Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (best e reader for epub TXT) 📗

so central to the Iraqi government that it permitted its people to ratify the Constitution by direct vote.4 President George W. Bush viewed elections in Iraq as an essential step in achieving stable, democratic government. After the first Iraqi elections, Bush stated that by voting, Iraqis were “exercising their rights as citizens.”5 According to Bush, the relatively high voter turnout showed Iraq’s “commitment to democracy” and its rejection of “the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists.”6

President Obama, apparently adopting Bush’s stated purpose for U.S. military action in the Middle East, also considers legitimate elections vital to the success of the new government in Afghanistan, and fears the consequences of fixed results. In June 2009, on the eve of the Afghan elections, Obama vowed to work with the “Afghan electoral authorities and the United Nations to help Afghans ensure a credible, secure and inclusive election process.”7

In America, the right to vote is protected throughout the United States Constitution:

• Article I, Section 2, Clause 1, provides that “[t]he House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.”

• The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, states that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

• The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1912, provides for the direct election of United States Senators by the people of the States. (Article I, Section 3, had provided that each state's legislature selects that state's senators.)

• The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, states that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of sex." (It should have stated ”... on account of gender.")

• The Twenty-Sixth Amendment, ratified in 1971, grants the right to vote in all elections, federal and state, to all American citizens “eighteen years of age or older.”

• The Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to vote by preventing the States from infringing on individual liberties without due process, and guaranteeing all persons equal protection of the laws.

The Constitution prevents the government from restricting the right to vote based on age, race, or gender. Surprisingly, however, neither the original United States Constitution, nor the Bill of Rights, explicitly grants or recognizes a federal right to vote. Rather, the Constitution, as it stands today, protects the right to vote only when it is granted by the States. Voting privileges, therefore, extend only as far as our respective state legislatures permit.

This chapter describes unfairness in the American system of selecting representatives, as well as discrimination perpetrated against voters, to show the many ways in which the government has taken the future of this republic out of the hands of the American voter.

Empowering the Majority, Assaulting Federalism

The Seventeenth Amendment does not violate the literal proposition that “every vote counts,” in that all eligible voters can directly elect their U.S. Senators. The direct election of senators dilutes the people’s strength, however, by constricting the States’ power to protect themselves against the massive power of the federal government.

First things first: The Framers did not vest our state legislatures with the power to select their U.S. Senators because they distrusted our ability to make decisions, or because they desired to withhold voting power from us. Rather, they sought to give the States a voice in the federal government, and thus provide a structural check on the power of the federal government. The United States government was founded on the principles of checks and balances and of federalism. One such check and balance is bicameralism, which instructs that the legislature be divided into two chambers. In the United States, Congress is divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. According to Article I, Section 2, Clause 1, of the United States Constitution, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States. . . .” Every two years, all eligible voters may vote to elect one congressperson to represent them in the lower house, with no intervention from their respective state legislatures. The House of Representatives, therefore, is often referred to as the “People’s House.”

On the other hand, Article I, Section 3, Clause 1, of the Constitution states that “[t]he Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote” (emphases added). James Madison, among other Framers, supported a two-chambered Congress. In The Federalist, No. 51, Madison stated that “[i]n republican government, the legislative authority, necessarily predominates.” According to Madison, “[t]he remedy for this inconveniency is, to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them by different modes of election, and different principles of action, as little connected with each other, as the nature of their common functions and their common dependencies on the society, will admit.” The Framers also believed that the bicameral Congress would prevent the influence of special interests on government policy, and allow the federal legislature to satisfy smaller voting districts on the one hand, and entire states on the other.

In another check and balance, the Framers insisted that the U.S. Senate, whose members were to be selected by the state legislatures, would preserve the federal society they created. Federalism is a system in which political power is divided between a central government and sovereign states, and each may check the other’s exercise of power. The Framers believed that the Senate would protect the States’ power. The Federalist, No. 62, states that even though the Constitution enumerates federal powers, mere “parchment barriers” will not prevent a central government from abusing its power. Therefore, the Framers believed that certain structural barriers, or “forms,” were necessary to hold federal power in check. One of these barriers is the U.S. Senate, and the method by which its members are selected.

Even Alexander Hamilton, the father of Big Government, believed that the election of senators by state legislatures would preserve