Ok, I Googled for any commentary on this, but I did not find this specific statement addressed. If you read Article 1 Section 2(2) about who can be a Representative or Section 3(2) who can be a US Senator, it says “…and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.” Huh? Is it actually saying our reps should NOT be from the place they represent? What do the SDopers have to say about this?
FYI: At best, the World Book encyclopedia (a what?) offers this statement “Most representatives live in not only in the state but in the district from which they are chosen.” This statement from the World Book at least is understandable and might imply for remote areas of the country, the reps of those districts may not be native. However, the US Constitution sounds more definite where they CANNOT be from said district (or state).
The full text of that clause is “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”
This is why we teach kids not to use double negatives. No person shall be a representative who shall not…" means “only a person shall be a representative who shall…”
The whole thing is one entire sentence, written in a somewhat confusingly double-negative manner. But it’s perfectly obvious if you read it in its entirety.
You say it is obvious, but it is not so obvious. If I say “It is not not cold, and I want hot chocolate.” Do you boldly assume the “not not” acts on both parts of this statement? Or, do you treat each N-V indivudally? In the full citation, this is a compound sentence, Since when do you communte the first subject (no person) to the second independent clause?
Also, why would the World Book say “most” come from the State and district they serve? Most? Is my WAG correct for sparse parts of the country? While I realize today things are go jerrymandered, but in simpler times, could there have been situations in remote areas where no one wanted to be a politician?
But your sentence has two independent clauses. The Constitution’s sentence has two dependent clauses. The “who” in the second clause has to refer back to someone and it’s clear it refers back to “No person”.
Interesting. Obviously, this is something I’ve always taken this for granted. But, maybe in the Western states, this is a common practice? Then again, being modern day-centric, a young nation had no need to think of districts, did they?
It has nothing to do with gerrymandering. You are reading both the Constitution and your World Book article incorrectly.
The Constitution says this:
This means that, in order to be elected to the House of Representatives, at the time of the election you must be an inhabitant of the state where you are elected.
Note that the Constitution says nothing about districts. It requires only that you live in the particular state that you represent. It does not say that you have to live in any particular district within that state.
Your quote from the encyclopedia says this:
What this article is saying is that most representatives live both in the state from which they were elected (as required by the Constitution) and also in the district from which they were elected (not required by the Constitution).
It’s a bit trickier and also a bit less tricky than this since each of the negatives is in a separate clause, so in the constitution, there’s not really much doubt as to what each negative refers to. “No person” and “who shall not have attained” are clear enough. I.e., the intersection of the set of people who do not live in state x and the set of people who can be representatives of state x is the empty set. “It is not not cold” is different since you are doubly negating the same word.
Wouldn’t the younger America of the late 18th century have more need of districts and other smaller-than-state geographical divisions? Travel was more time-consuming back then, so it would be harder to go from one end of the state to the other than it is today. That’s my thought anyway
Nope. Someone responded to a post I made about at-large House elections with the cite to the USC where every state except those with one Representative must use a district system.
Not quite true either. As Saint Cad notes, states must be districted. However, the representatives of states whose population does not entitle them to two or more House members re termed "at large’ even on the House’s own site, as seen at your link: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, both Dakotas, Vermont, and Wyoming all have “at large” representatives whose district is coextensive with the state boundaries. Representatives | house.gov
