Conservative Principles Now

There seems to be an almost constant effort by some members of Congress to act unconstitutionally and to push through legislation that is beyond the enumerated powers given to Congress in Article I of the Constitution.

On Tuesday, I testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties about H.R. 3335, the Democracy Restoration Act. This bill, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), would force states to immediately restore the voting rights of convicted felons in federal elections the moment they are out of prison – even if they are on parole or probation or have not completed any of the other requirements of their sentence such as paying restitution to the victims of their crimes or the fines and civil penalties imposed on them.

But the Fourteenth Amendment specifically gives states the ability to abridge the right to vote “for participation in rebellion, or other crime.” The Constitution also provides in Article I, Sec. 2 and in the Seventeenth Amendment that voters for members of Congress “shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” So Congress is trying to overturn constitutional authority explicitly conferred on the states twice through legislation. This is just as unconstitutional as the attempt to give the District of Columbia a voting member of Congress or to force individual Americans to buy a health insurance policy.

Many states automatically restore the right to vote once a felon has completed his prison term. Others such as Virginia require an individual application that gives the state the ability to determine whether a felon has paid his debt to society and shown that he can be trusted to exercise the rights of full citizenship. Under this law, a terrorist like Sulayman al-Faris (i.e., John Walker Lindh) would be able to vote as soon as he is released from federal prison – so he will be able to participate in choosing the representatives of the government he wanted to help destroy.

What is particularly revealing about this bill is that it does not say anything about the other civil rights that a felon loses such as the right to own a gun or serve on a jury or in some states, to work as a public employee. Apparently, the sponsors trust felons enough to vote but not enough to own a gun or work as a teacher or a police officer. That is an interesting comment given that the “Findings” in the bill claim that such state felon laws “serve no compelling State interest.” I guess this legislation would serve one compelling interest for the sponsors – it might get them votes they need to win in close elections.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) still cannot determine what caused the unintended acceleration of a Toyota Prius last week in which a police officer was able to assist in bringing the vehicle to a stop without injury to anyone. In fact, when Members of Congress grilled Toyota representatives in several hearings, one of the reoccurring questions from Members was: Why didn’t you address the problem sooner. A legitimate question given the volume of complaints over the years but there are some trends that may shed light into what some are calling a serious lack of response. Theodore Frank, president and founder of the Center for Class Action Fairness writes that:

“The Los Angeles Times recently did a story detailing all of the NHTSA reports of Toyota “sudden acceleration” fatalities, and, though the Times did not mention it, the ages of the drivers involved were striking. In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).”

The Los Angeles Times article is available here. Megan McArdle adds:

“Here’s what else you notice: a slight majority of the incidents involved someone either parking, pulling out of a parking space, in stop and go traffic, at a light or stop sign . . . in other words, probably starting up from a complete stop. In many of the other cases, we don’t really know what happened, because there were no witnesses of exactly when the car started to run away.

In fact, it’s a little hard to be sure that some of the cases were sudden acceleration incidents, because the witnesses to what happened in the car were all killed; the family is trying to reconstruct what happened from their knowledge of the deceased. Obviously, most people are going to err on the side of believing that the car was at fault, rather than a beloved relative.

At any rate, when you look at these incidents all together, it’s pretty clear why Toyota didn’t investigate this “overwhelming evidence” of a problem: they look a lot like typical cases of driver error. I don’t know that all of them are. But I do know that however advanced Toyota’s electronics are, they’re not yet clever enough to be able to pick on senior citizens. Unfortunately, that won’t help Toyota much. It will still face a wave of lawsuits, and all the negative publicity means that it may be hard for the company to get a fair trial. Even if it does, the verdict in the court of public opinion will still hurt their sales for some time to come.”

More time will yield more information and hopefully more answers to the problem of unintended sudden acceleration. The good news for Toyota and consumers reaping the benefits of generous incentive packages is that the public appears to be standing behind the automaker. Sales in the United States are up 40 percent in the first ten days of March compared to the same time frame a year earlier.