The Legislature adjourned … and the city is now free from the presence of that herd of notabilities that composed that body and which have made such striking exhibitions of their legislative ignorance and mental darkness during the … days past.
We trust that New Mexico will never again be represented in the capacity of lawmakers by such a combination of ignorance, prejudice, and dishonesty as that which has just adjourned after having by their puerile and factious proceedings disgraced the Territory and made the word, “Legislator” a mockery and by-word in our midst. … Boys of ten years who should show as little intelligence as these legislators would be dismissed from any normal school in the country.
— (Santa Fe) Weekly Gazette, February 1, 1868
Thanks for the blast from the past. 1868, amazing, just four years after the Civil War. Unfortunately, representation is just that – representative of the general public. That’s why GOOD education is essential in a viable society. Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” His contention was that the cornerstone of our democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.
Well said Mr. Burton! And it follows that an educated electorate must elect representatives that represent the needs of the people, not the needs of the parties that they identify with.