Monday, September 12, 2016

Mark Levin tonight said something about populism being the province of Congress, not the Executive

Well yes, that's the idea from an originalist point of view, isn't it? Yes it is.

But what did the Congress do in the 1920s?

It tried to limit its own natural growth as required by the Constitution by fixing its number at 435 in the House, thinking that it could thereby enhance its own power. But by doing so it became less and less populist and more and more elitist, so that today no one in a given congressional district is confident his or her congressman knows their own name, let alone represents what they think on Capitol Hill.

So ever since we've been stuck with 435 representatives, and the Census has simply functioned to decide which state gets more and which fewer representatives based on population shifts.

Well that's not how it's supposed to be, dammit! (cue the shouting)

Now we have supremely powerful individuals in the House, like the Speaker and the committee chairmen, who function like co-presidents or consuls on the Roman model. The Romans had two consuls by the way, elected every year to one year terms. At least if we had that we'd have more influence over affairs, but as it is the people have no representative, which is why . . .

Donald Trump.

Fix representation, folks.

To have a ratio of one congressman per 50,000 of population, a House of Representatives numbering 6,460 is called for, instead of the current, elitist, unresponsive House of 435 apportioned in a ratio of one representative to 743,000 people per district on average.

That's the crisis of the Republic. Not the quixotic Donald Trump actually figuring out how to be the voice of so many millions of forgotten Americans.