Blog Post at Luke Laurie’s Teacher Blog: https://lukelaurie.wordpress.com/
There are a number of people out there who believe the ultimate evil in U.S. policy is the treatment of the Constitution as a living document, to be interpreted to fit the times. These people call themselves Constitutional Conservatives. They believe that we have strayed far from the original intent of the Founders by not being as literal as we should be in interpretations of the Constitution, which they argue, is an infallible document, and just as applicable today as it was when it was written, to the letter.
The words of the Constitution are often invoked in various debates including gun rights, freedom of speech, separation of Church and State. Somehow, some lesser known aspects of the Constitution are NEVER brought up in this context, or included in the that list of infallible statements made by the Founders. In this series of posts, I will address some of these aspects. And for FOX news: this is satire.
According to the Constitution, Government is Too Small
There are 435 Members of the House of Representatives. According to the Constitution as it was written, and applied at the time it was written, there should be 1 Representative for every 30,000 people. The U.S. population, at this writing, is 309,121,451.
Sticking with the Constitution, we should have a House of Representatives with 10,304 Members.
Give Us Representation!
The Constitution is not a living document. We need to go back to the original words and original intent of the Founders. They clearly intended for the size of the House of Representatives to be proportional to population, and to be A PROPORTION of the population.
The Constitution says: “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.” And what this means is 1 for every 30,000 people. It doesn’t mean 1 for every 300,000 people! But that is what we do today.
Liberals have gone wild with their interpretations, and have exaggerated the meaning of the phrase “shall not exceed.” The founders didn’t want anybody cheating by having too many Members of Congress. So the House had one Representative for every 30,000 people, with a minimum of 1 from every State. At the current rate of the reduction in the ratio of representatives per capita, we will have no Representatives in about 15 minutes!
Crazy liberals started playing fast and loose with the Constitution in 1850, when they decided they would “fix” the size of the House. Didn’t you know it, the whole thing has been FIXED for 160 years! No doubt, liberals used this method to disenfranchise rural States with low populations but good old fashioned values.
Take Montana, for example. The U.S. Constitution says that Montana can have 1 Representative for every 30,000 people. That’s right, 1 for every 30,000. With a population of 975,000 people, that means Montana could have up to 32 Representatives!
And how many Members does Montana have in the House today?
Only one! –Denny Rehberg(Republican)- A down home Country Boy? Nope. Net Worth $31,372,505, one of the richest Members of Congress. This guy has requested 75 million in personal earmarks in the last 3 years, and over 300 million in earmarks requested jointly with other members of Congress. Now that Democrats don’t want pork going to private companies, he suddenly supports the earmark freeze.
Why does Montana only get 1 Representative. California gets 53!!!
If we adhered to the Constitution, Montana would be able to have 32 Representatives, and they wouldn’t all be fat cat Denny Rehbergs. Montana could have 31 ordinary folks from all walks of life, going to Washington D.C., and representing the ordinary people.
It’s time for America to go back to the intent of the Founders. Give Representation to the masses, and increase the size of the legislative branch of government by 2000%. It’s the right thing to do.
(By the way, California would have 1,233 Representatives.)
Filed under: Constitution, humor, Politics | Tagged: conservative, Constitution, founding fathers, house of representatives, humor, intent, liberal, literal interpretation, number of representatives, satire, states, tradition, U.S. Constitution | 1 Comment »
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