Amending the Maryland Constitution, 2A

Maryland is one few States to not have a Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It comes agonizingly close with the phrase "a well regulated Militia is the proper and natural defence of a free Government," but thats it.

Does anybody know what it would take to amend it?

ELEMENT94 said:

Maryland is one few States to not have a Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It comes agonizingly close with the phrase "a well regulated Militia is the proper and natural defence of a free Government," but thats it.

Does anybody know what it would take to amend it?

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No need

As I recall the Md Constitution defers to the US Constitution on matters not explicitly outlined.

In other words Md technically "adopted" 2A of the US Constitution already

You already have the natural RKBA......the problem is the douchewaffles in Annapolis

a mass plague that only infects anti's?

jpk1md said:

No need

As I recall the Md Constitution defers to the US Constitution on matters not explicitly outlined.

In other words Md technically "adopted" 2A of the US Constitution already

You already have the natural RKBA......the problem is the douchewaffles in Annapolis

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So all this is Unconstitutional on 2 levels?

Yup...

I do not and did not support a referendum on SB281.

I DO support a referendum on adding the RKBA to the maryland state constitution. While from a legal perspective, its not important for a number of reasons (among others, the 2A was incorporated to the states under McDonald), the LEGAL reason is not relevant. Such a referendum would get people registered to vote and get them to the polls in 2014.

jpk1md said:

No need

As I recall the Md Constitution defers to the US Constitution on matters not explicitly outlined.

In other words Md technically "adopted" 2A of the US Constitution already

You already have the natural RKBA......the problem is the douchewaffles in Annapolis

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This.

danb said:

I do not and did not support a referendum on SB281.

I DO support a referendum on adding the RKBA to the maryland state constitution. While from a legal perspective, its not important for a number of reasons (among others, the 2A was incorporated to the states under McDonald), the LEGAL reason is not relevant. Such a referendum would get people registered to vote and get them to the polls in 2014.

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It would prove a point, but would not change the Spirit of what is already there.

the only way to amend the md constitution without it starting in the hod is a for a referendum question calling for a constitutional convention. after that all bets are off. they are free to go full retard.

in the 60's a supreme court case caused md to reorganize the state senate. previously senators were 2 per county. the supreme ct ruling made/allowed md to change the allotment ofbstate sentaors to be based on population districts, basically a further gerrymandered version of the HOD. I think this was the defining moment of md politics going off the rails. the counties lost all representation in the md legislature, and we qent from a representative republic to a representative democracy.

the court ruling was based on post civil war law "one man one vote", to address blacks during the reconstruction. I think with the current court's take on texas voting laws it might be time to revisit this somehow.

I'd like to see county councils appoint state senators. I think it would reverse md's death spiral.

ELEMENT94 said:

So all this is Unconstitutional on 2 levels?

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Its more like this

2A explicitly prohibits the fed gov from infringing on RKBA

Since Md ALSO adopted the same language in deferring to 2A it ALSO is explicitly prohibited from infringing on RKBA

Folks need to remember that the Fed Gov is the junior member in the relationship and that plenary power is reserved to the States on all matters/issues where the Constitution doesn;'t explicitly grant the fed gov the power/authority to do <insert enumerated power>

It would be a bad idea to put a pure RKBA proposal to either referendum or state Constitutional amendment as the language will be controlled by the anti's and they will pull out all stops to characterize it as an NRA plan.

A more workable plan is to propose "As the State cannot guarantee individual safety, self-defense is a fundamental, inalienable right and shall not be infringed"

The antis would be forced to either guarantee individual safety (which is impossible) or oppose self-defense.

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State law cannot trump federal law. 'Nuff said.

squaregrouper said:

State law cannot trump federal law. 'Nuff said.

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So...SB281 is unconstitutional (Federal) on its face...yes? It does infringe!

A no-brainer, IMHO. But then again our legislators and judges are also (frequently/usually) no-brainers.

shiloh228 said:

So...SB281 is unconstitutional (Federal) on its face...yes? It does infringe!

A no-brainer, IMHO. But then again our legislators and judges are also (frequently/usually) no-brainers.

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Correct. SB281 violates the US Constitution. I'm assuming this will be addressed in the upcoming lawsuits.

Jaybeez said:

the only way to amend the md constitution without it starting in the hod is a for a referendum question calling for a constitutional convention. after that all bets are off. they are free to go full retard.

in the 60's a supreme court case caused md to reorganize the state senate. previously senators were 2 per county. the supreme ct ruling made/allowed md to change the allotment ofbstate sentaors to be based on population districts, basically a further gerrymandered version of the HOD. I think this was the defining moment of md politics going off the rails. the counties lost all representation in the md legislature, and we qent from a representative republic to a representative democracy.

the court ruling was based on post civil war law "one man one vote", to address blacks during the reconstruction. I think with the current court's take on texas voting laws it might be time to revisit this somehow.

I'd like to see county councils appoint state senators. I think it would reverse md's death spiral.

Click to expand...

I hate to correct you, but I believe it was one senator per county and one for Baltimore city. I believe this was per the original constitution of the state.

"Does anybody know what it would take to amend it? "



A miracle.

Not to be a fly in the ointment... but remember, that all of this may be moot at some point in the future (to include the Federal constitution), if Dear Leader signs the UN Arms Trade Treaty. While it has zero likelihood of ratification at this time, it won't expire, so that any Senate in the future may ratify it, and thus trump US law. Don't want to break out the tin-foil, but it can happen.

Clovis said:

I hate to correct you, but I believe it was one senator per county and one for Baltimore city. I believe this was per the original constitution of the state.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Senate

In 1776, following the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Maryland threw off proprietary control and established a new constitution. Under this new constitution, the upper house of the General Assembly first became known as the Maryland Senate. The new body consisted of fifteen Senators appointed to five-year terms by an electoral college. The college, made up of two electors from each county and one each from the cities of Baltimore and Annapolis, was limited in its selections only by the stipulation that nine Senators need be from the western shore and six from the eastern shore.[2]

The first election under the 1776 constitution took place in 1781, and the system would not change again until 1838. In the interim, a number of problems had cropped up in the appointment process, and the 1838 election saw the passage of a number of constitutional amendments that fundamentally changed how Senators were chosen. The electoral college was abolished, terms were lengthened to six years with rotating elections such that a third of the senate would be elected every two years, and a single Senator was chosen by direct election from each county and the City of Baltimore. The Senate no longer acted as the Governor's Council, although they would continue to confirm the Governor's appointments. Constitutional changes altered this new system slightly in 1851, when terms were shortened to four years, and 1864, when Baltimore City was given three Senate districts rather than one, but substantial change to the structure of the Senate did not come again until 1964.[2]

In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. Sims that state legislative seats must be apportioned on the principle of one man, one vote. A number of state legislatures, including Maryland, had systems based on geography rather than population, and the court rules that this violated the 14th Amendment. Disproportionate population growth across Maryland since 1838 meant that the principle of one seat per county gave the voters of some counties, such as those on the eastern shore, disproportionate representation. Other counties, especially those in suburban areas, were underrepresented.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims

Reynolds v. Sims set off a legislative firestorm in the country. Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois led a fight to pass a constitutional amendment allowing unequal legislative districts.[1] He warned that
"...the forces of our national life are not brought to bear on public questions solely in proportion to the weight of numbers. If they were, the 6 million citizens of the Chicago area would hold sway in the Illinois Legislature without consideration of the problems of their 4 million fellows who are scattered in 100 other counties. Under the Court's new decree, California could be dominated by Los Angeles and San Francisco; Michigan by Detroit.."

Dirksen's effort was ultimately unsuccessful, though the legislative dominance of cities that he warned about has played out as predicted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_person,_one_vote

Additionally, in most US states, electoral districts for seats in the upper house or Senate were ostensibly created at least partially on the basis of geography, rather than population. This principle was based on a principle found in the Constitution's plan for the United States Senate, in which each state was equally represented in the Senate with two representatives, without regard to population. (This was viewed with such importance by the Founding Fathers that a clause in the Constitution prohibits any state from being deprived of equal representation in the Senate without its permission, forbidding even the amendment of the Constitution to change this. For this reason, one man one vote can never be implemented in the U.S. Senate.) Often, the base unit for a state senate was a county, a standardized entity generally close to the same geographic area as every other county in the state. Whereas lower house seats might or might not be reapportioned on a decennial basis, such as those of the US House of Representatives, in most states, state senate district boundaries were never redrawn. As the United States became more urban, this led to the dilution of the votes of urban voters when casting ballots for state senate seats. A city dweller's vote had less influence on the make-up of the state senate than did a rural inhabitant's (although, if population-based representation was in place in the lower house, an urban resident still had the same amount of voting power in that realm). However, it also had the benefit of being immune from gerrymandering and the whims of population change, and it also prevented efforts at population engineering (that is, once a part of a state was populous enough to control the legislature, under one man one vote, it can implement policies driving people out of areas controlled by the opposition and cementing the localized majority further into power; since the senate's representation was immovable regardless of population, the affected parties would still have enough power in that chamber to stop any further damage).

anyways, finding a way to undo the 1964 supreme court decision is in my opinion the only hope for this state. it may have been a good decision on its face, but the way the state "complied" with it was flawed and biased.

I don't know if its ever been challenged locally.