Friday, 29 March 2024

Curry: Representation in the State of Jefferson

In 1791, Tom Paine, wrote, in the “Rights of Man,” ‘The county of Yorkshire, which contains near a million souls, sends two county members; and so does the county of Rutland which contains not a hundredth part of that number. The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?’

In 1832, by act of British Parliament, The Representation of the People Act of 1832 was made law. One of the reforms of the Act, was to eliminate “rotten boroughs” and redistributed representation to the citizens.

Rotten boroughs were a product of an ossified system resistant to change, one where fathers passed on constituencies to their sons as if they were personal property.

These electoral districts had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within the House of Commons.

In 1964, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state legislative districts must be apportioned on the principle of “one man, one vote.”

In an 8-to-1 decision, the court upheld the challenge to the Alabama system, holding that Equal Protection Clause demanded “no less than substantially equal state legislative representation for all citizens ...”

Noting that the right to direct representation was “a bedrock of our political system,” the court held that both houses of bicameral state legislatures had to be apportioned on a population basis.

Chief Justice Warren wrote that “legislators represent people, not trees or acres” and “legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.”

So, here we are in Lake County in 2015, being asked by radical secessionists to rewind our democracy 200 years into the past.

The foundation of a republic is based on power residing in the people, and the government is ruled by elected leaders run according to law, rather than inherited or appointed from divine mandate.

The leaders of the secessionist movement are proposing a return to feudalism by establishing a new state whose government would look like the pre-Reform Act of 1832 United Kingdom.

Their proposal for the government of this new state elect two state senators from each county.
(source: http://www.soj51.net/resources.html ).

In this new “State of Jefferson,” Sierra County with 3,000 citizens, would get two senators and Placer County with close to 400,000 citizens would get two senators.

How is this in any way, fair and equal representation for the citizens who live in those counties?

One man, one vote and the right to direct representation is the foundation of our democracy.

So, to the secessionists, again, “Is there any principle to this thing?”

Becky Curry lives in Kelseyville, Calif.

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