Man seeks state constitutional amendment requiring 50% of state legislators be female

Submitted by Mastodon on Sun, 2013-11-10 01:04

Article here. Excerpt:

'If a Hot Springs man has his way, the Montana Legislature would be evenly divided by gender in the future, with 50 percent men and 50 percent women in each chamber.

John Marshall this week submitted a proposed constitutional amendment for the 2014 ballot to require both houses of the Montana Legislature to be 50 percent men and 50 percent women.

The current Legislature has 108 male and 42 female members. Women make up 28 percent of the total in both chambers.

Marshall submitted his proposal to Secretary of State Linda McCulloch’s office on Tuesday. It now goes to Attorney General Tim Fox’s office for legal review and the Montana Legislative Services Division for language review.

If it passes legal muster, Marshall can begin gathering signatures. He will need more than 48,000 signatures of registered voters to qualify for the ballot, plus meet some district signature requirements.

“Let’s be the first state in the nation to set quotas by gender,” he said in a phone interview. “We’ll catch the attention of the nation. It will benefit the state economically, socially and culturally in the future.”
...
Rep. Pat Ingraham, R-Thompson Falls, opposed the proposal.

“You need willing hearts that are willing and able to do it (serve in the Legislature),” she said. “You can’t legislate that heart. You have to have that heart and commitment. I just don’t think mandating those things is a wise decision.”'

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“We’ll catch the attention of the nation. It will benefit the state economically, socially and culturally in the future.”

My response: As evidenced by what, exactly?

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Submitted by xtrnl on Sun, 2013-11-10 10:14

And how is he going to achieve this, pray? you would have to ensure that all parties only put up men in half the seats and only women in the other half. And also stop independents of the 'wrong' gender standing, just in case. You can browbeat parties into adopting all women shortlists, but you cannot browbeat the electorate.

Here in South Wales Labour had an all-women shortlist in a safe seat and parachuted in a preferred female candidate. A man who had worked his socks off in the constituency for years and who would otherwise have been a shoo-in resigned from the Labour party, stood as an independent and won.

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Submitted by Malcolm on Sun, 2013-11-10 11:54

socializm. yum yum. somo free stuff.

this is just a back door way of increasing the number of unqualified and incompetent people in office, if that's possible.

if a group (any group) wants more x-x rep's, elect them. do the work. women usually outnumber men. if 51% of women voters vote for a candidate, it doesn't matter what everybody else wants or what group they represent. .51 x c(w) > .49 x c(m), where c(w) & c(m) are equal. amerikan prez. elections have already proven this, twice.

taking unproven short cuts is for the lazy and incompetent.

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Submitted by daveinga on Mon, 2013-11-11 12:05