"subject to laws and pay sales tax" is a broad argument. Tourists and legal residents do the same, but have no representation.
Granted, that's a nit pick. What's much more serious is widespread (and horrible) practice of disenfranchising adults who have been convicted of a felony. There are some 6 million adult Americans citizens who have no representation in Congress.
And it disproportionally affects blacks. From a couple of years back: "In Virginia, 20 percent of blacks can't vote. In Florida, that number is 23 percent. ... (Kentucky, which is safely in Republican hands, is the only other state where 1 in 5 African Americans can't vote.)"
I see a bunch of difficulties with the proposal (if the parents are felons but the child is not, can the parents vote? if the parents are divorced, who gets to control the voting right? what of children in foster care? if the child is mentally disabled, with the cognitive state of a 1 year old, then can the parents still vote? Why is the scaling factor 1 instead of, say, 0.5?)
These can be worked out, and civil rights shouldn't be ignored just because "it's complicated." But the proposal's doesn't feel right. If a felon can be disenfranchised, then that felon no longer has representation. If representation is that important for a non-voting child, then surely it's that important for a non-voting adult. So shouldn't some other adult be able to vote on behalf of the felon?
BTW, you might be interested in Mark Twain's short story 'The Curious Republic of Gondour."
(Also, your 73 million number is a bit too high. I came up with 70 million, based on the census numbers minus the number of non-citizens living in the country, and adding the number of citizens living outside of the country, then scaling the sum by the percentage of people in the US who are under 18.)
Granted, that's a nit pick. What's much more serious is widespread (and horrible) practice of disenfranchising adults who have been convicted of a felony. There are some 6 million adult Americans citizens who have no representation in Congress.
And it disproportionally affects blacks. From a couple of years back: "In Virginia, 20 percent of blacks can't vote. In Florida, that number is 23 percent. ... (Kentucky, which is safely in Republican hands, is the only other state where 1 in 5 African Americans can't vote.)"
I see a bunch of difficulties with the proposal (if the parents are felons but the child is not, can the parents vote? if the parents are divorced, who gets to control the voting right? what of children in foster care? if the child is mentally disabled, with the cognitive state of a 1 year old, then can the parents still vote? Why is the scaling factor 1 instead of, say, 0.5?)
These can be worked out, and civil rights shouldn't be ignored just because "it's complicated." But the proposal's doesn't feel right. If a felon can be disenfranchised, then that felon no longer has representation. If representation is that important for a non-voting child, then surely it's that important for a non-voting adult. So shouldn't some other adult be able to vote on behalf of the felon?
BTW, you might be interested in Mark Twain's short story 'The Curious Republic of Gondour."
(Also, your 73 million number is a bit too high. I came up with 70 million, based on the census numbers minus the number of non-citizens living in the country, and adding the number of citizens living outside of the country, then scaling the sum by the percentage of people in the US who are under 18.)