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Sunday, 9 April 2006
The Curious Case of Congressional Apportionment
There is a word, synchronicty, which means,
"Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related, conceived in Jungian theory as an explanatory principle on the same order as causality."


I think of it as seemingly random bits that collapse into meaning. First comes something that prompts the reaction, "That's strange." then the Universe starts dropping in the remaining pieces of the puzzle.


Recently in Big Lizard's The Continental Divide

This caught my eye,

"The Continental Divide
Immigration , Kulturkampf
Hatched by Dafydd
There are two basic camps on immigration; the camp you choose typically determines your positions and priorities.

Illegal immigrants are essentially criminals.

Illegal immigrants are essentially thwarted freedom-seekers.

There is an interesting geographic dispersal about these camps: the first is primarily found in states that have very few illegal immigrants, the second primarily in states that have a very large illegal population -- though of course there are campsites of each in each type of state."


If true, it is strange that portions of the country not effected by the illegal alien invasion would be more emphatic on reversing this trend than those areas where the influx was much greater.

What might prompt this phenomena? Is it that the Blue States are more compassionate, more sensitive, more altruistic, while the Red States are more selfish hard hearted and mean spirited? Or could there be some other causative factor in play?

Could there be a reason other than compassion for some Political Leader to WELCOME
the present massive influx of illegal aliens?


Then a small still voice whispered to me, "Congressional Apportionment", and the pieces to the puzzle started dropping into place.


Question: What is apportionment?


"Question: What is apportionment?
Answer: Apportionment is the process of dividing the 435 memberships, or seats, in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states.


Question: Who is included in the apportionment population counts?
Answer: The apportionment calculation is based upon the total resident population (citizens and non-citizens) of the 50 states. In Census 2000, the apportionment population also includes U.S. Armed Forces personnel and federal civilian employees stationed outside the United States (and their dependents living with them) that can be allocated, based on administrative records, back to a home state. This is the same procedure used in 1990"


Q: Do aliens count as "persons" under the 14th amendment's apportionment of representatives?

"This is an interesting recurring question I get every once in a while and, unfortunately, been too occupied to answer. There has been talk to change "persons" under section 2 of the 14th amendment to read "citizens." Michigan Republican Rep. Candice Miller introduced a constitutional amendment last year that would change the 14th amendment to allow only "citizens" to be counted instead of "persons." The section in question reads as follows:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Strictly speaking, there is nothing terribly wrong with this section of the fourteenth amendment as it stands because the States lost nothing outright due to its adoption. Also, a State cannot be held liable for disenfranchising anyone who is not a citizen of the United States under this section. The insertion of the word "persons" obviously confuses the entire section; even more confusing is the fact "persons" replaced the word "citizens" because that word was found even more confusing in the year 1866."

*************************************************

"It indeed defies logic why millions of non-citizens who violated federal laws to reside in the country illegally could be counted for purposes of State "



Count on it: non-citizens?even illegal aliens?are included in the Census. Think this affects the political system?

"NOBODY in the House of Representatives has more constituents than Denny Rehberg. With some 900,000 people in his district--which encompasses the whole state of Montana--his population base is almost 50 percent larger than that of the typical House member. To complicate matters further, only Don Young of Alaska represents a larger geographical area. "It's a real balancing act," says Rehberg, a Republican. "I find that there're three sides to every two-sided issue."

It would be a lot easier representing all of these citizens if congressmen actually represented citizens. But they don't, or at least not exclusively. Under the current rules of apportionment, the 435 House seats are divvied up on the basis of the total number of people living in each state--not just citizens, but also noncitizens and even illegal aliens. It's hard to believe: People whose very presence in the United States is against the law are granted formal representation in Washington.

This is the root cause of Rehberg's predicament. Montana doesn't have a second congressional seat because so many illegal aliens live in places like California, which receives three extra representatives for the 2 million illegal aliens who call it home. And Montana isn't the only loser in the zero-sum game of congressional apportionment. Indiana, Michigan, and Mississippi are also shy a seat in the House because of illegal aliens residing elsewhere, according to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies.



Most Americans don't realize that their democracy redistributes political power based on the settlement patterns of illegal aliens and other non-citizens. But these changes are significant enough to shuffle around a bunch of seats in the House of Representatives and perhaps even alter the outcome of a presidential election. If the next race for the White House is as close as the last one, it's possible that the federal government's practice of treating illegal aliens the same as citizens for purposes of apportionment will wind up costing George W. Bush the presidency.

The 2000 Census counted 18.5 million non-citizens, including an estimated 7 million illegal aliens. If these people were evenly distributed around the country, they would have no impact on how House seats are assigned. But immigrants tend to cluster in ethnic communities. Nearly 30 percent of America's non-citizens live in California, for example, compared with 12 percent of the total U.S. population. These non-citizens--most of them legal immigrants--are enough to boost the Golden State's congressional delegation by six whole members. Florida, New York, and Texas also gain one extra seat apiece because of their large non-citizen populations. Nine states lose out: Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Aside from the compelling matter of principle involved, these apportionment schemes distort our politics in other ways: Democrats benefit. That's because noncitizen apportionment allows the creation of congressional districts full of people who don't have the right to vote--and Democrats almost always win in these places. Consider California's 31st congressional district, where 41 percent of the inhabitants are non-citizens. Last year, Xavier Becerra--one of the most leftwing members of Congress--carried it by attracting fewer than 55,000 votes, despite its population of 639,000. In many congressional districts, the winner needs two times this level of support. Steve Sailer of UPI crunched the numbers for California's whole delegation: In the eight districts won by Hispanics (all Democrats), an average of 80,000 voters went to the polls. In the other 45 districts, an average of 143,000 turned out--that's 79 percent more.
"


There you have it folks for a generation now the balance of power in our government has been artificially skewed to the benefit of one particular Political Party.

Any attempt to correct the massive influx of illegal aliens would by the Nature of the present rules of Apportionment cost the Democratic Party up to 20 seats in the House of Representatives.

No wonder we keep hearing over and over again,


It is impossible to deport 12 million illegal aliens.

As a matter of fact it is not. All that needs to be done is shut down the draw of illegal employment, do a better job of border controll and initiate planned deportation that EXCEEDS the number entering.

It took 20 years for this mess to reach the point it is now, it might take 20 years to completely correct it.

But it is NOT in the best interest of the Democratic Party to correct anything, It is in their best interest for the matter to stay as it is or get worse.

Their Political Power in Congress DEPENDS upon Illegal Aliens.

They will not let go of this advantage quietly, they will instead defame anyone who opposes them as Racists and Bigots.

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.




Linked to


OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

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Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 12:11 PM CDT
| Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Monday, 10 April 2006 5:50 PM CDT

Sunday, 9 April 2006 - 6:24 PM CDT

Name: Debbie
Home Page: http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

Ok, this is a wonderful article and I posted it in it's entirety at Right Truth. Something went haywire after the post and everything on my blog went into 'italics'. I could not figure out what the problem was, so I deleted the post and everything went back to normal. I think there must be some little quirk in the code that caused the problem. When I remove the following, everything works OK. If anybody else has problems, this might be it:

href="http://federalistblog.us/2006/03/do_aliens_really_count_towards_
_apportionment.html">Q: Do aliens count as "persons" under the 14th
amendment's apportionment of representatives?



Also the image of the coalition's button would not display. I have the cheap version of TypePad and sometimes it gets persnickety. I have forwarded your link to the Guard the Borders Blogburst so they can include it in tomorrow's production.

Thanks
Debbie

Sunday, 9 April 2006 - 7:53 PM CDT

Name: kentuckydan

. Something went haywire after the post and everything on my blog went into 'italics'

Sorry about that I had a
unclosed italics code


OOPs fixed now thanks for the tip

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