I watched with bated anticipation for any sign of intelligent life on the strange Planet of Wingnuttia. I’ve had no luck whatsoever. Still though, it has never ceased to amaze me as to how close they are from the actual truth but have been turned away from it by their Heralding voices and the border collies at Faux News. If they were ever actually to find the truth, they would be surprised & angered as to the extent of the falsehoods as to surely turn on their masters at, Again, Faux News. Why should they be angry? What is the reason for the disconnect they feel? There is much validity to the cry of “No taxation without representation!” They just have to understand why, as do we all.
The problem with Taxation without representation is Valid But not for the reasons that Fox, Limpballs, Vanity, or even the biggest Nut-Nut, Beck is reporting, they can’t have the Sheeple getting the following message;
The US House of Representatives has too few members. By the way the left is just as guilty as the right when it comes to this.
What’s that you ask? Isn’t 435 enough? The short answer, NO! This is the crux of the problem. And if you give me just a few moments I will show how it works and why.
Time for a civics refresher,
The U.S. Federal Government Is divided into three basic branches, 1), The Executive branch, The President and his Cabinet. 2), the Judiciary Branch, the Supreme Court. 3), The Legislative Branch, which consists of the two Houses of Congress. The Senate, 2 Members for every state, and The House Of Representatives, Currently at 770,000 citizens per representative, 435 members total. My Answer will focus on the House of Representatives.
The House of Representatives was created By George Washington. The Man, the Father of this Great Nation Himself, His Brain Child, His Baby. So great was His idea that Great Britain and Canada copied it and added it to their governments calling it the “lower house of Parliament”. Washington did this as a Method of giving the People, The most power in our republic. He detested centralized government, the 2 party system and concentration of power over the many into the hands of the few. Though he himself wielded it He did want it to end.
According to the constitution, The House has the most power in our republic, more than any other branch, For only the House has the Power Of Impeachment, to indict a government official. The check by the other branches is to prevent mob rule. However it stands that the house must represent the people. But how can the current 435 members of the house represent over 300,000,000 citizens? Again, the short answer is, they can’t.
Washington Created the House to represent us, the People, but its power has been stolen from the People by the power seeking and the powerful. Washington the Man, wanted the house membership to be a proportionally representation of the People. What does this mean? It means the house membership was supposed to have a direct proportion of representatives to citizens. Currently set as 1: 770,000. This is the illusion. Many citizens in Ohio can attest to this fact, as they lost a house seat in their state in 2001.
Ohio Lost a House seat? Did they have a big loss of populous between 1990 and 2000? No they didn’t, in fact their population increased between those years. So why did they lose their Seat? Simple, Their Population did not grow as fast as the state that gained the seat.
Now I can almost hear you question this logic, just as I did. If Ohio’s population increased, why didn’t the house just add the seat for the other state? Isn’t this supposed to be a proportionally representative of the People? Well…No On that account also, Not Since 1911 so they won’t because of the House’s self imposed cap on its membership, this is 435 members and has been in place since 1911. (Google it for yourself.) So if it looks to you like we have not had the representation the people have needed since 1911, you’re on the right track.
The House Members at that time simply thumbed their noses at Washington’s House, Cried like babies about the size of their desks, Yes they did actually do this, then they set the then membership as the norm. An exclusive club of 435 members, and have just shuffle the seats around from state to state ever since. This has been the case, Except for 2 occasions, the additions of Alaska and Hawaii. The house was temporary increased in size to accommodate them upon their entry then stealing seats from other states to lower the membership of the House back to its level of 435 again after the next census.
This has all been done by the way to cover the fact that as of the 1910 Censes, the then undersized House was set to almost triple in size, from 435 to well over 1000 seats. This is the problem. And this is how it exacerbates all other existing problems with the other branches of government.
What’s the difference? Why is a larger membership necessary? Well the differences are many. But the 2 main reasons are, 1) a larger house means better representation. With a representation level set at say,
1:100,000, not only would you be closer to your representative but your representative would be representing a closer knit group of people. 2) Your House member would be much more responsive to their constituency.
This is what goes on now, example: How about a city like Trenton, NJ, it has a population of Approximately 175,000. Currently that means that we have a representative who also represents a large suburban population as well. Wealthier Towns like; West Windsor, East Windsor, Princeton, you get the picture. So who does this house member represent, the less well off inner city dweller, or the wealthy suburbanite?
Maybe this is good for me you might think? Maybe, But lets look at another side of this problem. The constitutional term for house members is 2 years. That means currently, right after a House member says “I will” He/ She hits the ground running for their next term. With a constituency of 700,000 this means money, BIG MONEY! With Big Money comes big corruption, so where do House members get their Campaign money from? And who is He/She beholden too. Well corporations like Pharma, Aetna, Citi corp, Bank of America, Beginning to see the fog dissipate?
Under a system Like Washington Designed of say 1:100,000, (He actually wanted 1:30,000) you or I could run a campaign on a shoestring budget, get out and press the flesh, Beholden only to our constituency, of 100,000 or fewer. Not only do you have that, but we as common folk would bring a sense of frugality, and commonsense, with us that the current House Villagers have seemed to have forgotten altogether. This is the house that Washington Built, not the one we see on c-span today.
Holy Cow 1:100,000, at that level we would have 3000 House members! How would anything get done? The better question would be, would any less get done? Well things would get done the same way they get done now, In Committees.
Do you remember when you were in School, and you had a group project? If you had a group of more than say 6-10 students working on a project, what did the teacher do? He/She broke you down into smaller groups, so you could get more work done. When you have more than 6-10 people in a group you break down into smaller groups. In the House, You would just have a lot more of them. Actually when you think about it, more actual WORK would get done that way in the House then gets done now.
Think of all the focus studies that need to be done by the House members and reported on that no one seems to have time for.
Wouldn’t that many people slow down the legislative process? Absolutely, because that’s the way Washington designed it to work! To slow down the process, if a president or the senate would try to ram through a bill the House is supposed to slow it down, and think about it, the Patriot act, the Wall Street bailout, the stimulus package, the Christmas tax break for Billionaires. This legislation was rammed through a Small House we have now with little fanfare or debate. In a larger House, Common folks would need to look at it carefully, Take it home read it, ask for opinions. Think about it people, no more huge omnibus bills with a dozens of amendments, earmarks and other assorted B.S. in it. Why? Because a larger house, with common people, would want to look more carefully at anything going through its Halls.
What happens to the two party systems? First let me state the following, “Two party systems are junk politics.” With that out of the way in a system like Washington’s two political parties could not hold all the cards anymore. How many times have you thought to yourself, “If only their was another potent political party.” In a system like Washington purposed, we would have many political parties. Washington Hated the 2 party systems, this was built into his design. He Was a Mason after all. We would have everything from the Black panthers on the left to white power parties, on the right. Not that I like extremes, but give them a voice of representation and they would be much less likely pick up a Gun for power. By the way some of the best Ideas have come from extreme points of view. Women’s suffrages, Social security, Unemployment, were thought to be extreme points of view at one time, now they are considered to be mainstream programs.
But the most important thing that would happen is, the incumbency franchise would end. It would be dam near impossible to pander in a small district. Why? Quite simply, it’s the size that matters.
“The smaller the Constituency the less likely hood there is for corruption.” G. Washington.
In a smaller constituency, tighter knit, with more common problems that would need addressing. A simple majority of the people in that district would be enough to get your house member to “see the light”. If he/She is on the take, it won’t take long to find out. This Paper scratches but the surface and does not even begin to address the Electoral College’s problem as it relates to this. And relate to it, it does. So for This and more please go to the web pamphlet at,
http://www.thirty-thousand.org. Find out why The House does not represent you. And what you can do to help Change this.
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