I am sorry, but your answer was not satisfactory. Amendment XIV to the
Constitution of the United States is just that: it changed certain things
in Article I hat became outdated because of the civil war, and it did not
change the entire Article I. The reference to apportionment in the
Amendment is only to change the 3/5th status of black Americans to be
counted as a full person leaving intact the rest of Article I including
that the apportionment is based on the 1 to 30,000 inhabitants count of the
ten-year censuses. The Amendment did not authorize Congress to determine
the number of seats in Congress despite the section 5 enforcement clause.

The answer about how I interpret Article I of the Constitution concerning
apportionment and how the Expert interprets it is obviously the issue here.
But one thing is certain: the number of representatives per 30,000
inhabitants cannot be less than one. If the experts reads the proceedings
of the Constitutional Convention they will find that the Founders of the
Constitution originally proposed that the number of "inhabitants" per
representative was to be 40,000. But XXXXX XXXXX requested that the
number be reduced to 30,000, and that is the number Article I assigned.
There can be no doubt that the Constitution requires that the number may be
less than 30,000, but it cannot be greater than 30,000. And let's be sure
about one other thing. Article I nor Article 14 (Amendment 14) did not and
never should authorize Congress to apportion the seats because that
apportionment is based on the population counted in the 10 year census and
on the ratio of 1Rep/30,000 inhabitants. The population figures should be
made known to each State of the Union which then determine, not Congress,
the number of representatives each State should send for the next 10 years
to Congress. This determination is then sent to the federal Secretary of
State who makes it official and authorizes it, not the Congress which must
accept it. To change this the Constitution needs an amendment which clearly
states what the proportional representation should be and who should
determine how many seats the HR should be "blessed" with. The number of
seats in the House can never be based on a law; it should be based on the
Constitution and/or its amendment(s), but these should be clear that they
amend Article 1, Section 2, paragraph 3 in the manner prescribed. And that
prescription should never set a ceiling on the number of seats the House
should contain.

What I meant by that was that a representative cannot be less than one---he always is at least one person, and that therefore the Article means to say that a representative cannot represent more than 30,000 inhabitants, but can represent less than 30,000 inhabitants because the Constitution foresaw that some of the 13 states and newly admitted States had or may have fewer than 30,000 inhabitants. That is why the Constitution guaranteed at least on representative each State.

Well, you aparently seem to be satisfied with interpreting what ever the "Law" says about how many inhabitants can be represented by a representative. It now stands on average at more than 700,000. The Constitution has to be interpreted in terms of what it says. I cannot help but to interpret it to mean that currently a representative cannot represent more than 30,000 people. And that is what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. To interpret this otherwise, and say that Congress can pass a law saying that the number of representatives in the HR should be only 435 and then distribute that number among the several States (now 50) based on the population count of each State without first amending Article I, Sec II pargraph 3 is absurd. Article I of the matter in reference means that the number of representatives must follow the ratio of one to 30,000, not 2 or more to 30,000. Be this as it may the important interpretation of that part of the Article is that Congress cannot decide how many inhabitants each representative can claim to represent, contrary to what you claim. It is precisely your erroneous interpretation of Article I which has led to an HR that is so highly irresponsive and therfore undemocratic as this one, and I don't understand how you can defend such a quasi-dictatorship of only a "handful" of people deciding how to govern.

Forget the words you think I am "sticking words in where they do not exists." I understand exactly what the Constitution says,it says just that, namely THE NUMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES SHALL NOT EXCEED ONE FOR EVERY THIRTY THOUSAND. . . . What is not clear to me is what does that mean. You have not explained the meaning of of what that means. Does it mean that there cannot be 2 representatives or more to every 30,000, but only one. Please explain.

I do appreciate your efforts to straighten out my interpretation of what that means, and I have been thinking a lot about it. I don't mean at all to interpret the Constitution, but I am trying to understand what the phrase means. Apparently you do, so please tell me what it means. What is the meaning of the 30,000.

I don't want to put words in your mouth by going back to what the founding fathers meant; but they meant to say that the representation in the HR cannot exceed 30,000 inhabitants for one representative.

I did not receive a satisfactory answer to the question of constitutionality of the apportionment law now effect. We all know it is unconstitutional, but the Virginia ACLU lawyers seem to like the law and seem to agree that it is constitutional. That's too bad because the common We, The people, are completely ignored by the 435 rps assigned by an illegal law. The Virginia lawyers of the ACLU should remember that Thomas Jefferson, G. XXXXXXXXXX, XXXXX Madison, and many other Virginians,as well as the rest of the framers of the original Constitution, believed the the phrase: "representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000..." meant that a rep shall not "represent more that 30,000 inhabitants, and that he may represent fewer than that number. And that makes sense because how can a Congress limit the number of itself in a legislative body? Only Virginia can think that this is right, and that makes sense ever since the end of the civil war. We need a Constitutional Amendment to change the number of inhabitants and set a higher number. But such an amendment should never allow Congress itself to fix the number, it should be based on the population counts of each state. We need an urgent reduction of the currently more than 700,000 set by the current unconstitutional law. You folks should be more loyal to the Constitution and not put words in its mouth.

Thanks anyway, for trying. I suppose that will be the end of our discussion.