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Jims65
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Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 12:30 pm
First Name: Jim

Taking Back Our Republic

Post by Jims65 »

In Taking Back Our Republic, Page 2 you wrote; “years later, after the 1920 census, Congress failed to reapportion the House in direct violation of the Constitution”.

I am wondering if you would clarify how the Congress was in direct violation of the Constitution. Doesn’t the Constitution indicate Congress can determine how that is to be done? (Article I Section 2)
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JEQuidam
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Re: Taking Back Our Republic

Post by JEQuidam »

Jims65 wrote:Doesn’t the Constitution indicate Congress can determine how that is to be done? (Article I Section 2)
(Sorry for the tardy reply. I'm supposed to receive e-mails notifying me of new posts. Not sure if I'm getting those.)

What Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution explicitly requires is that "Representatives ... shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers" (subject to the minimum constraints of 1 per state and 1 per every 30,000). The key language is "apportioned among the several states ... according to their respective numbers". That language explicitly requires that if a state has X% of the population, it should have X% of the representation in Congress – to the extent mathematically possible without violating the minimum constraints – that is the primary requirement.

In order to achieve that objective, there has to be a sufficient number of Representatives. Otherwise, they could allocate only 150 Representatives with approximately the same degree of inaccuracy as they do today.

In addition, and directly related to that point, constraining the number of Representatives to such a small number inevitably forces an egregious violation of the Constitutional principle of "One Person One Vote". This is explained in section 9 of the pamphlet, and is also the subject of the Apportionment.us litigation against the federal government.
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