General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJudicial Review is vital to minorities. If you are white and straight and male your rights are
secure at the ballot box. But if you are black or brown, female, or gay they aren't. The way the Senate is designed it takes just 20 states to block any rights bill. Now just what year do you think it will be before states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, and Indiana will send a Senator who would vote for marriage equality. And that isn't even considering that one political party is unalterably opposed to marriage equality.
What about say abortion? Does anyone seriously think there would ever be a 60 vote majority for abortion for even up to say 12 weeks?
What about the Arizona law? Does anyone seriously suggest that this Congress would tell Arizona you can't have a papers please law? Without judicial review unpopular minorities would never have their rights upheld. States, if not the federal government, would have a state religion, confessions would be beaten out of suspects, interracial marriage would have been illegal well into the 1990's in much of the south. Sodomy would be illegal even in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Do you want to live in that country?