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ok tumblr, you seem interested in political activism, so we’re going to have a little lesson in administrative law and how you can force the Trump administration to listen to you for the next four years.
To condense a semester-long law school course into a blog post: Congress delegates significant quasi-legislative power to administrative agencies, e.g. the EPA. These agencies have a great deal of power to shape your everyday life, but our system of civics education is so abysmal that, chances are, you have no idea what kind of power you hold to shape their decisions.
Administrative agencies have to navigate a maze of laws and procedures in order for the rules they make to be effective and binding. These laws and procedures mean that there plenty of ways the agencies can mess up, and when they do, opponents of a rule can bring legal challenges and invalidate it. (This is frustrating for agencies, but delightfully fun for antagonistic nerds like me.)
When an agency wants to create an informal rule, it has to go through a process called “notice and comment.” Basically, the agency announces a proposed rule and permits the public to submit comments on it. The public includes you.
When the comment period is over, the agency has to take the comments into account and justify its ultimate decision on the proposed rule in light of the comments. If you submit substantive, meaningful comments that challenge the policy or evidence behind a rule, and the agency fails to acknowledge them and explain its reasoning for its final decision, the rule can be challenged and invalidated.
So how do you comment on proposed rules? This lovely little site called regulations.gov. Really, it’s that easy! You can search for topics that interest you and submit your comments online. And you can do it anonymously!
So please, check the website frequently and comment when it matters to you, so that your voice can be heard and Trump’s agencies have to acknowledge your perspective. If they fail to take your comments into consideration and disregard the American people, they’ll have to answer for it in court.
Keep calling your representatives and senators about Bannon and the policy issues that concern you, but remember this little lesson in admin law when he takes office.
Can somebody explain to me why this is a problem? Why is voter ID bad???
How do you not have ID?? License? Passport?
Also how is that proof that’s it’s rigged. Why do those 300,000 people not have ID? Does that mean they are illigal immigrants(seriously I have no clue) cuz if that’s the case, they have no right to vote. Needing ID vote makes so much sense to me. In Canadian elections, you need ID vote
Please somebody explain to me what the issue is with needing ID to vote
Because most likely if they don’t have a drivers license they probably can’t afford a passport which are the two forms of ID they’d accept so it makes the poor people unable to vote
Fair enough.
Isn’t the purpose of an ID to prevent voter fraud? I think that pretty important
I do agree it is important but it would be better if they made IDs more accessible for people who wouldn’t normally be able to afford it
True I don’t know the prices and how possible it is to reduce prices (what affects, what needs to be taken into account) but something to consider
My original question stemmed from the fact that so many people are against voter ID in general, as if proving who you are is a violation. I’ve seen so much hate for it months prior to the elections. Plus the tweet claims it’s evidence of it being rigged which I found quite dumb. I don’t support either candidate but jeeeez
But idk I’m Canadian I don’t know a whole lote about how things are done and what the process is so…yea
To clear some of this up for those who aren’t familiar with voter ID laws:
Here is an excellent article written a few years ago (by a former Republican!) about how these requirements put a disproportionate burden on certain groups of voters - specifically, those who are likely to be Democrats. A few key points:
“7% of the general voting public doesn’t have an adequate photo ID, but those figures rise precipitously when you hit certain groups: 15% of voting age citizens making less than $35,000 a year, 18% of Americans over 65, and a full quarter of African Americans.”
“…the documents one needs to get a photo ID aren’t (free) and the prices haven’t been reduced. Lost your naturalization certificate? That’ll be $345. Don’t have a birth certificate because you’re black and were born in the segregated south? You have to go to court.”
“One can only hope that would-be voters have access to a car or adequate public transportation, and a boss who won’t mind if they take several hours off work to go get their ID, particularly if they live in, say, the third of Texas counties that have no ID-issuing offices at all.”
“(Republican) Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, to take an example, signed a strict voter ID law and then made a move to start closing DMV offices in areas full of Democrats, while increasing office hours in areas full of Republicans—this in a state in which half of blacks and Hispanics are estimated to lack a driver’s license and a quarter of its DMV offices are open less than one day per month. (Sauk City’s is open a whopping four times a year.)”
So basically, there are a lot - A LOT - of Americans who are legally eligible to vote but lack a DMV-issued I.D. Most of those people are from demographic groups perceived as likely to vote Democratic.
The “rigged” part? Is that Republican state and local officials have actively worked to make it harder for Democratic-skewing demographic groups - especially the poor - to obtain DMV-issued I.D.s, while enacting laws that require them to show those I.D.s in order to vote.
Ensuring no voter fraud is a good thing, it helps uphold the integrity and people’s trust of the voting system. That being said, overly strict regulations end up targeting minority groups. (also a little weird that for USA’s federal elections there isn’t a federal standard? IDK state powers are weird)
So how do other countries decrease fraud and inequality? Since one of the above posters mentioned Canada -> in Canada there are 2 big ways you can prove you’re you without photo ID. (Any combination of 2 pieces out of 48 pieces of listed non-photo ID, or 2 pieces of ID with name and a person who will testify you live where you say you live) http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&document=index&lang=e
Oh, and employers are legally obligated to give you time off to vote, and cannot deduct your pay for going to vote. These measures would go a long way in decreasing bias at the polls. (Oh and a federal standard. Did I mention a federal standard?)
There is also the basic history in the U.S. of disenfranchising PoC, specifically black voters in the South. Voter fraud is almost non-existent in the U.S. It has become and continues to be a talking point of the Republican party because it is based in racism. Legally, they can’t say, “No black person is allowed to vote. No Latinx is allowed to vote,” but states continue to pass laws that make it specifically harder for those groups to vote, whether it is the “literacy tests” of the Jim Crow era (seriously, try taking that test; many of these types of tests had intentionally confusing questions) or a voting places with extreme waiting times in poorer areas. We also see shorter early voter periods in these areas, which makes it harder for the poor working class to vote since Election Day isn’t a holiday in the U.S.
This doesn’t even touch the issue the amount of documentation you need in order to get an ID these days in the US. If you are homeless or a migrant worker of any kind, it’s pretty much impossible.
There is also the major issue that these laws have never been universally applied. A white person going to vote gets a cheery wave and a “just sign next to your name,” while a black person has to have two forms of ID just to prove who they are and if they don’t have the ‘right kind’ of ID–again often determined by people at the polling place– they are turned away. So while folks can say that having ID just makes sense, U.S. history speaks volumes as to why it shouldn’t be implemented.
There’s also the added complication of state residency.
In most states, to be legally eligible to vote you have to have been living in that state for at least six months. You have to have proof of a physical address in that state (so renting out a po box wouldn’t work). This obviously hurts the homeless and migratory workers, but it also hurts anyone that has recently moved.
Most states require a physical address listed on any ID. Again, this is a problem for the homeless.
As scholars of Jewish history, we are acutely attuned to the fragility of democracies and the consequences for minorities when democracies fail to live up to their highest principles. The United States has a fraught history with respect to Native Americans, African Americans and other ethnic and religious minorities. But this country was founded on ideals of liberty and justice and has made slow, often painful progress to achieve them by righting historic wrongs and creating equal rights and opportunities for all. No group has been more fortunate in benefiting from this progress than American Jews. Excluded by anti-Semitism from many professions and social organizations before the Second World War, Jews in the postwar period became part of the American majority, flourishing economically and politically and accepted socially. There are now virtually no corners of American life to which Jews cannot gain entry. But mindful of the long history of their oppression, Jews have often been at the forefront of the fight for the rights of others in this country.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s electoral victory, it is time to re-evaluate where the country stands. The election campaign was marked by unprecedented expressions of racial, ethnic, gender-based, and religious hatred, some coming from the candidate and some from his supporters, against Muslims, Latinos, women, and others. In the days since the election, there have been numerous attacks on immigrant groups, some of which likely drew inspiration from the elevation of Mr. Trump to the presidency of the United States.
Hostility to immigrants and refugees strikes particularly close to home for us as historians of the Jews. As an immigrant people, Jews have experienced the pain of discrimination and exclusion, including by this country in the dire years of the 1930s. Our reading of the past impels us to resist any attempts to place a vulnerable group in the crosshairs of nativist racism. It is our duty to come to their aid and to resist the degradation of rights that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has provoked.
However, it is not only in defense of others that we feel called to speak out. We witnessed repeated anti-Semitic expressions and insinuations during the Trump campaign. Much of this anti-Semitism was directed against journalists, either Jewish or with Jewish-sounding names. The candidate himself refused to denounce—and even retweeted—language and images that struck us as manifestly anti-Semitic. By not doing so, his campaign gave license to haters of Jews, who truck in conspiracy theories about world Jewish domination.
We condemn unequivocally those agitators who have ridden Trump’s coattails to propagate their toxic ideas about Jews. More broadly, we call on all fair-minded Americans to condemn unequivocally the hateful and discriminatory language and threats that have been directed by him and his supporters against Muslims, women, Latinos, African-Americans, disabled people, LGBT people and others. Hatred of one minority leads to hatred of all. Passivity and demoralization are luxuries we cannot afford. We stand ready to wage a struggle to defend the constitutional rights and liberties of all Americans. It is not too soon to begin mobilizing in solidarity.
When I worked in fast food for minimum wage, they would yell at us and lecture us about “stealing” fries and burgers (while we had to throw out TONS of food every day) as though the giant billion-dollar corporations of McDonald’s and Sonic couldn’t afford to give their employees something to eat (while not even paying us a living wage).
Now I work at an upscale restaurant (it’s fancy, like celebrities eat there fairly often) and not only do I make WAY better money but they give us 2 free meals a day (eaten on the clock) and they’re GOOD. Today I got baked cod, spring rolls, rice pilaf, stir fry, and mashed potatoes and eggplant. Oh, and free espresso and juice. From this restaurant owned by a local man who is in no way a billionaire.
Obviously money is not the issue, valuing your employees as people is.
This needs all of the reblogs. All of them.
A Cat:
*is cat*
Me:
Wow. Absolutely outstanding. Look at this. Please everyone please come see.
Proud Polynesian, our cultural dance costumes are so beautiful!
SO, as Moanas’ premiere date gets closer and the love for Pokemon sun and moon grows, i’d just like to remind people that THIS is real traditional Polynesian attire (samples of the diversity), and not a simple grass skirt, flower crown and green tube top is proper representation. Please be respectful and mindful.
