I've never done this before as an actual originator of a petition, so you'll have to forgive me if the results are amateurish. Perhaps I should have waited and left it to more seasoned activists, but I don't feel in a very wait-and-see mood given that the Supreme Court has once again basically declared the outcome of an election in advance in favor of the Republican Party. Only this time it's not through some abstruse legal fiction like corporate personhood: This time they have opened the floodgates for criminal Republican state governments to suppress minority voting - the decisive demographic in the 2012 elections - and left no doubt that this was the one and only reason for the decision. So I've posted a Change.org petition whose contents I reproduce below, and you can sign it if you wish. I have no idea what I'm doing, so let me know what else I'm supposed to do.
Whereas the relevant provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) have been key to secure the right of millions of Americans to have a voice in their government for generations, and countless Americans have fought, suffered, and even died to secure those rights...
Whereas those provisions of VRA have been crucial to protecting the rights of minority voters in recent years as partisan attempts to illegally suppress minority voting have intensified...
Whereas the equal right to vote is fundamental to the liberty and security of a free republic...
Whereas the current Supreme Court majority have shown a pattern and practice of issuing lawless rulings designed to radically change the laws of this nation in order to increase the electoral performance of the Republican Party...
And whereas the aforementioned ruling striking down key parts of the VRA is a nakedly partisan, lawless, and inexcusable attempt to assist Republican election efforts in 2014 by eliminating key mechanisms against minority vote suppression tactics...
It is necessary for the defense of the rule of the law, the legitimacy of the Courts, and the rights of all Americans that the President and the Congress condemn the ruling in the strongest possible terms, reject it as invalid and lawless, and immediately call for inquiries into passing articles of impeachment against Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy for abuse of power.
Here's the link to the petition:
http://www.change.org/...
I assume I've done all I needed to make it worth signing, but feel free to tell me if there's something else that should be done. This ruling must not stand, and yet the greatest likelihood is that a Constitutional Amendment cannot be passed negating it. As a result, the ruling places this country into a state of Constitutional Crisis that does not appear resolvable while the current majority sits on the Supreme Court. Even with Constitutional Amendments, they would simply "interpret" them to mean whatever would result in empowering Republican candidates for election at the expense of the rights of American voters.
This state of affairs is no longer tolerable. The ruling must be condemned in the strongest possible terms by our elected officials, its legitimacy publicly rejected, and the Justices responsible called upon to answer for their naked abuse of power. It must be made clear that we will no longer tolerate a brazenly partisan Supreme Court attempting to dictate elections in advance.
1:45 PM PT: An important point has been made in comments that's worth emphasizing: There is no alternative to impeaching these Justices. Any legislation passed to thwart their will would just be struck down. Any Constitutional Amendment passed to do the same, no doubt at great time and cost, would just be "interpreted" into irrelevance. Impeachment is the only recourse to deal with a rogue Supreme Court.
2:51 PM PT: I guess I need to say this outright: If you're against the very premise of the diary, just ignore it. Don't post comments arguing that we should do nothing.
3:32 PM PT: Revealing my total ignorance of the Change.org process, what happens when you reach 100 signatures?
3:57 PM PT: This is just the beginning, BTW. I'll be updating the progress of the petition and my own understanding of what's going on over the next few days, which will definitely be more involved than this introductory effort.
4:04 PM PT: I don't do social media, so if you do and support the petition, feel free to help spread it by sharing it through those various media.