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By Bennett Brinkman NonDoc.com

In addition to the Republican race for state superintendent of public instruction, three other primary elections for statewide office are heading to GOP runoffs Aug. 23. In the races for a Corporation Commission seat, commissioner of labor and state treasurer, no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote.

All results posted by the Oklahoma State Election Board online are unofficial until they are certified by the board.

Two of the three races are for open seats, but the third has seen term-limited Rep. Sean Roberts (R-Hominy) push incumbent Commissioner of Labor Leslie Osborn into the runoff. Osborn received 47.82 percent of the vote, while Roberts (R-Hominy) gained 38.27 of the vote. (Keith Swinton finished third, with 13.91 percent of the vote.)

The winner between Osborn and Roberts will face Democrat Jack Henderson and Libertarian Will Daugherty in November.

Osborn has been the commissioner of labor since 2018. Before that, she represented House District 47 in Canadian and Grady counties. Roberts is the current representative for state House District 36 and has been endorsed by Gov. Kevin Stitt. He made headlines when he filed his campaign under the name Sean The Patriot Roberts. The state election board later struck The Patriot monicker from the ballot.

In the battle for an open seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Sen. Kim David (R-Porter) finished in the lead Tuesday, with 41.07 percent of the Republican primary vote. For the Aug. 23 runoff, she will face second-place finisher Todd Thomsen, who brought in 25.99 percent of Tuesdays vote.

Finishing in third was Justin Hornback, a welder who works in the oil and gas industry. He brought in 20.35 percent of the vote. Harold Spradling finished fourth with 12.59 percent support.

The winner of the runoff between David and Thomsen will face Democrat Warigia Bowman and Independent Don Underwood in the general election on Nov. 8.

David is the current senator representing District 18 in the Oklahoma Legislature. She is term-limited for that seat. During her time in the Senate, she became the first female majority floor leader.

Thomsen formerly represented House District 25 from 2006 to 2018, and he is a former Oklahoma Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader. He was a football player at the University of Oklahoma and played on the national championship team in 1985, according to his website.

On June 7, NonDoc and News 9 hosted a Republican primary debate among candidates for the open Corporation Commission seat, which is being vacated by Dana Murphy owing to term limits.

In the race for state treasurer, Rep. Todd Russ (R-Cordell) took 48.5 percent of the Republican primary vote and will face former Sen. Clark Jolley, who garnered 33.87 percent of the vote, in the Aug. 23 runoff.

David Hooten, who recently resigned from his position as Oklahoma County Clerk amid allegations of sexual harassment, finished third with 17.62 percent of the vote.

The runoff winner will face Democrat Charles de Coune and Libertarian Greg Sadler in November.

Russ is the current representative from House District 55, which sits in western Oklahoma. According to his website, Russ has more than 30 years of banking experience in various parts of the state and was president and CEO of Washita State Bank.

Jolley is a former state Senator for District 41, which includes Edmond and northern Oklahoma City. He also formerly served as the state secretary of finance and chairman of the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

Original post:
Treasurer, labor and corporation commissioner elections head to GOP runoffs Daily Ardmoreite - Daily Ardmoreite

JoAnna Champlain claimed victory as Cherokee County treasurer in Tuesdays primary election, receiving an unofficial 57.84 percent of the votes in 29 precincts.

Champlain defeated Noel Hunter, who received 42.16 percent of the vote. Champlain and Hunter, both Democrats, didnt have a Republican opponent to challenge them in the November general election.

I would like to thank everyone in Cherokee County who supported and voted for me, Champlain said. I am very excited to begin this new journey as treasurer, and serve all of the residents of Cherokee County to the best of my ability. I look forward to the next four years with great anticipation, knowing I will continue to learn and grow, making our office the best it can be.

Hunter said she accepts the results as is, but wished the outcome was different. She addressed Champlain and wished her the best as she takes on her new position.

Current Treasurer Patsy Stafford declined to seek reelection.

Bobby Cub Whitewater, Democrat, will face off against Republican Mitch Sterling in November for the District 1 commissioner seat. Whitewater received 58.16 percent of the votes, while Randy Jones took 41.84 percent.

Jones thanked his supporters and all who helped during his campaign.

it was amazing, and I congratulate Bobby Whitewater on his win in this primary. I wish him well in November in the general election, said Jones.

Current Commissioner Doug Hubbard didnt run again.

In statewide and federal races, between 97 and 99 percent of precincts had reported as of 11 p.m.

Among Cherokee County voters, Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin obtained 62.64 percent of the vote for U.S. Senate. However, he faces a runoff against former Speaker of the House T.W. Shannon. The winner will meet up in the November general election with Democrat Kendra Horn, a former member of Congress, along with Ray Woods, an independent, and Libertarian Robert Murphy. Competing against him in the Republican primary on Tuesday were: T.W. Shannon, Alex Gray, Nathan Dahm, Luke Holland, Adam Holley, Jessica Jean Garrison, Laura Moreno, Michael Coibion, Scott Pruitt, Paul Royse, John F. Tompkins, and Randy J. Grellner.

Both in Cherokee County and statewide, voters chose to keep Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford, with 67.80 percent. He turned back challengers Jackson Lahmeyer, 26.42 percent, and Joan Farr, 5.78 percent, as of 10 p.m., Tuesday. Democrat Madison Horn won 36.92 percent of the vote against Jason Bollinger, 16.82 percent; Arya Azma, 7.02 percent; Brandon Wade, 12.29 percent; Dennis L. Baker, 13.88 percent; and Jo Glenn, 13.06 percent. Libertarian Kenneth D. Blevins and Michael L. Delaney, an independent, also will be on the November ballot.

Cherokee County resident Republican Wes Nofire scored 6.32 percent of the votes on his home turf for the congressional seat vacated by Mullin in District 2, but that wasn't enough to advance him to the primary runoff. Avery Frix and Josh Brecheen will meet up in that election on Aug. 23, having tallied 14.74 to 13.75 percent respectively.

Cherokee County resident Clint Johnson got 1.46 percent of votes in that race. He thanked his supporters for their trust and confidence they instilled in him.

There are a lot of good people in this race, and I wish them the best of luck. We will keep them to their campaign promises, said Johnson.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Republican, defeated Mark Sherwood, Joel Kintsel, and Moira McCabe with 68.58 percent of the votes. Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister will challenge Stitt and Ervin Stone Yen, an independent, and Libertarian Natalie Bruno during the general election, as she received 64.16 percent of the votes against Connie Johnson, 35.84 percent.

Republican Todd Russ, 48.50 percent, and Clark Jolley, 33.87 percent, will meet in the runoff for state treasurer after defeating David B. Hooten, 17.62 percent. Gregory J. Sadler, Libertarian, and Democrat Charles De Coune will go head-to-head in Novembers election with either Jolley or Russ. Current Treasurer Randy McDaniel didnt seek reelection.

Current Attorney General John M. OConnor got 49.12 percent of the vote, apparently indicating he was ousted by fellow Republican Gentner F. Drummond, with 50.88 percent.

John Cox, April Grace, Ryan Walters, and William E. Crozier, all Republicans, sought the seat of superintendent of public instruction, with incumbent Hofmeister switching parties and running for governor. Cox, who is Peggs School superintendent, was able to get 24.15 percent of the votes. However, Walters took 41.46 percent, and the two are projected for a runoff. Grace got 30.63 percent, and Crozier, 3.76 percent. The runoff winner will be joined by Democrat Jena Nelson in the general election.

District 18 Sen. Kim David, Republican, snagged the most votes for corporation commissioner, 41.08 percent. She was joined by Justin Hornback, 20.35 percent; Harold D. Spradling, 12.59 percent; and Todd Thomsen, 25.99 percent. Democrat Margaret Warigia Bowman, and Don Underwood, independent, will challenge David in November.

Republican Cindy Byrd will remain seated as State Auditor and Inspector after beating Steven W. McQuillen, 29 percent.

Link:
CHAMPLAIN IS TREASURER: Whitewater to face Sterling in November; Brecheen, Frix head for D2 Congress runoff - Tahlequah Daily Press

Let the games begin.

Today was the first day for candidates to declare for office in the 2022 primary and general elections. Well update our candidate filings at least twice daily, taking our information from the Rhode Island Secretary of States office.

Candidates are required to file the declaration papers today, tomorrow or Wednesday. Heres the latest updates for statewide and local communities.

This story will continue to be updated.

U.S. House of Representatives, District 2.

General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, who was endorsed by the Democratic State Convention yesterday, and former state Rep Spencer E. Dickinson, David A. Segal, and Donald L. Keith, also Democrats, filed declaration papers.

Donn M. Antonia (Independent) and Patricia A. Landy (Independent) have also filed declaration papers.

U.S. House of Representatives, District 1.

Republican Allen R. Waters, who has run for U.S. House and U.S. Senate in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Independent Lenine Camacho.

Governor.

Former CVS executive Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a Democrat. And Republicans Emmanuel Boateng Adjei and Jonathan J Riccitelli.

Elijah J. Gizzarelli (Independent Libertarian), James T. Aubin (Independent Libertarian), and Zachary Baker Hurwitz (Independent) have filed declaration papers.

Lieutenant Governor.

State Rep. Deborah Ruggiero (D). Independent Ross I. McCurdy.

Attorney General.

Incumbent Peter F. Neronha (D). Republican Charles Calenda.

General Treasurer.

Former Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor (D)

Secretary of State.

Democratic State Rep. Gregg Amore, who was endorsed by the Democratic State Convention yesterday, Anthony N.B. Tamba (D), and Pat Cortellessa (R).

State Senate, District 10, Tiverton, Warren.

Incumbent Walter Felag (D), and Republican Allyn Meyers.

State Senate, District 12,Little Compton, Middletown, Newport, Tiverton.

Incumbent Louis DiPalma (D) and Republican Stephen J. Horridge.

State Senate, District 13, Jamestown, Newport.

Incumbent Dawn Euer (D) and David Quiroa Sr. (R)

State Rep., District 70,Tiverton.

Incumbent John Edwards (D) and Republican Christopher M. Borden.

State Rep., District 71,Portsmouth, Tiverton & Little Compton.

Incumbent Michelle McGaw (D)

State Rep. District 72,Portsmouth & Middletown.

Incumbent Terri-Denise Cortvriend (D)

State Rep., District 73,Newport and Middletown.

Incumbent Marvin Abney (D)

State Rep., District 74,Jamestown, Middletown.

Democrat Alex S. Finkelman. The incumbent, Deb Ruggiero, a Democrat, is a candidate for lieutenant governor.

State Rep., District 75,Newport.

Incumbent Lauren Carson (D)

Newport City Council.

Incumbent Charles Holder (Ward 2), Incumbent Kathryn Leonard (Ward 3), Incumbent Lynn Ceglie (At-Large), Eames Yates (At-Large), and Stephanie Smyth (At-Large). Council candidates are non-partisan.

Newport School Committee.

Incumbent Sandra Flowers, Incumbent James Dring, and Incumbent Louisa Boatwright.

Middletown Town Council.

Incumbent Councilman Christopher M. Logan, Lawrence Frank, and Antone Viveiros. Middletown Council candidates are non-partisan.

Middletown School Committee.

Incumbents Liana Ferreira-Fenton and Theresa Spengler as well as Wendy E. Heaney

Portsmouth Town Council.

Michael DiPaola (I). Charles Levesque (D), Incumbent Keith Hamilton (R), and Sharlene Patton (R). Town Council Incumbents Andrew Kelly and Linda Ujifusa have announced that they will run for Senate District 11 (Portsmouth, Bristol).

Little Compton.

Town Clerk Incumbent Carol Wordell, a Republican; and for Town Council, incumbents Robert L. Mushen (R), Paul Golembeske (R), and Patrick McHugh (D). Also, Mike Folcarelli (I).

Candidates for all local and statewide offices must file their declaration of candidacy this week (between Monday and close of business on Wednesday).

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Election 2022: Politicians begin to declare candidacies - What'sUpNewp

Laura Ingalls Wilder was an American farmer and small-town farm journalist who rarely got involved in 20th-Century politics. She was not an activist for the vote and only entered in politics in old age, when she ran for a paid local office and lost.

And yet for decades, conservative Americans have held up her series, the Little Housebooks, which includesLittle House on the Prairie, as a Bible of libertarianism: true examples of American self-reliance and independent spirit. The nine childrens books about a hard-working pioneer family warned about the encroaching power of the state, and heralded the rise of the modern Republican party. They are fiction, of course, but based on Wilders real childhood.

Published in the throes of the Great Depression, the Little House books were powerful allegories opposing President Franklin Roosevelts New Deal programmes, which provided unprecedented financial support to struggling Americans. They also illustrated a major shift in Republican ideology that took place in the Thirties, as the party sought to widen its appeal. It shed its reputation as the party of elite business owners, and instead began to emphasise the power of the individual.

In one of the scenes in The Long Winter, a storekeeper is overcharging starving residents of De Smet, South Dakota, who want to buy the last grain in town. A riot seems imminent until the hero of the books, Charles Pa Ingalls, speaks up. This is a free country, and every mans got a right to do as he pleases with his own property, he tells the storekeeper. Dont forget that every one of us is free and independent, Loftus. This winter wont last forever, and maybe you want to go on doing business after its over.

This impromptu speech is anachronistic: arguing about unregulated markets was a debate rooted in the Thirties, when this book was written, rather than the 1880s, when it was set. It hints at the secret lying at the heart of the Little House books: it was Wilders daughter and secret co-author, Rose Wilder Lane, who imbued the books with their political message.

Lane was one of the intellectual architects of the libertarian political movement in America: she was an influential free-market activist, writer, and acquaintance of the philosopher Ayn Rand. Her projection of her radical political views onto her mothers pioneering childhood means that the series should be read as a double history: folk stories about the 1870s and 1880s woven through the vantage point of the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Pulsing through the books, meanwhile, are principles rooted in the Declaration of Independence. Thanks often to Lanes revisions, characters occasionally quote that document, noting that they want to be free and independent. In Little Town on the Prairie, Pa takes Laura and her sister to the Fourth of July celebration in town. In Lanes revision, Laura is transfixed by the reading of the Declaration of Independence and the singing of My Country Tis of Thee:

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the Song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is Americas king. She thought: Americans wont obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences.

This is why the books are so beloved by conservatives today: these libertarian views formed the basis of the modern Republican Party.

Yet the books purposefully understate the difficulty of the American pioneer experience. It was in fact a brutally hard life of crop failures, isolation, and disease. Although the Little House books preserved in accurate and lyrical detail many of the skills that small farmers practiced in the 19th century, Lane recast many scenes as optimistic takes on tragedy that did not reflect how the family actually responded. In On the Banks of Plum Creek, Pa announced during a horrible plague of the Rocky Mountain locust that ate crops for two years: We wont let a pesky crop of grasshoppers stop us. The locusts did, in fact, lead to their financial ruin. Two years later, according to Little Town on the Prairie, the family resorted to eating the blackbirds that had destroyed their first corn crop in Dakota Territory. The family sings Sing a Song of Sixpence at the table. And why not show some upbeat pluck in a childrens book?

But Wilder cautioned her daughter that the family was not an optimistic group. The quality they relied on was stoicism, putting up with the bad that came. Thats very different from hope. I wish I could explain to you about the stoicism of the people, she wrote to Lane in 1938, when they were halfway through writing the series. You know a person cannot live at a high pitch of emotion. The feelings become dulled by a natural, unconscious effort at self-preservation. Wilder insisted that the Ingalls family had never reacted to anything emotionally.

The divergence between Wilders real-life story and the Little House narrative was also apparent from what they left out: crime and tragedy. Gone from the books were stories Laura had written in early drafts: the death of a baby brother, a mournful episode running a tavern that ended with the family fleeing late at night to avoid paying its debts. The hardships that did stay in the books shored up tenaciousness as a value, such as sister Mary Ingalls going blind as a teenager. Laura then had to step in to help her and support the family by teaching at several schools.

The books also downplayed the various ways the government helped the family, spinning a myth of self-reliance. Like many pioneer settlers, they were given a free homestead through the federal Homestead Act, which granted tracts the government had taken from American Indians. Then there was sister Marys state-paid college for the blind in Iowa. The stories only talk of Laura having to teach to pay for Marys college expenses perhaps her clothes.

The stories continue to exert a kind of power on the American psyche. The books have sold more than 60 million copies and were taught in classrooms for many decades; the series remains part of homeschooling curricula. Laura Ingalls Wilder is the quintessential American pioneer, says Wilder expert William Anderson in the PBS American Masters documentary Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page.

And Lanes legacy can still be felt in the Republican party. Lane only wrote political articles after publishing the Little House books and her libertarian treatise The Discovery of Freedom. But she campaigned for limited government in the last years of her life. In the Sixties, she took under her ideological wing a young man in Connecticut; he was Roger Lea MacBride, who became a champion of libertarian thought and ran for president for the new Libertarian Party in 1976. Later, MacBride took the libertarian ideas with him as he migrated back to the Republican partys Liberty Caucus.

Lane also donated funds to help businessman Robert LeFevre launch an institution for adults in Colorado called the Freedom School, which named a building after Lane. Two of the early students who studied free markets and limited government there were Charles and David Koch, who went on to become members of the Libertarian Party in the Seventies and Eighties. Later, they returned to the conservative branches of the Republican Party and became hugely influential by donating money to Republicans promising to support free-market concerns, including such notions as refuting the science of climate change.

The myth of the pioneers, embodied by Laura Ingalls Wilder, inspired many conservative American values today. They were seen as the kind of independent, self-reliant Americans that the Second Amendment was designed to protect. But even they would have struggled with some aspects of modern Republican policy gun control in particular.

Certainly, the Ingalls family owned and used guns. In one scene in Little House in the Big Woods, Pa Ingalls trudges with his rifle through the snow of northern Wisconsin, checking animal traps. Rounding a large pine tree, he meets a black bear, standing on its hind legs clutching a dead pig. Pa aims his gun, kills the bear, and immediately runs home for the horses and sled to take the meat home. There, it resides in frozen form in a shed. Pa hacks off pieces with an axe at mealtimes.

Even the mythical Pa Ingalls would not have thought todays Americans needed guns in most situations, especially the range of weapons available today. He preached to his daughters the necessity of restraint. You wouldnt shoot a little baby deer, would you, Pa? says Laura. No, never! he answered. Nor its Ma, nor its Pa. No more hunting, now, till all the little wild animals have grown up. Well just have to do without fresh meat till fall.

When baby animals were roaming the forest, it was time to put the rifle away.

Continued here:
The myth of American conservatism - UnHerd

SYMPOSIUM BySaul Cornell on Jun 27, 2022 at 5:05 pm

This article is part of a symposium on the courts decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Saul Cornell is the Paul and Diane Guenther chair in American history at Fordham University and adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School.

The majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen invokes the authority of history but presents a version of the past that is little more than an ideological fantasy, much of it invented by gun-rights advocates and their libertarian allies in the legal academy with the express purpose of bolstering litigation such as Bruen. Rather than applying a history, text, and tradition approach, it would be more accurate to characterize Justice Clarence Thomas decision as an illustration of the current Supreme Courts new interpretive model: Fiction, Fantasy, and Mythology. Indeed, the distortion of the historical record, misreading of evidence, and dismissal of facts that dont fit the gun-rights narrative favored by Thomas are genuinely breathtaking in scope. Thomas has taken law-office history to a new low, even for the Supreme Court, a body whose special brand of law chambers history has prompted multiple critiques and been a source of amusement for generations of scholars and court watchers.

It is particularly noteworthy that Justice Stephen Breyer called out his colleagues for engaging in the most rank form of law-office history in his dissent. Although it has become common, almost routine, for scholars to catalog the embarrassing quality of the current Supreme Courts uses of history, it is unusual to see a sitting justice level this charge against others on the court in a published opinion. It is hard to dispute Breyers negative characterization of his colleagues tendentious, error-filled, and highly selective culling of evidence to vindicate their gun-rights agenda. Bruen does mark a new low for the court. Indeed, it seems appropriate that Thomas saw fit to quote Dred Scott, the courts worst decision in history, approvingly. Thomas not only treats the case as good legal authority but suggests the author of the most reviled opinion in American law captured the meaning of the Second Amendment better than any other judicial pronouncement in American history.

To describe the Thomas version of the past as a caricature understates the case. In the Bizzaro constitutional universe inhabited by Thomas, Shakespeares England was filled with pistol-packin peasants, a notion that most English historians would find bonkers. The characterization of early American firearms regulation is equally flawed, and Thomas rests his dismissal of antebellum enforcement of gun laws on an as yet unpublished and error-filled account by one of his former clerks even as he dismisses the many counter-examples provided by New York as a slender reed upon which to rest their case.

Perhaps the most egregious distortion of the historical record occurs in the majoritys false claims about regulation during Reconstruction. Evidence of robust regulation of guns in public featured prominently in the briefs filed in the case, but the majority either dismisses contrary evidence as unrepresentative or simply ignores evidence it finds inconvenient. Here is what Thomas says about Texas, a state whose robust gun laws, he reluctantly concedes, undeniably support New Yorks approach to public safety. We acknowledge, Thomas wrote, that the Texas cases support New Yorks proper-cause requirement, which one can analogize to Texas reasonable grounds standard. But the Texas statute, and the rationales set forth in English and Duke, are outliers.

The originalist methodology applied by Thomas has one set of rules that apply to interpreting legal texts that support gun rights, and another more demanding set of standards that apply to those that undermine them. The Thomas version of originalism might be summarized as follows: No amount of evidence is enough to support gun control, but no iota of evidence is too little to legitimate gun-rights claims. If one of the goals of originalism was to limit judicial discretion (a value few originalists continue to espouse now that they have a supermajority on the court), then the Thomas rule does the opposite. It provides a license to cherry-pick evidence with reckless abandon if the materials support the ideological agenda of the Federalist Society.

Texas, it is worth stressing, was hardly alone in embracing a robust view of state police-power authority over regulation of arms in public. Georgias 1868 arms-bearing provision declared that: The right of the people to bear arms in defense of themselves and the lawful authority of the State, shall not be infringed, but the Legislature may prescribe the manner in which they may be borne. The reconstructed southern states and newly admitted western states all drafted new arms-bearing provisions in their state constitutions, casting aside the Founding-era focus on militias, substituting new language more individualistic in focus. Justice Samuel Alito recognized this fact in McDonald v. City of Chicago but stopped reading the text of these provisions in mid-sentence because all these provisions went on to affirm the sweeping police-power authority of the states to regulate arms in public. In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia read the Second Amendment backward, and in McDonald, Alito stopped reading the text mid-sentence. If anyone had any doubts that the new originalism was the Federalist Societys latest intellectual scam, then these two approaches to reading constitutional texts ought to dispel any lingering doubts. In the hands of this court, originalism is a constitutional Etch A Sketch, in which judges can erase texts at will and read them backward if necessary.

Twelve million Americans during the Reconstruction period were living under state constitutional arms-bearing provisions that reflected this new regulatory paradigm, a model that forged an indissoluble link between the right to regulate and the right to bear arms. For Thomas, twelve million is too little to be consequential. The courts right-wing originalist supermajority, including Thomas, Alito, and their ideological co-conspirators, are making up the rules of evidence and historical interpretation on the fly, constantly shifting the burden of proof, to suit their agenda.

Even more galling, assuming that historical accuracy is still a value for the courts originalist ideologues, is the absence of any attention to local gun regulation, which increased dramatically during Reconstruction. Contrary to the patently false claims made by Thomas, states and localities acted on the language in the new state arms-bearing provisions, including enacting permit schemes based on a specified need for self-defense, precisely the type of regulatory regime at issue in Bruen. Thomas treats New Yorks law as if it emerged out of nowhere in the early 20th century, but the truth is that a host of localities had enacted similar laws starting in the 1870s, which means that New Yorks law was firmly rooted in Reconstruction-era conceptions of the scope of permissible regulation under the Second Amendment.

Many of these laws, excavated from obscure sources, were presented to the court in a remarkable appendix to a brief submitted by Air Force historian Patrick Charles. This evidence contradicts Thomas facile claims that Texas-style gun control was an anomaly. Nor does Thomas acknowledge the evidence presented in the historians and law professors brief submitted in Bruen. It discussed the spread of permit schemes in California and other parts of the nation after the Civil War. By the last decade of the 19th century, more than half the population of the state living in its cities and towns were living under these types of restrictions. Again, in the surreal originalist universe inhabited by Thomas and his colleagues, if 50% of a state lived under New York-style restrictions, this also fails to reach a sufficient threshold to provide historical evidence supporting gun regulation.

Nor were these restrictive public-carry regimes an exclusively western development. In 1873, Jersey City prohibited carrying dangerous weapons without a permit, which the citys municipal court could grant to people from the nature of their profession, business or occupation, or from peculiar circumstances. Jersey City was hardly one of the cattle towns of the Old West, another body of evidence that Thomas simply discounts because it is inconsistent with his ideological agenda. The map below graphically underscores how wrong Thomas got the history in Bruen. It shows that millions of Americans were living under restrictive public-carry laws similar in scope to the New York law at issue in Bruen for decades before the Sullivan Act.

Distorting the past to further his ideological agenda has become a trademark feature of Thomas. What is more disheartening is that the courts newest originalists, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, signed on to this historical charade. Despite protestations that they are not ideological warriors and political hacks, Gorsuch and Barrett missed an opportunity to prove that originalism can be applied in a rigorous and neutral manner. Apparently, that claim continues to a be a promise as yet unfilled.

Graphic courtesy of Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Saul Cornell, History and Tradition or Fantasy and Fiction: Which Version of the Past Will the Supreme Court Choose inNYSRPA v. Bruen? (June, 2022).

Read more from the original source:
Cherry-picked history and ideology-driven outcomes: Bruen's originalist distortions - SCOTUSblog