Our Constitution currently says that representatives in the House of Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the number of persons in each state.
Now on the surface, that doesn't seem like an issue at all. Especially when you consider that it wasn't all that long ago that a black person only counted as three-fifths of a person when counting population with the census. How far we've travelled since then. The issue arises when you consider the fact that we have tens of millions of illegal immigrants cluttering up our country. Here is an interesting tidbit that I picked up from Rep. Miller's letter to the editor she sent to the Washington Post:
"Montana has one representative for a population of about 895,000 citizens. The 34th District of California has one representative but fewer than 420,000 citizens."
California, breeding ground for the infestation of illegal immigrants (what with its sanctuary cities of lawlessness), has so many non-citizens cluttering up the census that they are getting a bloated representation in our government. While the 34th District of California isn't the most populated by illegal immigrants, it's known for being the most Hispanic/Latino populated district. The only figure I found for the population of the district (population, not citizens) was "over 600,000" - and I don't know how old that number is. Which means that their Representative should have less than 70% of the power currently held. Less than 70% of that district's population are CITIZENS of the United States - so why should they be allowed to have an oversized say in what happens in the government?
H.J. Res. 6, sponsored by Candice Miller, would amend that part of the Constitution to apportion the representatives according to the number of citizens of the United States, rather than just the number of persons in each state.
When you think about it, it makes nothing but sense and you might even get as furious as I was over how screwed up the system currently is and that NOBODY seems to notice. Why should illegal immigrants affect the governmental representation that makes laws for CITIZENS of the United States? Why would we let criminals buff up the power of their districts to attempt to give them amnesty for their crimes?
It's ideas like these that make me ponder other things. Like the Electoral College when electing a president - wouldn't this change have to be made in order to properly divy electoral votes when having an election? That if we were counting the number of citizens instead of the population, California wouldn't be AS large of a number and neither would Texas? Maybe then we could get fairer representation for all the states and the citizens living in them. I'd rather have states like Montana and North Dakota and even West Virginia (smallest immigration percentage, according to the 2006 census) getting a little more pull and taking away some pull from California and Texas and other illegal-immigrant-heavy states. Candidates shouldn't have to pander extra hard in states for those oversized electoral votes. They should be able to focus on states with more actual citizens - the ones they'd be in charge of at the end of it all.
I don't care how much you point your finger at the fact that our founding fathers were "illegal immigrants from Europe" when they made the Constitution - that's why they had to eventually set up immigration laws and citizenship, to regulate things and keep the populous in balance.
It's time that we replace more "persons" with "citizens" in our Constitution and other legislation.
Sorry, Lincoln, but I'd rather have a "government of the citizens, by the citizens, for the citizens" that shall not perish from this earth.
Oh, and as always...
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS ILLEGAL.
(Rep. Candice Miller's letter to the editor)
(More info on H.J. Rep. 6)
(News article from the Chicago branch of the insanity)
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