Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Junior and the gastonette:
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-black-man-brought-3-forms-of-id-to-the-polls-in-wisconsin-he-still-couldnt-vote/
Gastonette is a word so obscure I had to look it up from Judge Easterbrook's recent opinion in Frank v Walker, the ongoing Wisconsin voter ID lawsuit.
It was coined by another federal judge, to describe the old vaudeville bit, "after you my dear Alphonse", "no, after you, Gaston" of two men so polite they can't get through a doorway, and the not-that-uncommon situation where two legal requirements get in the way of each other.
“Birth of a Word,” 13 Green Bag 2d 169 (Winter 2010).
http://zalma.com/blog/insurers-must-avoid-the-gastonette/
It describes the situation where you can't get an ID without a birth certificate, and you can't get a birth certificate without an ID. Catch-22. Catch-22, noun,a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. See vicious cycle.
Eddie Lee Holloway has been through it.
https://www.aclu.org/bio/eddie-lee-holloway-jr
Sometimes finding the right plaintiff is the key to making your case.
His story is extreme. However, you could sit around the BMV in my town and find dozens of people with similar stories. It recently took me 4 trips to the Indiana BMV to try to get plates for my current car. What I got after 4 trips is a temporary tag that will be expired before I get home,
but I've been through worse there before.
I'm not sure if it was stupidity or genius that led the GOP put the BMV in charge of who gets to vote. I played chess with a guy in jail who had a story about how his dealing with the BMV eventually resulted in jail time. He was black; they usually are. When you are too poor, or out of the loop, to know which lawyer to hire to fix your BMV problem, you often end up driving with no license or on a suspended license, and get a ticket you can't pay, and then a warrant goes out, and you are hunted.
The name on my birth certificate is not my current name, and occasionally this makes the BMV freak out and not want to let me renew my license. I spent 2003 in that situation, which was one of the factors that led me to get involved in trying to litigate voter ID.
So far each of my three lawsuits has failed, but Eddy Lee Holloway Junior's second trip to the Seventh Circuit is paving the way for a new round of as applied challenges to unworkable voter ID situations that are common to Wisconsin and Indiana. I have potential plaintiffs in Indiana who were denied the vote over ID disputes, but so far I can't find them a lawyer. Their stories are not as dramatic as Eddie's, but I remain convinced that they have standing and injury.
It takes a combination of a good legal team and the right plaintiffs to take on these kind of cases.
It's hard to say where our society would be without the ACLU and the important work it does.
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-black-man-brought-3-forms-of-id-to-the-polls-in-wisconsin-he-still-couldnt-vote/
Gastonette is a word so obscure I had to look it up from Judge Easterbrook's recent opinion in Frank v Walker, the ongoing Wisconsin voter ID lawsuit.
It was coined by another federal judge, to describe the old vaudeville bit, "after you my dear Alphonse", "no, after you, Gaston" of two men so polite they can't get through a doorway, and the not-that-uncommon situation where two legal requirements get in the way of each other.
“Birth of a Word,” 13 Green Bag 2d 169 (Winter 2010).
http://zalma.com/blog/insurers-must-avoid-the-gastonette/
It describes the situation where you can't get an ID without a birth certificate, and you can't get a birth certificate without an ID. Catch-22. Catch-22, noun,a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. See vicious cycle.
Eddie Lee Holloway has been through it.
https://www.aclu.org/bio/eddie-lee-holloway-jr
Sometimes finding the right plaintiff is the key to making your case.
His story is extreme. However, you could sit around the BMV in my town and find dozens of people with similar stories. It recently took me 4 trips to the Indiana BMV to try to get plates for my current car. What I got after 4 trips is a temporary tag that will be expired before I get home,
but I've been through worse there before.
I'm not sure if it was stupidity or genius that led the GOP put the BMV in charge of who gets to vote. I played chess with a guy in jail who had a story about how his dealing with the BMV eventually resulted in jail time. He was black; they usually are. When you are too poor, or out of the loop, to know which lawyer to hire to fix your BMV problem, you often end up driving with no license or on a suspended license, and get a ticket you can't pay, and then a warrant goes out, and you are hunted.
The name on my birth certificate is not my current name, and occasionally this makes the BMV freak out and not want to let me renew my license. I spent 2003 in that situation, which was one of the factors that led me to get involved in trying to litigate voter ID.
So far each of my three lawsuits has failed, but Eddy Lee Holloway Junior's second trip to the Seventh Circuit is paving the way for a new round of as applied challenges to unworkable voter ID situations that are common to Wisconsin and Indiana. I have potential plaintiffs in Indiana who were denied the vote over ID disputes, but so far I can't find them a lawyer. Their stories are not as dramatic as Eddie's, but I remain convinced that they have standing and injury.
It takes a combination of a good legal team and the right plaintiffs to take on these kind of cases.
It's hard to say where our society would be without the ACLU and the important work it does.
Comments:
Post a Comment
