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Tony Rubolotta
Raise the Army of Texas
December 11, 2009
The rising call to "Clean House” in the 2010 federal elections has been
heard before and gave rise to a Congress no less arrogant or restrained
than the one that preceded it. Democrats traditionally create agencies
or programs with unconstitutional powers and Republicans reform them. A
reformed illegal agency or program is still illegal. Replacing 435
Representatives and one-third of the Senate oligarchs with new oligarchs
won’t change a corrupted federal government or its corrupting influence
on the politicians that seek to run it.
Concentrating power in the hands of a small group of aristocrats who
then seize more power is the problem. The problem is not whether or not
Congress performs audits or certifies that legislation is
Constitutional. The attitude of too many in Congress is that they can
pass whatever legislation they please and the courts will straighten it
out. Unfortunately, the courts, including the Supreme Court, suffer from
the same corruption that comes when great power is concentrated in few
hands. Besides, the message this sends to the people is that government
may do as it pleases and the burden to prove it wrong falls on the
citizen. The concentration of power that has led to the creation of an
out of control federal government run by a privileged class of oligarchs
must be broken in each branch of government.
The first initiative can come from the sovereign states. While I applaud
states adopting resolutions to exercise or assert their Tenth Amendment
rights, they can do much more than that to break the federal oligarchy
and restore the voice of "We the People”. It would be my hope that a
state such as Texas would lead the way and do what it is
constitutionally authorized to do.
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution is crystal clear about
representation of the states in the House of Representatives. It reads
"The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty
thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative; …”
Congress arbitrarily fixed the size of the House at 435 and the results
have been exactly the type of corruption that may be expected when great
power is concentrated in few hands. Congress has no constitutional
authority to dictate to the states how many representatives they may
send to Congress. The number of representatives allowed each state is
limited by the Constitution and not by Congress.
Texas could, if it chose to do so, send the number of representatives to
Congress it is entitled to, based on the 2000 census and Article 1,
Section 2 of the Constitution. By my estimate, Texas could send 695
representatives to the House in 2010. Of course, it would have to
reapportion its districts to fall within the constitutionally required
limits that they not exceed one representative per 30,000 of population.
If other states choose not to expand the number of representatives to
which they are entitled, that is their problem. I suspect that once one
state stands up for the voice of its people and demands adherence to the
Constitution, the others will quickly follow suit.
I send the same message to each and every state: the federal government
is an instrument of the states and people, not of Congress, Presidents
or judges. The Constitution limits your representation, not some
collection of would be aristocrats trying to create a limited federal
ruling class. But someone must start this battle and I can’t think of a
more fitting state than the Lone Star Republic sending an army of Texans
to Washington to recapture the people’s house and restore the federal
government to its proper role.
This is but a first step and others must follow, but those subsequent
steps will be much easier to take with a House of Representatives more
easily accountable to the people that elect them to office. |
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