Talk:Congressional Apportionment Amendment

LaVergne

I'm a little puzzled as to why this fringe theory is included here. There is exactly one source that is not LaVergne himself (or the court's reaction to his lawsuits), and that source is an opinion piece by a political columnist. Is there coverage in other media that we can use? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 07:01, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I have removed his name from the body of the article, but his name remains in the footnotes. I believe this strikes a balance between the noteworthiness of the case and the lack of it regarding LaVergne. SMP0328. (talk) 20:17, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

There's still no source here that justifies the inclusion of this at all; there's nothing that demonstrates its noteworthiness. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 22:39, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

It's noteworthy in that it shows there is a claim that this proposed amendment was adopted and that the claim was officially rejected. This is reflected in the small mention it receives in the article. SMP0328. (talk) 00:45, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I think it straddles the line for notability requirements for inclusion of a fringe theory, but ultimately I guess I have to side with Jpgordon and that it just isn't mentioned enough in reliable media sources other than a bunch of blog posts, although the one here is a legal blog. Also the suit comes off as a vanity frivolous suit by LaVergne since he tried to file the same type of suit again in 2017 with the same results, this time with no media/blog coverage instead of miniscule media/blog coverage. Though, I also think that all it would take to pass the notability threshold is one article in a major media source mentioning LaVergne's theory. Libertybison (talk) 21:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the entire passage should be omitted. I've undertaken a search, not only of regular media, but of law review articles on Heinonline, and cannot see any coverage of this case outside of things like blogs, or the actual primary sources of the case itself. The case was unreported (a later case appears to have been reported, but it's on a narrow issue of claim preclusion, keeping LaVergne from relitigating the issue over again, and not with the (lack of) merits on his contention itself).

I say "reluctantly", only because I see some merit in keeping available solid information rebutting loon theories; but that approaches WP:SOAPBOX, even if on the side of angels. Besides, if LaVergne's fringe theory is not itself getting any coverage, it probably doesn't need rebutting.

I think it's a mistake not to identify LaVergne in the text of the article. A needlessly anonymous description like "A former attorney and pro se litigant" is just begging for a {{who}} template to be applied to it, and rightly so.

I agree with Libertybison's comment: "all it would take to pass the notability threshold is one article in a major media source mentioning LaVergne's theory." That's a pretty low bar, and we're not meeting even that. In sum, I think the passage should be removed unless/until we see at least some coverage of it. TJRC (talk) 19:27, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

(Add'l comment): it looks like this has been discussed before, and removed; then restored by an IP editor; see Talk:Congressional Apportionment Amendment/Archive 1#Litigation references; but the sources relied on for the restoration are far from WP:RS: Right Michigan a now-defunct conservative blog; and The New Conservative, another (not defunct, anyway) conservative blog. Sniffing around the sites (the former via archive.org), besides being self-published blogs, both have more than a touch of extremism to them, and don't look anywhere near WP:RS. It's probably kind to describe them as merely "conservative"; they're over into conspiracy theory territory: "What do you do with a duly ratified amendment to the U. S. Constitution that has not actually been added to the Constitution?" and "Is Congress Ignoring an Amendment Ratified by the States?" TJRC (talk) 19:43, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I've removed it. WP:FRINGE, WP:RS. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 02:01, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to put a list of references to the LaVergne theory here, since there are a range of sources and edits going back and forth about whether or to what extent to include this in the main page.

* https://mereorthodoxy.com/congressional-apportionment-amendment/
* https://www.vox.com/2018/6/4/17417452/congress-representation-ratio-district-size-chart-graph
* https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/did-this-new-jersey-lawyer-discover-a-lost-constitutional-amendment
* https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14223-article-the-first-is-congress-ignoring-an-amendment-ratified-by-the-states (Note contrary to the comment above, the New American is both an online and print magazine. It is produced by the John Birch Society. I'm not inclined to treat this is as a reliable source, but it is not merely a blog.)

130.237.201.147 (talk) 00:10, 7 November 2019 (UTC)