Gaming the election system

It should come as no surprise that a judge nominated by George W. Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court may hold views that question a fundamental principle of democracy in America today - one man, one vote.

As reported in the Washington Post, in 1985, when Samuel Alito Jr. was applying for a political appointment in the Reagan administration, he wrote that he disagreed with decisions by the Warren Court in the 1960s involving "reapportionment." Those rulings required electoral districts to have equal populations and helped ensure greater representation of urban minorities.

Previous to the 1962 Baker vs. Carr case, some states either didn't reapportion or did it by geography, resulting in disparities in representation. A column in the New York Times pointed out that prior to the ruling at the time, legislative districts had wildly unequal numbers of people, and representatives from underpopulated rural districts controlled many state legislatures. In Maryland, 14 percent of the voters could elect a majority of the State Senate, and 25 percent could elect a majority of the State House.

While pinheads at the Wall Street Journal snidely criticize people like Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware for questioning Alito's view while representing a state that has the same representation as California in the Senate. Apparently the Journal forgot that the Senate was set up that way and that the House of Representatives was supposed to be the house of the people.

To mollify Democrats, Alito apparently has put out the word that he now views one man one vote as a bedrock principle. Great, he may not believe in it, but he accepts it, for now.

The potential bigger historical issue is if Alito is claiming he just wrote what he wrote in 1985 because he was trying to get a job in the Reagan justice Department. So what does that say about the Reagan Justice Department? That they were a bunch of crackpots and that applicants had to spout the crackpot company line to get hired?

Apparently Alito's defense may be that was just trying to impress the crazies at Justice and so today he is saying "hey, I wasn't that crazy." What a comfort. In reality, once confirmed Alito will have the opportunity to do whatever he wishes, which, like Bush vs. Gore, may come back to haunt America.