My letter to the Wall Street Journal that's never going to be printed regarding an obvious problem with the viewpoint:
Mr. Baker's and Mr. Stonecipher's conclusory statement that Congressional representation based on a census of non-citizens is unconstitutional runs afoul the of the Constitution as originally written. The original Constitution explicitly provided for proportional congressional representation based, in part, on a census of non-citizens. That is precisely what the infamous "three fifths clause" provided for by allowing the southern slave states to count three fifths of their slave populations towards their representation in the House of Representatives. And as Chief Justice Roger Taney made clear in his decision in Dred Scott, slaves were not entitled to the rights of citizenship and were considered mere chattel. While I agree in principle that only citizens should be counted when it comes to congressional representation, it is far from clear to me that counting non-citizens towards representation is unconstitutional when the original constitution allowed for representation based on a tally of what was then considered property.
