One Person, One Vote

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the provision that one person is equal to one vote.  The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to hear Evenwel v. Abbott, a case that is being called the “biggest voting law case in 60 years.” 

                Ian Smith wrote a very interesting essay about this case and explained, “… Plaintiffs in the case are asking the court to consider a fundamental question about our representative democracy:  does drawing legislative districts around `residents’ instead of eligible voters give too much weight to voters in immigrant-heavy districts and thus violate the Constitution’s `one-person, one-vote’ principle?  As the two plaintiffs show in court filings, their respective senate districts in Texas have almost twice the amount of eligible voters than do other more Hispanic urban districts.  If the voter population of Texas’s districts was equalized, it would have huge implications on how political power’s distributed not only in that state, but likely elsewhere.”  In his essay Smith explains that the Founders never meant for people who come to the United States illegally or those who come as tourists, students, etc. to be included as “persons” in the drawing legislative districts. 

                I believe that illegal aliens should be treated as tourists as far as the political districting goes.  They are not citizens and should not be considered.  Evenwel v. Abbott  is a case to watch.  Hopefully, enough Justices will have common sense to understand the Constitution as it was written and not as Liberals want it to be written.