I’m not sure whether this should go in GQ or the Politics forum. I’m looking for a factual answer based on constitutional text, statute, case law, Rules of the House, or similar. I have no objections if the mods want to move it.
You get credit for this question only if you choose “c. Citizens in their congressional district”. What is the factual basis, if any, for this being the correct answer? I chose “b. People living in their congressional district” but I’m not sure that’s right either. I am not looking for a debate about what the right answer should be, but whether there is any official law or rule that lays out what the answer is.
Is there a distinction between eligible voters and people who are represented in Congress? Are children represented in Congress? Most of them are citizens and all are supposed to be included in the census enumeration, but they can’t vote. Are documented resident aliens represented? They live in the district but can’t vote. Undocumented aliens? Disenfranchised felons who are citizens?
The constitution doesn’t seem to directly address the issue. It says “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” There is no mention of congressional districts. That makes sense when you remember that in the early years of the republic, Representatives were often elected at-large, even in states entitled to more than one Representative. Since the Uniform Congressional District Act (1967) came into effect, only states with exactly one Representative can elect members at-large.
Considering congressional apportionment is based on the census population, which includes both citizen and non-citizen residents, I would have chosen (b) as well.
Me too, but I guess you could say they’re elected to represent the voters who elected them. “Voters” isn’t an exact match to “citizens” but it’s closer. I think (b) is the best answer.
In reading up on the “new” test, it seems that they changed the answer from “people in the district” to “citizens in the district.” Having both of those options is just poor test design (probably done for political reasons) since the constitution doesn’t specify who is “represented” by a Representative. Since apportionment is done according to “people” and not citizens, (b) is the better answer.
I think this is a response by the Trump gang to not getting their citizenship question in the census.
Someone who fails the test, I guess. Or maybe an advocacy group for immigrants. Although, since they’ve released the test along with the answers, it shouldn’t be hard for every applicant to get it “right.”
I believe that constitutional experts would answer a. Congress creatures do not have to live in their district (although they all do, AFAIK) and they certainly represent all the people in whichever region they do represent.
It seems obvious to me that this was put as part of Trump’s idea that congressional representation be based on the number of citizens, rather than persons.
I take that to mean that only people who are eligible to vote in state elections are eligible to vote in federal elections?
As I recall, the original American constitution allowed you to count 3/5 of the slave population?
In Australia, (benefiting from observation of the American constitution), the states were only allowed to count, for federal representation, people who were allowed to vote in state elections.
The article says, in neutral Times language, that the changes are purely political and in line with the latest interpretation of the census, in which the Trump administration is trying not to count undocumented residents. Biden can reverse this, but probably will have too much on his plate to do it soon. However, the testing lags behind by several months so that most people will still be taking the old test under Trump.
Only in a very narrow sense. That gave the slave states a higher population count so that they would earn more representatives. (Remember, the South wanted a slave to count as 1 person but the North wanted a slave to count as 0 persons. That’s precisely the opposite of the way everybody uses it today.) Slaves were not counted for anything else, nor did they get any representation from the count.
I mean, in theory the Rep is representing the 700,000 or so constituents in their district, but that may involve different levels of government and political parties, and politics is inherently about trading favors and influence, so voting along state or party lines is one way to engage in that sort of behavior.
They also have a duty to represent non-voting constituents- I personally don’t see much of a difference in that sense between a non-citizen and a non-voting citizen. But I’d say that it’s reasonable for them to be more tuned in/responsive to what the voters wanted/campaign issues, versus what non-citizens and non-voting citizens are interested in.
Which totally ignores who representatives spend most of their time representing; businesses with a presence in their district. Even if the owners and shareholders all live elsewhere.
There is no correct answer. A Representative might be considered to have a duty to consider the best interests of their district, their state, the nation, and the whole damn planet. Sometimes they have to vote for something that’s “the right thing to do,” although it might close a defense plant in their district. By putting both options (b) and (c) as options, they are clearly trying to make a point that only true and decent CITIZENS matter. There is no constitutional justification for saying (c) is the correct answer, and it’s improper (since we’re in GQ) to count (b) as incorrect.
So, “Congressional districts” aren’t actually in the Constitution, and the Uniform Congressional District Act is just statute law; Congress could change it. California could then elect all 53 of its House members at-large, and have all of them represent the whole state. (Depending on how this hypothetical “California plan” were implemented, I suppose SCOTUS might strike it down on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds.)
The statute seems to be about how representatives are selected. Not about who they represent.
The pope and the president are elected by the electoral college and by cardinals. They don’t represent electors and cardinals. Court-appointed lawyers are appointed by the courts. They don’t represent the courts: they represent somebody else. Representational art isn’t elected.
It’s a matter of political theory, and therefore more than one answer is possible, but on on classic republican theory everybody, at every level, who is given any share of political power in the state is expected to exercise that power for the common good - i.e. the good of the community, the people as a whole. Exercising that power for your personal benefit, or your family’s benefit, or your neighbourhood’s benefit, or the benefit of your profession or social class or any other sectional interest is, basically, corrupt. On this view election by district is the method by which repersentatives are chosen but, however they are chosen, all the representatives have the same duty to exercise their power for the good of the entire community, not the good of the district in which they were chosen.
You’re not going to get a court case that says this, because the courts won’t go there; separaton of powers, and all that; they won;'t tell legislators how they ought to vote. That’s why I say this is a matter of political theory, rather than legal obligation. But the question raised in the citizenship test can only be answered as one of political theory.
(On this view, voters should be similarly motivated in how they cast their votes. Casting your vote with a view to personal advantate or the good of any sectional interest in priority to the common good is a species of corruption.)
