Helling Disputes Missouri AG Hanaway On Census & Constitution

A worthwhile retort that questions the merits of Missouri lawsuit.

First the basics . . .  

(Missouri AG) Hanaway’s lawsuit seeks to force the federal government to redo the 2020 census, because she says it unconstitutionally included “illegal aliens.” She wants the feds to recalculate membership in the U.S. House based on a new non-alien census.

Now here's the crux of Dave Helling's reasoning that might ultimately be decided by SCOTUS and maybe ahead of midterms . . . 

Hanaway tries to glide around the clear language in the document. The framers, she claims, “did not intend — and the Constitution would not have been originally understood — to give temporary visa holders and illegal aliens representation in the federal government.”

How does she know that? The founders would have been bewildered by the terms “illegal alien” or “temporary visas.” Those words certainly can’t be found in the document.

Several delegates to the Constitutional convention were immigrants.

Had they wanted to, the framers could have excluded non-citizens from the count. They excluded 40% of slaves and untaxed Indians; adding immigrants to the list would have been easy (although determining who was or wasn’t an immigrant would have been nearly impossible.)

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Missouri's Catherine Hanaway: Originalism for thee, but not for me