[EM] A (US) constitutional argument for voting reform?

[Jameson Quinn]

Here's an interesting blog post:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-constitution.html

Ostensibly, it's about the relations between the Occupy Wall Street protests
and underlying constitutional arguments. But nothing it says is really
restricted to those protests. It talks about article IV, section 4 of the
constitution, also known as the Guarantee Clause:

*The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
Republican<http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#REPUBLIC> Form
of Government*, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on
Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature
cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."
"Republican government" has been defined as "a government in which supreme
power is held by the citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected
officers and representatives governing according to law". To me, it is clear
that the two-party system and gerrymandering are both subversions of the
will of the founders as expressed in this clause. Clearly, this argument is
not going to triumph in the supreme court, unless perhaps it's more than
clear that most of the citizens already believe it. Yet this is a basis for
a principled constitutional argument in favor of voting reform.

In fact, I can imagine that even in states without an initiative process,
this clause could be used to give petitions for voting reform a legal force.
Obviously, those would have to be massive petitions, and it would be better
to start the process in a state with petitions (but not in enormous CA). But
if reform had momentum, and gerrymandered state legislatures were the only
thing standing in the way, this clause could be part of the arsenal.

Who wants to write a "Guarantor manifesto"?

Jameson
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