John Marshall, of Hot Springs, Montana, has filed a proposed statewide constitutional amendment initiative. It would mandate that when legislators are elected, half the seats would be for females, and half for males. Presumably this could be achieved if each district were to elect two legislators. Because it is a proposed state Constitutional amendment, it seems likely that it would be constitutional. It would not violate the U.S. Constitution, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no fundamental right for an individual to be a candidate for state or local office.
Here is an article about the proposal. As the article notes, the author of the initiative was a Libertarian Party nominee for State Senate in 2012. He polled 7.64% in a race with both major parties also in the race. Thanks to Mike Fellows for the link.
WTF? Sorry, but this proposal sounds silly, and something that a Democrat, or any other person on the Left would propose.
Hell, it even sounds contrary to Libertarian dogma.
Yeah I don’t like this either.
My initial reaction was that it would be a bad idea to have sex-based quotas for a legislature, but setting electoral quotas based on sex makes just as much sense as setting electoral quotas based on regional districts.
“It would not violate the U.S. Constitution, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no fundamental right for an individual to be a candidate for state or local office.”
OK, then how about setting minimum IQ’s for public officials?