Friday, November 7, 2008

The Constitution of the United States of America (Part 3) - Article I, Section 2

I'm sure I'm totally showing my ignorance in what I share here. I really am so politically uninvolved (shame on me, I know). I guess I've kind of lived on the idea that ignorance is bliss and don't climb out from under the rock unless you absolutely have to (just kidding). Although I've heard her name before, I honestly didn't know, until this evening, who the Speaker of the House was. I guess I'm kind of wrapped up in my own little world with the husband and kids to worry about who's running the country. I just trust them all a lot.


Article. I. - The Legislative Branch
Section 2 - The House


"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

"(Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.) (The previous sentence in parentheses was modified by the 14th Amendment, Section 2.) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five and Georgia three.

"When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

"The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment."


Notes for myself - trying to turn this into layman's terms:

House of Reps - elected every two years. "Elections for representatives are held in every even-numbered year, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (see Election Day (United States)). Generally, the Republican and Democratic parties choose their candidates for each district in primary elections, which are typically held several months before. Ballot access rules for independent and third-party candidates vary greatly from state to state." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives#Elections)

"The Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature" - huh? Oh help. I just don't get this.
Requirements to serve in the House of Representatives:
  • 25 years old (at least)
  • 7 years U.S. citizen
  • who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen - huh? This must be written strangely, or I am reading it wrong. They must be an inhabitant of the state he/she is elected by at time of election.

Number of representatives depends on population of the state (1 rep for every 30,000 people). It is updated every ten years when a census is taken.

According to Wikipedia "writ of election" is when an emergency election is called. I also learned that the limit on number of voting members of the house is 435. This limit was set in 1911.

Nancy Pelosi is the current Speaker of the House

Click the link to find a list of members of the House of Representatives. If you ever need to write to your rep, here's the site to do so from. Okay, so help me out here, again--man, am I needy! What kinds of issues would you write to him/her about?

Our rep, for the part of Oregon I live in, is David Wu. I am happy to say that we have put him to work for us in the past, and he was very quick to respond to our request when we were struggling to figure out the problems with our stimulus package check.

2 comments:

vaxhacker said...

Thanks for doing these, Julie. It's been nice to go back and read through the Constitution again, and to see your comments along the way.

And Schoolhouse Rock. Can't beat that :)

Josh Alder said...

Not only is Nancy Pelosi the current speaker of the House, she is also the first female Speaker of the House. This also makes her third-in-line to become president, should something horrible happen to both the president and vice president.

Pelosi became Speaker of the House after the 2006 elections, when the Democrats took a majority control of both the House and the U.S. Senate. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who is a member of the LDS Church, became the Senate Majority Leader at the same time.

As for your question about the "the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature" portion... that has to do with voter qualifications.

Basically, the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee anyone the right to vote. That may seem odd now, but the Founding Fathers lived in a time when women were not involved in the political process and slavery was common.

What this section guarantees is that all of the "Electors" (aka voters from individual states) who are qualified to vote for the largest chamber of their state legislatures are ALSO qualified to vote for their respective members of the U.S. House.

Back when the Constitution was formed, the "Electors" who were qualified were pretty much white men who owned land. If you were a woman, a slave or a Native America... no dice.

Thankfully, several amendments to the Constitution have remedied this. The 15th and 19th amendment eliminated race and sex, respectively, as qualifications to vote in both federal and state elections. The 26th amendment set the federal voting age at 18, and allowed no state to set a voting age higher than 18.

In several cases, the Supreme Court has also ruled that "the right of suffrage (i.e. voting) is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society." Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 561–62 (1964).

So, now, the only requirements for voting eligibility are residency, age and citizenship. We've come a long way since those early days of the country.

As for the apportionment of representatives, the limit of one representative = 30,000 people hasn't changed in the history of the country. However, by today's population numbers, the actual figure is about 1 representative for each 700,000 people.

States are guaranteed at least one representative in the U.S. House, even though a few states (Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming) all have less than 1/435 of the general population. These states, along with Montana and Delaware, each only have one representative in the U.S. House (and as a result, 3 total Electoral College votes). Congressional districts are reapportioned after each Census, taken at the beginning year of each decade (the last was in 2000).

As for writing your representatives, most people write about policy issues they think their representatives should support.

The Church has frequently encouraged its members to let their representatives know their feelings on certain issues. When controversial bills make their way through Congress, representatives in the U.S. Congress are typically inundated with letters, emails and phone calls from their constituents imploring them to vote a certain way. Congressional offices catalog each request, letter and phone call for their official archives.

I really don't know how members of the U.S. House do it... not only do they have an incredibly important and stressful job, but they have to run for re-election EVERY TWO YEARS!! It makes me tired just thinking about it! But, they make up a very important part of the U.S. Congress

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