Email sent to CRC- Proportional Representation -M. Hoffmann 7-24-23Below is an email from Michael Hoffmann for your review.
Thank you,
Donna
From: michaelhoffmann@comcast.net [mailto:michaelhoffmann@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2023 5:28 PM
To: Bartle, Donna <dbartle@coab.us>
Subject: Please forward to CRC, and thanks!
Memo to CRC for July 26, 2023 meeting
Subject: proportional representation
"On June 8 the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a lower court
blocking the congressional districting map Alabama put into place after
the 2020 census, agreeing that the map likely violated the 1965 Voting
Rights Act and ordering Alabama to redraw the map to include two
majority-Black congressional districts.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
"Today the Alabama legislature passed a new congressional map that
openly violates the Supreme Court’s order. By a vote of 75–28 in the
House and 24–6 in the Senate, the legislature approved a map that
includes only one Black-majority district.
"Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and many of the other members of
Alabama’s congressional delegation had spoken to the Republicans in the
state legislature about the map. Editor of the Alabama Reflector Brian
Lyman reported that the map’s sponsor said he had spoken to House
speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) too: “It was quite simple,” the sponsor
said. McCarthy “said ‘I’m interested in keeping my majority.’ That was
basically his conversation.”
“Alabama governor Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed the bill into law.”
-- From the online blog of historian Heather Cox Richardson, July 21,
2023
MY TAKE:
It appears that the Republican majority in the Alabama Legislature has
decided to go the route of the Republican majority on the Jacksonville
City Council, which earlier this year failed to satisfy the requirements
of "one man, one vote" in its recent reapportionment of voting
districts, forcing federal Judge Morales to make the call.
Part of the Alabama Legislature's pushback is tactical: They want to
keep meaningful redistricting from occurring before the 2024 election.
The Florida Legislature did the same thing in 2010 and again in 2020 --
keeping court-ordered redistricting at bay for as many election cycles
as possible.
I borrowed from the public library James Madison's notes on the
Constitutional convention of 1787 and found two instances of the term
"proportional representation" being used on July 13, 1787, in the
concluding debate on the composition of what became the US House of
Representatives. Madison (Va.) and James Wilson (NJ) both used the term
"proportional representation" to argue in favor of using population as
the determinant for representation in the House.
For "Originalists" this is proof that the concept of proportional
representation -- later codified by the Supreme Court as "one person,
one vote" -- is deeply embedded in the US system of governance. (BTW:
All 50 states follow the same model, including unicameral Nebraska.)
Notes of Debate in the Federal Constitution of 1787
by U.S. Constitutional Convention, 1787.
Edited by Adrienne Koch
Call Number 342.7309 U
MY CONCLUSION:
Proportional representation in the context of AB Commission elections =
single-member districts with district voting, not at-large voting.
Michael Hoffmann
Atlantic Beach