Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

exponentially since 1913 and U.S. Senators have been controlled by special interests often exercising their influence from outside the States that the senators represent.

Repealing the Seventeenth Amendment would not attract the same problems that led to its passage in 1913. Today, we can protect ourselves against corrupt state legislatures through term limits and campaign disclosure statements.28 Also, information on our government officials is highly visible.29 Moreover, to protect against deadlocked state legislatures, the governor of a State could appoint a U.S. Senator if the State’s legislature does not elect a senator or fill a vacancy within thirty days.30

If any amendment is unconstitutional, it is this one. Can an amendment to the Constitution be unconstitutional? I submit it can, even if lawfully adopted, if it strikes at the core values of the Constitution. Removing the representation of the States as States in the central government was a direct and impermissible assault on federalism; more tyranny of the majority. It undermines the premise that the people and the States would have a place at the federal table. It also undermines the States’ check on federal corruption of states’ rights. This amendment, along with the Sixteenth (which permitted federal income taxes), has contributed more to 1984-style Big Government than any other. It is a direct repudiation of the framework the Founders set up. If anyone tells you that this Amendment enfranchises voters, tell that person that the Amendment disenfranchises the States.

The Fifteenth Amendment, Voting Rights Act,

and Racial Gerrymandering

In 1870, the United States ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits voting discrimination “by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”31 The governments in the South did not adhere to this amendment and did much to prevent blacks from voting.32 Literacy tests were administered to disqualify the substantial black population that could not read or write.33 Property requirements were also implemented to prevent blacks from voting.34

Furthermore, Southern governments used various districting techniques to dilute the African-American vote. One of these techniques is “cracking,” in which the legislature split a large number of black voters among several majority-white voting districts.35 The same governments also engaged in “packing,” in which a significant number of African-Americans were placed in one district, thus limiting black representation in that part of a State to that district only.36

The Southern States continued to disobey the law, and the federal government permitted them to do so until Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 2 of the Act, as amended in 1982, states that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which will result in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”

Therefore, according to the Act, complainants need only prove that a voting plan had the effect of discriminating against minorities, not that it was devised with the intent to discriminate.

Today, the concern is not whether African-Americans actually have the right to vote, but whether they are adequately represented.37 To ensure adequate representation for African-Americans (and other minorities), many States have redrawn congressional district lines based on race, through a process called racial gerrymandering, to create “majority-minority” districts.38 In this way, States can guarantee representation for minorities. But isn’t this a government decision based on race; and was not the Fourteenth Amendment written to abolish that? In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the United States Supreme Court held that redistricting based on race is subject to the highest standard of judicial scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the States still may take race into account to comply with the Voting Rights Act.39

Shaw v. Reno tells us that racial gerrymandering is constitutional if the plan is “narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” Could any racial gerrymandering plan, regardless of its lawfulness, be constitutional today? Majority-minority districts are unnecessary, particularly due to the advances African-Americans have made in this country.40 Conservative whites do not vote for black candidates, particularly in the South, not because they are racist, but because the liberal views associated most with African-Americans are not attractive to conservative whites, regardless of the candidate’s color.41 Furthermore, the existence of majority-minority districts reinforces racial differences, when the goal of the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Movement was to achieve color blindness and equality.42

The 2008 presidential election is further evidence that racial gerrymandering is unnecessary.43 Barack Obama did not win an overall majority of white votes, but no Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 has won the majority of the white vote.44 Obama captured 43 percent of the white vote, a slightly higher percentage than that of Al Gore (42 percent) in 2000, and John Kerry (41 percent) in 2004.45 In Iowa, which has a negligible black population, 5 percent of voters said that race was the most important factor in the election.46 However, 54 percent of Iowans voted for Obama.47 Obama achieved similar results in Minnesota and Wisconsin, states that are also predominantly white.48 This data shows that black candidates can win elections, even in majority-white areas. In fact, as early as 1990, 40 percent of the black members of Congress did not come from majority-black districts.49

Another major problem with racial gerrymandering is that it involves blatant government manipulation of people. Legislators redistrict all the time to achieve desired results. They group people together based on how they think they will vote. There is something fundamentally wrong with this tactic; it is unconstitutional, it is manipulative, it is patronizing, and it infringes upon all citizens’ right to vote.

Collectivism is a political theory that favors the group over the individual. It is a philosophy diametrically at odds with the American concept of individual liberty and limited government. According to Ayn Rand, “[c]ollectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of