By DOUGLAS REILLY
Los Alamos

We have a lawyer problem. It’s not just too many; it’s where they are and what they’re taught.

The American Bar Association says there are four lawyers for every thousand people; that’s 0.4 percent. The percentage of lawyers in our congress is 40 percent. Imagine if we had a representative distribution of work categories in congress.

Congress would have almost no lawyers; however, It would have more agriculture, manufacturing, and construction workers, and many more service sector workers. Physicists represent 0.003 percent of the population; it would be unlikely to have a physicist in either chamber. If it ever happened, that physicist would come from New Mexico.

I believe it would benefit our country if we followed such a scheme. Given the large discussion of DIVERSITY today; it’s clear our congress is anything but diverse. Maybe we should question if being a lawyer is required to sit on the Supreme Court. The early supreme court had a chief justice and five associate justices; they all had some legal training and had been admitted to their state’s bar.

Of the 38 signers of our Constitution, twenty-two were lawyers or had legal training. Eleven were businessmen, merchants, or shippers; three were scientists or physicians, one was a university president, one was an ordained minister.

Of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence; 17 were lawyers, 18 were merchants, 14 were plantation owners, and 10 were physicians, scientists or ministers.

Lawyers have surely had an important role in the founding of our country. I just feel they have too much power today.

In the recent supreme court rulings on vaccine mandates, Justice Gorsuch said, “the court is not meant to fix health problems; we are only to decide the meaning of the laws involved.” This appalls me, although I understand what’s said. I believe common sense should overrule law in a case like this.

I’ll note a sentence from The Prophet when a lawyer asks, “But what of our Laws, master?” Almustafa answers “You delight in laying down laws, yet you delight more in breaking them.” My Dad often told me, “Doug, remember that rules are made to be broken.”