Clowns at the circus

The three-ring circus that is the Alito hearings is now well underway (with Arlen Specter as ringmaster and Ted Kennedy as trumpeting bull-elephant), and I had the opportunity to watch some of the introductory statements by the Judiciary Committee members. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) mentioned something in her statement that caught my attention: She referred to the "bedrock principle of one person, one vote," a principle she accused Alito of disagreeing with.\nThough she may be liberal, Feinstein is not stupid -- she has to know that "one man, one vote" is built into the Constitution, but it is by no means a "bedrock" principle. Conceding this point would admit Alito's disagreement with the Warren Court's reapportionment decisions has credence, and she is hell-bent on his rejection.\nFeinstein herself is an example of the Constitution not being based solely on "one man, one vote:" her own state's 36 million citizens get the exact same number of seats in the Senate as Wyoming's 500,000 and Alaska's 663,000.\nJames Madison stated in Federalist Paper No. 39 that each state "will be represented on the principal of equality in the Senate." Thus, "one man, one vote" was subjected to states' equality in this regard.\nThen there is the Electoral College. Thorny though it might be to some, it was written into the Constitution as a safeguard against the complications of tallying every last vote. Alexander Hamilton writes in Federalist Paper No. 68, "the precautions which have been so happily concerted in (the Electoral College) promise an effectual security against this mischief," referring to the "tumult and disorder" involved in popular elections.\nFinally, the Constitution included the three-fifths compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person when determining representation based on population. Derided as "racist," this provision was actually designed to limit the power of the slave states in Congress by allotting to them fewer representatives.\nThese three provisions of the Constitution alone are enough to debunk the myth of "bedrockness" with respect to "one man, one vote." Never mind that Alito himself is the selection of a man elected by the Electoral College who a body of disproportionately representative officials must ratify.\nFeinstein's comment is not only inaccurate, but dangerous. Motivated by political expediency (the rejection of Alito based on his disagreement with this myth) rather than truth, it is a slurry of catch-words and political niceties that sooth the uneducated ears but betray the true intentions of the Constitution's framers. Anyone taking Feinstein's words seriously -- and I pray she herself does not -- will be deceived by their simplicity and be ignorant of the true role that "one man, one vote" plays in the Constitution. This principle is balanced against disproportionate voting and life-appointment to provide variegated elements of a system working in concordance to form the well-oiled machine that is the United States government.\nWe must not let ourselves be fooled by pretty words, even from our own senators. The Constitution works as it was intended, and that intention should not be skewed to suit personal political whims.