NATION | WORLD
THE SUMTER ITEM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2016
Supreme Court bolsters influence of U.S. Latinos WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court unanimously endorsed election maps that bolster the growing political influence of America’s Latinos on Monday, ruling that states can count everyone, not just eligible voters, in drawing voting districts. The decision rejected a challenge from Texas voters that also could have diluted the voting power of urban Democrats, to the benefit of rural Republicans. The case offered a test of the principle of “one person, one vote,” the requirement laid out by the Supreme Court in 1964 that political districts be roughly equal in population. The issue here, though, was what population to consider: everyone or just eligible voters. All 50 states use total population as their basis for drawing district lines, but the challengers said the rural state Senate districts in which they lived had vastly more eligible voters than urban districts, making their votes count for less, in violation of the Constitution. In Texas, and other states with large immigrant populations, urban districts include many more people who are too young, not yet citizens, in the country illegally or otherwise ineligible to vote. All of them, recorded by the census, count for the purpose of drawing po-
litical districts. Civil rights groups said forcing states to change their method of constructing districts would have damaged Latino political influence. “Jurisdictions, we hold, may design state and local legislative districts with equal total populations; they are not obliged to equalize voter populations,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, summarizing her opinion for the court. Ginsburg said that “history, our decisions and settled practice in all 50 states and countless local jurisdictions point in the same direction.” She also declared that “representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote” and that nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates. The court stopped short of saying that states must use total population. And it also did not rule on whether states are free to use a different measure, as Texas had asked. Ginsburg said the court was not resolving whether states may base maps on voter population. Richard Hasen, an expert in election law at the University of California at Irvine Law School, said, “A contrary ruling would have shifted power to Republican, rural districts, and away from Democratic, urban areas.”
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One post at a time, bombing survivor shares his healing BRUSSELS (AP) — In the days since Islamic State suicide bombers attacked the Brussels airport, survivor Walter Benjamin has been plugging away on Facebook from his hospital room, sharing his story, telling loved ones not to worry. He has met the king of Belgium, the queen and the country’s chief rabbi — but it was an airport technician who made the biggest impression. Hassan Elouafi stepped over corpses at the airport to hand Benjamin a telephone so he could call his mother and tell her he was alive. At a time when many Muslims are being demonized because of the actions of a few, Benjamin feels the need to tell Elouafi’s story. “Hassan cried in my arms and told me, ‘I am so happy to see you alive.’ His name is Hassan, he is a Belgian Muslim, father of four children, technician at Brussels airport. THIS
MAN IS NOT A TERRORIST,” Benjamin, who is Jewish, wrote in one Facebook post. “He acted as a normal human being. He is a Mensch. I will plant a tree in Israel for him, his wife and his children.” In a daily recounting of his convalescence, the 47-year-old matchmaker for a dating agency has become the voice of the wounded, offering a firsthand look at the suffering and triumphs of those who survived the March 22 bombings that killed 32 others. Through all this, the survivor who lost a leg in the attack is trying to heal — physically and spiritually — as he reaches out to persuade others that hating Islam is not the answer. “One can criticize me and tell me that I am an idealist, that I first defend the Muslim community,” he told The Associated Press. “Well I don’t think I defend them only. I still think
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that 99.99 percent of Muslims are good people, extraordinary people, people like you and me. They are not terrorists.” The attacks at Brussels’ main airport and on a subway train left 270 people wounded, many with severe burns and maimed limbs. A handful have already died in the hospital. One doctor at the military hospital where many are being cared for said colleagues were accustomed to treating such wounds in soldiers but were so shocked at the carnage in Brussels they would likely need counseling. Two weeks after the attacks, 66 people are still hospitalized in Belgium while others are being treated abroad. Foreigners from 20 nations were affected. Among them were three Mormon missionaries from Utah, two Jet Airways cabin crewmembers from India and a newlywed from Germany.
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Walter Benjamin makes a phone call as he rests in his bed in Jette University Hospital in Brussels on Sunday. Benjamin survived the Brussels airport attack but lost a leg. Read more online at theitem.com.
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