. The measure passed on a voice vote.
Did Vermont not have these things prior to this bill being passed and signed into law (June 8th)? It did.
State Law (17 V.S.A. § 2508): Prohibits any person from physically interfering with a voter’s access to or from a polling place, and limits electioneering within a designated area.
In a statement, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, a Democrat, says in part, “This bill comes at a crucial moment. Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that further weakens the Voting Rights Act – another example of voting rights coming under attack in this country… There is a great amount of anxiety around our fundamental right to vote, and the Vermont House of Representatives will continue to do everything in our power to increase access and protect Vermonters’ right to vote.”
This was obviously the work of Vermont’s Democrats and progressives, because the US Supreme Court didn’t rule on any voting rights, access to polling places, or the right to vote. None of that changed. But Democrats want people to think that is what happened. Many of them believe that is what happened, and they will pollute the media space with this fiction.
Having looked at the bill, it appears overly complex and unnecessarily intrusive. Like the clean heat standard, it tries to do too much, much that doesn’t need doing, and with language that is far from clear.
It looks like it was written for a progressive one-party state intent on using it to protect elections from Republicans.
The state grants itself broader powers to define interference and to punish people for it, arbitrarily.
“States that election-related offenses may not be interpreted to deny or impair the voting rights of any registered voter.”
In New Hampshire, you can lose the right to vote for conviction of violating election law. Vermont looks to be protecting planned violations in advance.
The new bill (now law) defines a vote denial or dilution violation using a “totality of circumstances” standard, focusing on whether members of a protected class have fewer opportunities than others to participate in the political process or to elect representatives of their choice.
WTF does that even mean?
It’s a lot like “disparate impact liability.” The idea is that some series of subjective slights accumulates to the point where government intervention is required to ensure some notion of justice. It’s also discriminatory and illegal. Race-based admissions, and now race-based hiring, have been deemed discriminatory and illegal. The Government cannot intimidate “employers” to hire based on race.
Talk about a slippery slope. Doesn’t declining public education standards and graduating kids who can’t read at grade level create a disparate impact on their ability to be informed citizens able to exercise their civil rights, one of which is voting?
How do you plan to punish the teachers’ unions and administrators who lowered standards because Democrat legislators told them that refusing to do so might be racist? I know. More school spending!!!
Democrats are idiots. They made the same mistake with their reproductive rights amendment, but I’m starting to wander.[Related:Everyone is Claiming Vermonters Voted to Protect Abortion But That’s Not What the Amendment Says]
Why does Blue Vermont need all these extra invocations with regard to voting rights? Are you saying that unimpeded Democrat rule, sometimes with veto-proof majority legislatures, was doing a crappy job of protecting people’s right to vote?
Maybe. Republican Governor Phil Scott signed it into law. Now all we have to do is wait for the stupidity to rise and see where this all goes.
