10/1/20
With the looming disaster that is the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court the Democrats are lining up their alternatives. The list of things they’re willing to do to get their agenda passed is mind boggling. First, they must take back the presidency and gain control of both houses of congress. With a majority in the Senate they’ll move swiftly to do away with the filibuster. With that accomplished most of want they want is possible. They can add two new states the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has turned down statehood five times, most recently in 2017. These two solidly blue states would give the Democrats four more senators. There has also been an idea floated to allot Senators based on a state’s population, much like the House of Representatives. They could institute term limits on the Supreme Court Justices thereby giving themselves additional opportunities to nominate jurist who share their views. The alternative we hear most widely expressed is packing the court. All these ideas are fraught with “unintended” consequences. At some point another Republican will be elected president and then what happens? Ask, the Democrats and former Sen. Harry Reed about unintended consequences when he changed Senate procedure and opened that door on judicial appointments prior to the 2014 mid-term elections. No Democrat wants to mention it but he’s the reason, they are where they are today. I think once President Trump is re-elected, he and Sen Mitch McConnell should stage a pre-emptive strike and pack the court with two or maybe three more conservative jurists. Can you imagine the howls of indignation from the left about ruining that revered institution? This, only because Trump beat them to it. You think their panties are in a wad now just wait and see what happens then. They will be apoplectic. It would be so rich, but I digress. Obviously the most discussed option is the attempt to do away with the Electoral College. This, the Democrats know requires a Constitutional Amendment and is the least plausible of all these schemes. It would involve a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and approval three-quarters of the states for it to pass. The Constitution does not specify how each state is required to vote for the Electoral College. Right now, in all but two states votes are allocated on a winner take all bases. The left would have Electoral College votes cast based on the winner of the nationwide popular vote. The Democrats effort now is to garner enough support for this work around from individual blue states to reach the threshold of 270 votes thereby making the electoral college a non-factor.
All these potential strategies the Democrats seem to favor take us farther away from a “Representative Republic” and closer to a “Pure Democracy”. Let’s be sure we’re on the same page because civics is not everyone’s strong suit. To be clear, the United States is a “Representative Republic” that functions on “Democratic principles”. Using their own rhetoric, the Democrats have shown that they are eager to circumvent the Founding Fathers’ precepts of what a Representative Republic should be. As Barak Obama said of the constitution “it is a charter of negative liberties” therefore limiting the federal government’s power. A democracy is law by the majority which they will accomplish through re-allotment of Senate seats, doing away with the filibuster, adding states based purely on their voting history, and packing the court with people who will make new laws. The Democrats may see this as representative government, but it would no longer be a “Republic”. This leaves the political minority largely unprotected. A Representative Republic is law by representatives of the people that complies with the constitution (that is not changed by the courts, but through prescribed methods) that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the majority. Some might suggest that an argument can be made that our current form of government doesn’t work for many of our people, but the alternative has been tried many times before and failed. They may point to European Social Democracies, but those were not achieved by means of gerrymandering the system. They were organic and grew out of the will of the people within their system. Here we have a clear contrast in what our visions of the future will bring. If this does not give you pause, then nothing will! Troubling??
