Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. certainly sounded authoritative when he made a striking, though unflattering, declaration about Massachusetts as the high court heard arguments over the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is designed to assure equal access across races to polling booths.
“Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African-American voter turnout?” Roberts asked Donald Verrilli Jr., solicitor general for the Department of Justice, during Wednesday’s arguments.
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On Thursday, Galvin tried to set the record straight. “We have one of the highest voter registrations in the country,” he said, “so this whole effort to make a cheap-shot point at Massachusetts is deceptive.”
Voter registration and voter turnout are two completely different things. Can Mr. Galvin please provide some voter turnout statistics.
I'm sure Mr. Galvin would be happy to provide those numbers, you should be faulting Ms Johnson of the Globe for not actually putting them in her article. As the saying goes: "Numbers - they're a great way to tell if one thing is bigger than another."
From the article:
In the November 2012 election, there was little difference in voter turnout in Boston neighborhoods with high concentrations of white or black voters. In Charlestown, where 80 percent of residents are white, 68 percent of voters cast ballots in November. In Roxbury, the traditional heart of Boston’s African-American community, about 64 percent of voters came out to the polls.
Granted, that is one election, but it certainly suggests Justice Roberts' claim is erroneous.
Roberts exposed himself as being a politicized operative with this proclamation. It's human nature to bring personal biases to whatever we do. But some positions have traditionally been expected to aspire to more neutrality. Roberts fails to understand that notion and act on it.
Do you think Kagan might've had a word with him afterwards?
Take some data. Interpret it carefully. Weigh the source, and the complexities -- to the full extent done in government work. Then draw the obvious conclusions (with zero tolerance for mushy qualifications). Bingo (so to speak)! Whatever the facts, I guess Massachusetts -- and by proxy other non-Southern states -- now knows how Mississippi feels. Very cleaver, Mr. Roberts. I hope in his "call out" Mr. Galvin is intending to stick to dialectic, as I suspect Mr. Roberts is younger and more muscled than Mr. Galvin...
I should add: I think that if it stays verbal Mr. Galvin will be a fearsome opponent.
First the President of the U.S. keeps telling us he is the 'commander-in-chief' as if that role for all Presidents is something special for Barry the O, who not too long ago asserted that he won the 2012 election and therefore is privileged to do as he sees fit. Now we have an aging Massachusetts politically-motivated elected office holder engaging in a juvenile "call out" of the Chief Justice of the United States in some sort of imagined insult to his integrity (apparently assuming that he, the Secretary of State, IS the Commonwealth of Taxashoositts). There seems to be a slowly-building epidemic of macho doubts that need to be reinforced among the Democratic hackdom at the national and state levels. Pity.
Roberts should move to Mississippi if he thinks it's so great. He would fit right in.
I agree. Maybe he could get a job picking cotton. He is nothing more than one more red neck.
I have never seen a SC as political as this one. This country should be called the Divided States of America.
I don't expect this convservative BS to last too much longer. The intelligent people of America are getting wise to these jerks.
Sam, love those statements like "The intelligent people of America. . ."
If and when you libs get your way, it will interesting to see how long the country lasts. (seen the incredible rate at which the debt has been going up?) As you pander to everyone who has been "wronged", you will find yourself working to support everyone who doesn't feel like working anymore as you strive towards your "Utopia".
I think an interesting poll would be whether minorities in southern states or northern states have a great fear of going to the polls. I know a minority individual who was questioned over and over in louisana and his Yale ID fell out he was getting his drivers license. The voter attendant exclaimed "You went to Yale" in a very surprised voice. My friend replied , "yes mame, I'm edu-ma-cated" ! She replied back "It's educated", he said "look up sarcasim".
Once again Roberts proves how woefully underqualified he was to become Chief Justice.
You are so right, I said the same thing when he upheld Obamacare.
So what. As long as people are not being denied the right to vote. If people chose not to vote that is their perogative.
This article would benefit greatly by including some of the actual data! Lazy reporting- or just inept?
Pardon me, but why are we being told Chief Justice Roberts is WRONG WRONG WRONG and the numbers "apparently" prove he is wrong but we aren't being trusted with the actual numbers to determine for ourselves if he's wrong, right, or if (perhaps) he is overstating the importance of one or two evanescent data points? This article does not inspire a lot of confidence.
Examples of turnout levels were given, as were the precise names of two different sources of turnout data, one of which was characterized , significantly, as having high margins of error as well as being the likely source of Roberts' claim. That's plenty enough to verify the article's contentions. Anything more would be spoonfeeding.
Well suppose the Chief Justice was right (not likely!)...this just proves the Voting Rights Act is still needed...maybe even in Massachusetts ;-)
Supreme court justices, Religious seers are all residents of Ivory Towers!! They have no idea what is happening in the real world!! And inturn loose common sense and become senile!
How do we get good decisions from the Supreme Court when the Chief Justice is misintrepeting data to get to the conclusion he wants?
Where's the data? The Globe should have reported the relevant statistics for voter registration and voter turnout, by race., including the margins of error -- and describe this in an accessible manner, perhaps with graphs and confidence intervals. That would be much more infomative than the "he-said he-said" approach this article took. It's not too late: how about a supplemental article that with these data?
Commonwealth Magazine, which apparently trusts its readers to look at numbers, margins of errors, confidence intervals, and come to their own conclusions has helpfully provided a link to the underlying data that the Globe would not
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/p20/2010/tables.html
What do you expect from Supreme Court Justice Roberts who has ruled that corporations are people too!
Please cite where Roberts said corporations are people (I mean the exact quote, not just a broad reference to CU.)
That ruling pre-dates thebirth of John Roberts much less his time on the SC.
The 4 or 5 conservatives on the Court have always been in the bag for Corporate America and its right wing allies that comprise the core of the Republican Party. Sure, they will weave and bob on things like the Health Care Act and probably Doma because this does not threaten their power base. Gutting the Voting Rights Act and opening the floodgates to unlimited amounts of cash from the wealthy corporate elite are parts of a concerted effort to keep these interests in the driver's seat. That's why they were appointed and that's who they represent. It ain't you or me that's on their mind.
Well put. Couldn't have stated it better myself. Retiring the Voting Rights act is one more step to taking "control" of the electorate to get better results for right wing, so-called conservative solons that will be in the pocket of big corporate interests, special interests (NRA for example which is a corporate mouth piece for the weapons industry and nothing more). Citizen's United is another tool in the tool box of the right wing. I don't exactly which justice said the corporations are "people" but that is the excuse behind CU. Which is pure unaldulterated BS. I have worked at many corporations and not once did the CEO or the board of directors ever ask the rank and file employees who the company should support in any election. Although in the last election we had powerful executives of corporations warning employees that if Obama got re-elected they may lose their jobs and other such veiled threats. The Tea Party controlled GOP seems to want to subvert voting rights (jerrymandering districts to exclude those who aren't going to vote their way), Kill off any semblance of an educated, middle class. Send more jobs overseas using tools like H1-B visas, allow sequestration to happen to also kill jobs. The GOP seems to want to go back in time to the early part of last century. When the JP Morgans, Rockefellers, and Carnegies owned the country, paid no taxes and treated people like dirt. Not to mention wanting to get rid of the minimum wage so big, powerful Walmart, Target, etc can get slave labor like China and India do. Oh how great it will be when there is no middle class anymore. Just the very wealthy, their toadies in government and all the rest of us poor and homeless. What nirvana that would be for the right wing.
PS. Good for Billy Galvin. Brighton lads know how to say it straight.
Poor reporting on the part of the Globe. It should not have taken days and Galvin's response to spur our regional paper to analyze the Chief Justice's comments. A serious analysis of the data should have been presented. The Globe should do a better job of covering issues in depth.
Not from Brighton, but Bill Galvin earns his dough.
Is this the same Bill Galvin that is always late on getting the absentee ballots to the Armed Forces men and woman that are stationed over seas.
You go, Prince of Darkness, go! Roberts has proven himself a political hack, and you're calling him out for it. Good for you.
Balls and strikes?
I think he means “worst ratio of African-American voter turnout to white voter turnout”. So, if the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court can’t represent ratios correctly, why should I be surprised that my former math students couldn’t either? Oh, right….the problem is that teachers aren’t doing their job correctly.
Lawyers should be barred from the judiciary... especially on the Supreme Court of the Citizens of the United States - add a few scientists, doctors, house husbands and other notables who have few pretensions about being able to be fair and neutral.
That's like barring scientists from the laboratory and doctors from the hospital.
Gotta love the holier-than-thou conservatives who say the Tea Party is not classist or racist yet they aplaud "changes" in voting laws that will disproportionately affect the poor, old and the minority among us. The only real changes that need to be made should involve greater access, more voting machines and NOT making a 102 year old black woman wait 6 hours to vote!
Huh??? This may be the most reactionary response of all. We went from the Supreme Court to 102 year old voters? If it weren't for voter fraud, we wouldn't have this election day mess! If voters are registered ahead of time and carry an ID, these waits could be reduced.
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This is very disturbing that Roberts introduced faulty information. It appears to be BIAS and that Roberts has PREJUDGED this case, which is outrageous.