This past Friday, Dec. 13, the U.S. House "Judiciary Committee" voted to advance two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the house floor.
This event will illustrate where our failure to teach civics in school will infuriate many. They were never taught the Constitutional safeguard in place to protect us as individual citizens. Perhaps I can clear this up before the fact.
Here is the simple truth. A: The House is expected to approve the two charges by a vote in the
area of 233-197. B: The Senate will vote to acquit (find innocent) by a vote of about 53-47.
Notice, we are not compelled to consider the charges here. We employ our elected officials to do this for us. But the end result is worthy of our careful consideration. There is ammunition left behind that will be used by those who would betray our liberty. They will use this to attempt to steal a vital constitutional privilege from us.
The final vote? Approximately 233 people will vote to impeach our president. Then approximately 53 will vote to "acquit" or "find him not guilty" of the charges.
President Donald Trump will complete this term.
This is the place where our absence of civics in school becomes obvious. We have not taught civics to all students in two generations. It is the danger in our ignorance we need to consider.
You will begin to hear, "the vote final was 233 for and 53 against, but he was not removed,
this is unfair."
This shocking twist of truths will result in a renewed call to remove our electoral college.
The electoral college protects us, as citizens of a smaller state, from having New York and California dictate all taxes, laws and conduct for the 48 lesser populated states. The electoral college protects us "proportionally". It provides equal votes for each "congressional district" by keeping them all the same population size.
We have one U.S. representative representing us. We have two senators representing the states' best interests. Every citizen has "proportionally" the same vote on the floor of each of these government bodies.
Knowing the Constitution and recognizing its vital protections is possible only with a properly educated population.
Remember, senators were intended to be "ambassadors" for the several states as sovereign nations; united for equitable trade and foreign protection. The independence of these "ambassadors" was originally secured by their nomination by each state's governor and approved in the state legislatures.
Seeing our elected U.S. representative and the two senators in their proper perspective should resolve the question of fairness in our mind. The votes of each of these government bodies are indeed "in proportion" to vital safeguards, set to protect the rights of every lawful citizen.
Jim Bowman
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While it's true that each state is divided into Congressional districts with roughly the same population (setting aside gerrymandering issues for now) so we have proportional representation in the House, we are not represented proportionally in the Senate.
Each state has two Senators, regardless of the population. Therefore, each person from Wyoming (population 577,737) has 11.7 times the senatorial weight of a Tennesseean (population 6.77 million), and 68.5 times the proportional senatorial representation of a Californian (population 39.56 million).
The majority of the Senate voting power that will save Trump's sorry behind is going to come from a small minority of our country's population.
Yes, that's how it was written in the Constitution, and there's no choice but to follow it without an amendment.
But don't try and pretend it's fair and square.
Ray Ingraham
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Our Constitution was never designed to be “fair and square” in every particular. The makeup of the Houses of Congress demonstrate this design.
Some civics; Our Founding Fathers were well acquainted with the abuse of power by groups, small and large. They created two Congressional chambers of equal power but different makeup to solve those abuses.
- The first -- the House of Representatives (the Lower chamber) — is determined by the population of each separate State; the more people, the more Representatives.
- The second — the Senate (the Upper chamber) — is fixed at two Senators for each State, regardless of their population. They each represent their entire State.
During the writing/discussion of our Constitution, the highly populated States wanted control of Congress (of course). The lesser populated States wanted equal representation - at the State level, regardless of population (of course).
A compromise was reached - Two Houses, one influenced by the populace, the other influenced by their State’s needs, (not the peoples's, although they may intersect). In this way, high-resident States (e.g., Calif, New York, Texas, Florida) cannot set the laws (and taxes) for Rhode Island, Alaska, Tennessee, et al. No State or even a “select few” can control federal law…at least not within the Senate.
Which is exactly why the Electoral College was established…to prevent the bullying of small States and the tyranny of the large.
And that irks highly populated states to no end. Bullies do not rule here…and they do not like that.
R. Roland Smith