Copiado de: <http://www.libertylawsite.org/>. Acesso em 15 abr. 2016.by Ken Masugi Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty ImagesOnce again Justice Clarence Thomas has given originalist jurisprudence its most robust defense through his revival of an obscure part of the U.S. Constitution. In 2010, in McDonald v. Chicago, he had protected the right to individual gun ownership by invoking the Fourteenth Amendments Privileges or Immunities Clause. Now he has concurred in the decision in Evenwel v. Abbott (2016), which unanimously affirms the state of Texas use of population (rather than being required to use eligible voters) as the basis for devising electoral districts. Thomas bold concurring opinion, reviving as it does Article IVs guarantee that each state shall have a republican form of government, opens up a vast field of possibilities for thinking about apportionment but also about free government generally. His aim in directing us to this clause is ultimately to build a more powerful case against the unconstitutional administrative state, the suppressor of separation of powers, federalism, and basic republican principles. Even more provocative is the basis he sees for the Republican Government Guarantee Clause: the Declaration of Independence. The thrust of this opinion is obviously contrary to conventional understandings, such as that of Jeffrey Toobin, for whom Thomas separate opinion showed how extreme and out of touch his views are. In it, he challenged fifty years of consensus at the Court on voting rights by rejecting a bedrock principle: one person, one vote. On the contrary, Thomas did not reject one person, one voterather, he would not require it. The Constitution does not prescribe any one basis for apportionment within States. He pointed out that the states have significant leeway in apportioning their own districts to equalize total population, to equalize eligible voters, or to promote any other principle consistent with a republican form of government. Thomas takes his bearings from the explicit constitutional standard of republicanism, not the vagaries of equal protection, an avenue of jurisprudence that leads to gibberish about vote dilution and other absurd mathematical understandings of politics. Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution reads: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. So all three branches of the federal government must protect states from nonviolent as well as violent regime change. Thomas opinion makes one fundamental point: The Courts apportionment decisions have ignored the basic principle that The Constitution lacks a single, comprehensive theory of representation. The Framers understood the tension between majority rule and protecting fundamental rights from majorities. This tension arose from the Declaration itself. Thomas writes: Because, in the view of the Framers, ultimate political power derives from citizens who were created equal, the Declaration of Independence, beliefs in equality of representationand by extension, majority ruleinfluenced the constitutional structure. Indeed, he adds, many of the Founders viewed antidemocratic checks as indispensable to republican government. And included among the antidemocratic