A liberal former media executive has a proposal that takes attempts to silence political opponents to a new level:
Steven Clifford, author and former CEO of the King Broadcasting Company and National Mobile Television, told PJM that the federal government should “prohibit straight white males from voting” in U.S. elections as a way to “save” democracy. “I think it’s the only hope for democracy in America and I will be leading a great movement to prohibit straight white males, who I believe supported Donald Trump by about 85 percent, from exercising the franchise and I think that will save our democracy,” Clifford said during an interview after speaking at the forum “Destroying the Myths of Market Fundamentalism,” which was organized by the Center for Study of Responsive Law – a group former independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader founded in 1968.
My question is how would a ban on white males work without violating the 14th amendment?
Southern Democrats were quite ingenious in coming up with ways to ban non-whites from voting in the days of Jim Crow; perhaps modern Democrats may need to resurrect them with a new twist or two.
Could we see a ban on anyone whose grandfather was eligible to vote in the US?
Could blue states impose literacy tests where straight white males are disqualified because they can’t read Chinese, Swahili, etc.?
What about liberal white males? Is there going to be some procedure for allowing non-white and/or gay and/or female voters to vouch for them as a special exception?
Imagine if a Republican media exec made comments about disenfranchising groups who tend to vote Democratic. Liberal media outlets would be running it as a headline and taking every opportunity to ask President Trump and Republican candidates why they have not explicitly repudiated the comments.
The fourteenth amendment says:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
The legal question is whether someone who is here illegally is still subject to the jurisdiction of the US? Please provide a court decision of federal statute that specifically addresses this issue before you claim a violation of the constitution.
As far as disenfranchise straight white males, the fifteenth amendment is more specific:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Democrats figured out ways around the fifteenth amendment in the past. They may have to modify federal law to do it again, but according to Clifford, democracy is lost if they don’t.
where did y’all get that one?