In my opinion, thinking of each state as a small nation unto itself is the best way to see the value of the senate in its current form.
I find this thought pattern to be helpful because the state has all the government powers not given to the federal government, and not found to be contrary to the constitution. The tenth amendment guarantees this - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Each state, as a small nation, has its own interests that need preserving outside those of the United States at large, and it makes sense that the senate acts as a check on the interests of large, populous states over smaller ones when it comes to these.
Having lived in several states, I've found that differences in values and culture inform general opinion of the federal government. In my opinion, this article sounds like it was written by someone who views the United States federal government as one that should have a large role in the every day lives of citizens, and my feedback to them is that they should consider whether or not they would like it if a growing state with different values than their own suddenly had disproportionate representation federally.
I agree with you, because this is more or less what the US is, and in some ways, was intended to be, and in other ways, not intended to be.
If you split the government along Foreign and Domestic policy, the Federal government represents more foreign policy matters with the Senate serving as the outlet for the States to have a modicum of say, and the States generally handle more local and domestic policy matters, except where Congress has reserved power.
The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing, and while what we have is a compromise, there was clearly vision behind the drafting of the constitution, more vision than 99% of armchair historians can muster. In order to scale democracy beyond the level of a city-State and have it survive, they instituted some Anti-Democratic institutions. The Senate is one of these institutions.
Most of those who would like to revise the Constituon lose sight of the fact that democracy does not scale well without some judicious compromises. The very nature of the Constitution and Federalism is counter to democracy. The Senate is counter to democracy. The Supreme Court is counter to democracy. The Presidency is counter to democracy.
If you asked me, I would say we could do better, but we’re not going to do better by cutting down the pillars of society and seeing what we can build from the rubble. The States are as integral to the United States as the Federal Government is to the States.
I get the states are an integral part of the US but I'm unclear on why the Senate needs equal representation for all states except for the fact that the founders made it that way.
Because if one State could dominate Congress entirely the policies of the country would be disproportionately shaped around that one State.
The State is an entity that matters, according to the Constitution, because the Union could not have existed without the States, therefore the Senate is the chamber of Congress which represents the interests of the States rather than the people which is the function of the House of Representatives.
The mechanism for selecting Senators may have changed, but not the function of the Senate.
Or to put it this way, why is it that the United Nations is designed to give one country one vote in the General Assembly and not proportionate representation according to each nation’s population? It is the same principle in play. From the lenses of the Founding Fathers, the Union was an agreement between States and People and so Congress represents States and People. The United Nations is an agreement between Nation-States and so it represents Nation-States, no single Nation’s and no single State’s interests should override the interests of all the other Nations or all the other States.
You can disagree with that principle, certainly, but I think it is necessary for the Union to have both chambers of Congress. There is no function for a Senate that is proportionate to each State’s population to serve, and you would be better served by abolishing the Senate altogether along with the representation of the States’ interests in Congress and maintaining the House of Representatives as the sole remaining chamber of Congress.
It's interesting to see that this article doesn't mention the House of Representatives at all.
The entire purpose of the Senate is to balance the power of the House, to mitigate states with large populations overpowering states with smaller populations.
The entire purpose of the Senate was not balance the power of the House, it was to provide states with representation in the federal government. To such end, in the original constitution state governments chose senators -- because the senators represented the individual states -- not the people of those states.
Then the 17th Amendment changed all that and made senators elected by popular votes just like the house members. This, IMO, eliminated the primary reason for having a Senate at all (to represent states). It now simply (poorly) duplicates the same purpose of the House (to represent the people).
One could make the argument that the senators still represent the state, because they represent everyone in the state, whereas a representative only represents their district.
The difference shows up in things like unfunded mandates. An appointed senate would resist demanding that states pay money. Voting for such a thing would likely get the senator rejected by the state government, preventing another term. In general, appointed senators were a force to keep government smaller.
> The entire purpose of the Senate is to balance the power of the House
The entire purpose of the Senate was to protect slavery, the same as granting slave states extra House seats based on 3/5 of their enslaved population, the same as building the electoral college on top of the representation formulas for those institutions, and the same as writing express protections for the international slave trade into the Constitution. That slavery was a looming conflict and that democratic representation doomed it over time was both clear at the time of the Constitution and, if not sufficiently mitigated, a deal-breaker for the slave-reliant states.
Correct, that was the purpose devised about 230 years ago.
I don't have a strong opinion on this aspect of representation in elected federal government, but at point do we accept that structures have become suboptimal for a vastly changed country and society?
It has always been this imbalanced. That is the point... the Senate balances out the House (which is apportioned by population already) to ensure that large population areas can't force policy and laws that are onerous on small (population) states. In other words, this is not a bug, it's a feature.
With the senate, it's important to frame thoughts not as a percentage of the population, but as a percentage of the states that make up the United States.
I would say that if 15% of the population could control the house of representatives, then there would be something wrong.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see it that way. The point is that our senators and representatives really need to work together to end divisiveness. While that isn't currently happening, I see that as the problem rather than the way the system is laid out.
This argument seems very convoluted. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like Sovereign Citizen level of nuttiness.
The whole crux of the argument seems to boil down to the idea that using a statute to change apportionment in the senate avoids the Article V clause that prevents a constitutional amendment from changing senate apportionment without the consent of every state.
A statute would avoid Article V, it won't avoid Article 1 Section 3, which states that each state gets 2 senators. His "Senate Reform Act" would be unconstitutional without ever involving Article V. All his other arguments seem totally irrelevant; trying to interpret a mess of other amendments as somehow consenting to a loss of equal suffrage is ridiculous. Even if you tried to interpret the 14th amendment as changing the apportionment of senators (a novel interpretation to say the least), it would be clearly unconstitutional as per Article V which specifically forbids any amendment from changing equal suffrage in the senate without the consent of that state.
So either you try to change senate apportionment with a statute and violate Article 1 Section 3, or you try to change it with an amendment and run afoul of Article V.
The only argument in this entire article that makes sense is their idea of amending Article 2 Section 1 Paragraph 2. That can be changed, maybe that's where they should focus their efforts.
But if you really hate the senate that much, your best option is to amend away all their powers and turn them into a purely ceremonial body.
The problem is, this bill would have to pass the Senate - the current Senate. That seems... improbable. Even with a Democratic win in 2020, it seems improbable without invoking the nuclear option. I'm not that deep into politics, so I'm not sure whether the nuclear option can be used on a bill like the proposed one. I'm also not clear whether small-state senators would vote for such a bill, even if they are Democrats.
> The problem is, this bill would have to pass the Senate - the current Senate.
That's a problem.
To other problem is equal representation of States is express in the Constitution, and underlined by the provision ruling out amendments that would change it. The idea that the courts would somehow ignore the Constitutional requirement to allow a statute changing the apportionment to stand is ludicrous; it is especially ludicrous as an end-run against the provision barring changing the rule in the Constitution by amendment.
The article was talking about a bill that (theoretically) would restructure the Senate without having to amend the Constitution. Even were that possible (about which I have doubts), my comment still stands.
Wouldn't the better solution just be to get rid of the senate. The senate is there to represent the states and if they are not being represented then why keep it?
How would Congress go about getting rid of the Senate? Also, the Senate is representing the states. What people are upset about is how the Senate doesn’t represent the population of states relative to one another. That’s the House of Representatives, but given recent politics by the party in control of the senate, people in states like California feel like their will is being override by small state senators.
Serious question: How do you enforce the will of the majority at the same time as protecting the interests of the minority? It seems to me that this only really allows the minority to set the agenda in most scenarios and the majority can only enforce their will in a "complete control" situation.
EDIT:
Why do states need representations in Congress at all? Aren't states arbitrary divisions anyway, as it relates to policy? Given that, why should we protect smaller states? I would like to know a/the rational basis for that, given that much policy is still left up to the state government so that they may govern their populace effectively as needed in their specific geographical region. Would it be better to protect them in the way of ensuring their ability to make their own laws as-needed isn't overridden by a proportionally-represented Congress? The requirement of equal representation of states (arbitrary) is causing unequal representation of people (what states are made of), which is what government is truly here for.
Equal representation in Senate = whoever has the highest (or at least "most correct as it relates to our map") geographical distribution has the ability to control legislative outcomes. But geographical distribution does not mean majority, and that's where we're at today. This then causes unequal representation of the people in presidential elections via the electoral college and thus further entrenches the unequal representation of the people.
I'd have to say that I disagree with the author's solution and that I really only see one choice, which is to merge (i.e. get rid of) the Senate with the House. The author's solution is merely the same thing by a different name. We should also abolish the electoral college, as this has the same effect as a Senate-type body on a democracy.
I agree with you, although I don't know if that was the intention from the outset, it's the unintended outcome nonetheless. Their arbitrary nature + requirement for equal representation creates situations that run contrary to democratic ideals, or at least that of majority rule.
Sure, popular election of senators is at least a little problematic. But maybe what we really want is a return to the original model, where members of the House are elected by the people, while senators are chosen by state legislatures.
The current system is a check that prevents individual states from dominating legislation in Congress. Why would anyone want that except for the very populous states?
The top 6 states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois & Pennsylvania effectively tied) have almost half the population and thus could dominate Congress without input from the other 44 states.
The author comes from Pennsylvania, and so this article should be seen as nothing but self-serving.
But a poll of equal number of citizens from each state would never approve such a measure.
> The author comes from Pennsylvania, and so this article should be seen as nothing but self-serving.
Of course it's self serving.
But it's undeniable that the current situation isn't fair. One where the vote of a rancher in Wyoming with whom I have absolutely nothing in common politically has orders of magnitude more weight than mine. And the difference isn't only in the senate either.
CA: population per senator: 19M
WY: population per senator: 280k
CA: population per electoral vote: 719k
WY: population per electoral vote: 192k
CA: population per house seat: 746k
WY: population per house seat: 577k
It's indeed true that the situation for senators is by design. One could weakly argue that the situation for the house isn't too bad. But how do you defend a 4x ratio for electoral votes?
It seems to me that the only solution to mitigate this imbalance is to start dialing back the responsibilities of the federal government. (Which I'm not in favor of at all, but what other option is there?)
This provision was put into place to preserve the power of the landowning class against what were then referred to as “the mob”, meaning everyone else. It did its job quite well, but it is intentionally anti-democratic and does need to be fixed.
I find this thought pattern to be helpful because the state has all the government powers not given to the federal government, and not found to be contrary to the constitution. The tenth amendment guarantees this - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Each state, as a small nation, has its own interests that need preserving outside those of the United States at large, and it makes sense that the senate acts as a check on the interests of large, populous states over smaller ones when it comes to these.
Having lived in several states, I've found that differences in values and culture inform general opinion of the federal government. In my opinion, this article sounds like it was written by someone who views the United States federal government as one that should have a large role in the every day lives of citizens, and my feedback to them is that they should consider whether or not they would like it if a growing state with different values than their own suddenly had disproportionate representation federally.