11/16/20

Barring District of Columbia or Puerto Rico from Senate Representation

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Legislation introduced by Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC6).

Should the Senate be capped at 100 members, the way the House has been capped at 435 since 1929?

Context

Democrats increasingly call for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to become official U.S. states. With 3.1 million and 700 thousand American citizens respectively, their residents have no representation in the Senate or the House.

In November, Puerto Rico residents voted 52 percent for statehood, in a nonbinding referendum. In June, the House passed the Washington, D.C. Admission Act by 232–180, with no Republicans in favor and all but one Democrat — Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN7) — in support.

The Constitution’s 17th Amendment requires the Senate “shall be composed of two Senators from each State.” Republicans say that adding Puerto Rico and/or the District of Columbia as states is just a partisan ploy to add more Democrats to the Senate, not to mention the House. (That said, Puerto Rico’s elected but nonvoting member of the House, Jenniffer González-Colón, is a Republican.)

What the constitutional amendment would do

A constitutional amendment proposal would limit the Senate to states that existed in 2019. In other words, it would block the seating of senators from potential future states Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia — or any other potential future states, for that matter.

That also means it would officially cap the Senate at 100 members. The House has been officially set at 435 members since the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, but while the Senate has remained at 100 members since 1959 because that was the last year a new state was added, the Senate has never had an official number of members like the House does.

This was introduced as a constitutional amendment, rather than as normal legislation, because it seeks to supersede the portions of the 17th Amendment; specifically, superseding the portion which says the Senate is composed of two senators from each state, with a new clause saying the Senate is composed of two senators from each state that existed in 2019.

It was introduced on September 29 as House Joint Resolution 97, by Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC6).

What supporters say

Supporters argue that the widespread Democratic support for new states during the Trump era, especially considering how previous pre-Trump proposals didn’t gain nearly as much Democratic support, merely reflects a partisan gambit to pass policies that existing voters don’t sufficiently support.

“From packing the Supreme Court to passing the disastrous Green New Deal, it’s no secret Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and their Washington elites will do anything to reshape the political future of our nation — no matter the cost,” Rep. Walker said in a press release.

“Democrats’ blatant attempts to strategically manipulate and mold dark blue strongholds in their quest to achieve a Senate majority treats Americans as pawns in their pathetic chess game,” Rep. Walker continued. “There is a cap on the number of members in the House and the Senate should have the same to avoid political abuse and hostage-taking of our standards and norms.”

What opponents say

Opponents counter that places such as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia currently experience taxation without full representation — exactly the type of oppression the American Revolutionary War was fought to end.

“The rights to vote, to be equally represented in the governments that make our own laws, and that elections are carried out fairly are the most fundamental and essential elements of democracy,” Commish. González-Colón said during a July congressional hearing. “I represent 89 percent of the inhabitants of the five territories of the United States … Those of us who live in the territories, live in jurisdictions that constitutionally does not have a vote in a government that dictates our national laws and that can, and has intervened, with local laws.”

“D.C. pays more federal taxes per capita than any state and pays more federal taxes than 22 states,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC0) said during another July congressional hearing. “D.C.’s population of 705,000 is larger than those of two states,… D.C.’s $15.5 billion budget is larger than those of 12 states… D.C. has a higher per capita personal income and gross domestic product than any state. Eighty-six percent of D.C. residents voted for statehood in 2016.”

Odds of passage

A constitutional amendment requires passage by two-thirds of both the House and Senate, plus three-quarters of state legislatures. And this one has a particularly long road ahead, considering it has not yet attracted any cosponsors.

It awaits a potential vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Washington Dc Map / Geography of Washington Dc/ Map of ...

DS: Legislative proposals to make D.C. a state violate the Constitution in at least two ways.

Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the right to “exercise exclusive Legislation” over the “District” that is “the Seat of the Government of the United States.”

Congress cannot simply change the “Seat of the Government” into a state or delegate its power over the District to the government of a new state.

It took a constitutional amendment to give D.C. residents the ability to vote for president because they are not a state and Congress could not make them a state.

Ratified in 1961, the 23rd Amendment recognizes Congress’s authority to oversee the manner in which the District appoints electors to the Electoral College.

Congress cannot single-handedly eliminate the power this amendment grants only to Congress.

Article I would need to be amended, and the 23rd Amendment would need to be repealed for legislative efforts to be constitutional.

In Adams v. Clinton (2000), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found that legislative efforts to allow for voting representation in Congress were unconstitutional.

The three judge panel made it clear that the Constitution would need to be amended in order for such changes to take place within the law.

Congress itself recognized this in 1977 with a constitutional amendment to grant D.C. representation—it failed to gain the approval of the states.

Constitutional questions aside, proponents pushing for D.C. statehood overlook the fact that D.C. residents are already well-represented.

The Founders reasoned that the whole Congress would represent the interests of the residents of the District of Columbia.

According to Justice Joseph Story, those who lived in the District “would receive with thankfulness such a blessing, since their own importance would be thereby increased, their interests subserved, and their rights be under the immediate protection of the representatives of the whole.”

This remains true today, especially in light of the fact that federal spending often benefits D.C. residents more than those living in the states, whose residents usually receive far less in federal funding per capita than D.C. residents.

In fact, seven of the 10 wealthiest counties in America surround Washington, D.C.

The interests of the residents of the District are already highly promoted, even perhaps at the expense of the rest of the country.

Furthermore, D.C. residents are represented by a second body, the Council of the District of Columbia.

With the passage of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in 1973, Congress ceded a portion of its authority to govern local affairs to a city council.

The council is made up of 13 members and a mayor—each of which is an elected position.

Though the campaign to make the District of Columbia a state and grant it full congressional voting will lumber on, supporters should come to terms with the constitutional and practical impediments outlined above.

If proponents of D.C. statehood want to live in a state and not a district, they have some options that are very close by.

11/16/20

More Forced Lockdowns?

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Pandemic lockdown has brought Earth’s vibrations to a halt

Joe Biden has said he would lockdown the nation based on the science. Question is, what science? Virology experts hardly all agree on the threats and implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr. Michael Osterholm says COVID-19 testing is in crisis ...

Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert and one of the 13 members of Biden’s new coronavirus task force called for a national lockdown lasting four to six weeks to slow the rise of virus cases across the country. Read here in detail.

Then we have governors that are going to another round of lockdowns: California, New York, Michigan, and Oregon and in various forms including just some cities like Chicago. Cancel the holidays they say… close businesses at 10 pm, that is when the virus shows up. Yeesh… but let’s go deeper into critical thinking, shall we?

The New England Journal of Medicine has published a study that goes to the heart of the issue of lockdowns. The question has always been whether and to what extent a lockdown, however extreme, is capable of suppressing the virus. If so, you can make an argument that at least lockdowns, despite their astronomical social and economic costs, achieve something. If not, nations of the world have embarked on a catastrophic experiment that has destroyed billions of lives, and all expectation of human rights and liberties, with no payoff at all.

COVID-19: New York to shut down as it becomes next ...

AIER has long highlighted studies that show no gain in virus management from lockdowns. Even as early as April, a major data scientist said that this virus becomes endemic in 70 days after the first round of infection, regardless of policies. The largest global study of lockdowns compared with deaths as published in The Lancet found no association between coercive stringencies and deaths per million.

To test further might seem superfluous but, for whatever reason, governments all over the world, including in the US, still are under the impression that they can affect viral transmissions through a range of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs) like mandatory masks, forced human separation, stay-at-home orders, bans of gatherings, business, and school closures, and extreme travel restrictions. Nothing like this has been tried on this scale in the whole of human history, so one might suppose that policymakers have some basis for their confidence that these measures accomplish something.

A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center sought to test lockdowns along with testing and isolation. In May, 3,143 new recruits to the Marines were given the option to participate in a study of frequent testing under extreme quarantine. The study was called CHARM, which stands for COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines. Of the recruits asked, a total of 1,848 young people agreed to be guinea pigs in this experiment which involved “which included weekly qPCR testing and blood sampling for IgG antibody assessment.” In addition, the CHARM study volunteers who did test positively “on the day of enrollment (day 0) or on day 7 or day 14 were separated from their roommates and were placed in isolation.”

What did the recruits have to do? The study explains, and, as you will see, they faced an even more strict regime that has existed in civilian life in most places. All recruits, even those not in the CHARM group, did the following.

All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission, and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate pre-plated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten. Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors who were assigned to each platoon worked in 8-hour shifts and enforced the quarantine measures. If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with Covid-19, they reported to sick call, underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.

Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with pre-plated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening. Instructors who were assigned to a platoon in which a positive case was diagnosed underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and, if the result was positive, the instructor was removed from duty. Recruits and instructors were prohibited from interacting with campus support staff, such as janitorial and food-service personnel. After each class completed quarantine, a deep bleach cleaning of surfaces was performed in the bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, and hallways in the dormitories, and the dormitory remained unoccupied for at least 72 hours before re-occupancy.

The reputation of Marine basic training is that it is tough going but this really does take it to another level. Also, this is an environment where those in charge do not mess around. There was surely close to 100% compliance, as compared with, for example, a typical college campus.

What were the results? The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.”

And how does this compare to the control group that was not tested and not isolated in the case of a positive case?

Have a look at this chart from the study:

Which is to say that the nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate than those who were under an extreme regime. Conversely, extreme enforcement of NPIs plus more frequent testing and isolation was associated with a greater degree of infection.

I’m grateful to Don Wolt for drawing my attention to this study, which, so far as I know, has received very little attention from any media source at all, despite having been published in the New England Journal of Medicine on November 11.

Here are four actual media headlines about the study that miss the point entirely:

CNN: “Many military Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic, studies show”
SciTech Daily: “Asymptomatic COVID-19 Transmission Revealed Through Study of 2,000 Marine Recruits”
ABC: “Broad study of Marine recruits shows limits of COVID-19 symptom screening”
US Navy: “Navy/Marine Corps COVID-19 Study Findings Published in New England Journal of Medicine”

No national news story that I have found highlighted the most important finding of all: extreme quarantine plus frequent testing and isolation among military recruits did nothing to stop the virus.

The study is important because of the social structure of control here. It’s one thing to observe no effects from national lockdowns. There are countless variables here that could be invoked as cautionary notes: demographics, population density, preexisting immunities, degree of compliance, and so on. But with this Marine study, you have a near homogeneous group based on age, health, and densities of living. And even here, you see confirmed what so many other studies have shown: lockdowns are pointlessly destructive. They do not manage the disease. They crush human liberty and produce astonishing costs, such as 5.53 million years of lost life from the closing of schools alone.

The lockdowners keep telling us to pay attention to the science. That’s what we are doing. When the results contradict their pro-compulsion narrative, they pretend that the studies do not exist and barrel ahead with their scary plans to disable all social functioning in the presence of a virus. Lockdowns are not science. They never have been. They are an experiment in social/political top-down management that is without precedent in cost to life and liberty.

[The earliest version of this article misstated the conditions of the control group. They were equally locked down with those who participated in the study. The difference between the two concerned testing frequency and the isolation response. This does not affect this article’s conclusion; indeed it strengthens it: even under extreme measures, the virus spread, and more so with the extra measure intended to control the virus. Nearly all infections were without symptoms.]