The Warren Court ruled that states could not do what the United States does. That is, a state cannot have an upper house which gives one senator to each county regardless of its population. The US Senate gives each state two senators regardless of population.
The Warren Court ruled that a state legislature had to apportion BOTH houses on the basis of population. Prior to that decision practically every state had done just that for a hundred and eighty years.
How did the Supreme Court explain this?
One provision of the Constitution requires that every state “shall have a republican form of goverment.” At the time practically every country on earth was ruled by a monarchy, so the term “republican” referred to the absence of a monarch.
Period.
But the Warren Court ruled that if a state apportioned one house on the basis of counties rather than on population, it did not have a “republican formof government.”
Not only does the United States Constitution have a Senate based on states rather than population, but THAT IS THE ONLY PROVISION IN THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION WHICH CANNOT BE AMENDED.
We could take out the whole Bill of Rights and the presidency with a constitutional amendment, but we cannot touch the Senate being accorded strictly by states.
The Supreme Court stated this very plainly: a government which has a house apportioned on any basis other than population is NOT a republic. Every state has gone along with this.
The United States is not only not a republic, but it CAN NEVER BE a republic under the Constitution that the Supreme Court is charged with interpreting.
#1 by joe rorke on 11/14/2005 - 5:20 pm
Bob, I wasn’t going to comment but since you say you love comments so much I was going to say, “Wow! Wait till Pat Buchanan hears about this!”
#2 by Bob on 11/14/2005 - 9:36 pm
Pat has already heard about this.