17-Year-Old Girl Running For Mayor - illustrating deficiencies of school system

WFTV.com - News - 17-Year-Old Girl Running For Mayor Of Minnesota Town

A young woman of the tender age of 17 is running a write-in campaign for mayor of her small town in Wisconsin despite the fact that state law requires elected officials to be at least 21 and registered to vote. If she prevails in the popular vote but is not certified as the winner, she vows to take her fight to the courts.

Although perhaps well-meaning, one has to wonder what this high school senior has learned about the rule of law that would lead her to make this comment, as reported by AP:
I doubt the judge would be able to say no to the popular vote," she said. "The people's right to choose prevails over (state law)."

I'm not opposed to starting young in politics. My late father was 21 when he won the Democrat party primary for state representative in SC in 1940; there were about a half dozen of his classmates in law school serving in the legislature at that time. An 18-year old was elected to the school board in a suburb of Allentown, PA about 20 years ago. In 1997, voters in a suburb of Reading, PA elected a constable who was only 19.

But the essence of republican government is rules which restrict what even a majority of voters may wish to do at any given election. It is republicanism, not democracy, that is the foundation of government in America (see Constitution, Article IV, Section 4). This young woman in Wisconsin may be right about the attitude which will be adopted by the courts in her state. For the sake of republicanism, I hope she is wrong.