We pay more in taxes than the welfare states, have less representation… Seems like there was something in US History about taxation without representation.
One person, one vote.
In Germany we have two votes, one for a local representative and one for a party. In itself it’s a pretty decent system
Yet, the local representatives in the pairlaments (Bundestag, Landtag) represent districts of approximately the same population number. Thus, in our first chamber, no vote has more value than another.
But in the Bundesrat, which comes closest to the US senate, states with higher population number do have more representatives than small states, which weakens the inequality of votes, yet still one vote from Bremen (population 700k, 3 representatives) has 13 times as much value as one from NRW (p. 18 mio, 6 rep.).
The German system is what the US would have been if they would have regularly updated their constitution.
This is an example of why the House of Representatives also exists.
Except CA isn’t fairly represented in the House either. CA would need 68 representatives just to have the same representation as Wyoming.
And say, shouldn’t the states that have a huge economy and bring in more tax dollars have more of a say than the red welfare states that suck up those tax dollars? Just sayin…
And say, shouldn’t the states that have a huge economy and bring in more tax dollars have more of a say than the red welfare states that suck up those tax dollars?
By that logic, a rich person should have more say in government?
It’s not a question of should. They do.
I disagree with the economy part. Fuck that. Your value isn’t described by how much wealth you generate.
Republicans are (or were) hypocritical with their talk of fiscal responsibility while representing states that take in more money than they give back. This should be pointed out if they ever return to that argument. This isn’t to say poor people from republican states (or anywhere else) are less valuable though. It’s only hypocrisy that’s wrong, not trying to help lower income people that’s wrong.
shouldn’t the states that have a huge economy and bring in more tax dollars have more of a say
Wtf, dude? Can you make something even more american-sounding?
The house were any given rep represents between 550k and close to a million constituents?
There’s no need for a bicameral system. It was a system designed to capitulate to wealthy interests and nothing more.
It is as it needed to be to get the states to sign on. But times have changed, and it needs to as well
Representative democracy is unstable and corruptible by design and it can’t be anything else.
Don’t forget, those senators translate to electoral college votes.
Them plus the house reps, which are artificially capped at a low number, again benefitting the low population states
Diddnt they cap the amount of house of representatives?
I always thought it’d be interesting if one senator were elected only by the most populous municipality in each state.
Republicans would just create a mega-municipality of all the rural voters.
They came up with the best thing they could agree on at the time. They did not intend on it to become sacred, untouchable, and without the ability to change with the times, and sometimes we have changed it. Just not quite enough times.
It may be one of those myths, but I remember that one of the founders initially were proposing the constitution to be rewritten every 10 years.
19 years, in a letter from Jefferson to Madison.
To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 6 September 1789
He thought that firstly no document or law could be forever relevant, so it needed revisioning occasionally, and the 19 years seems to tie into the idea of each generation taking a new look and either accepting existing laws as still good or making changes.
The French Revolution created an easier method for reforming The Republic and rewriting their constitution.
They enshrined the revolutionary aspects of revolution instead of its leaders.
That said the Federalists got part of the idea from ancient Lycia on having proportional representation and then added in keeping it in check by another chamber with equal footing.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230906-the-ancient-civilisation-that-inspired-us-democracy
It is a good idea. But we need more Congresspersons to lower the people each congressperson represents. It was ~95,000 in 1940 … in 2020 it is closer to 750,000 per congresscritter.
I may be misremembering, but I believe the way things were originally designed was that the Senate was supposed to represent the states, not the people. The house represented the people. That’s why the Senate has equal representation (because the states were meant to have equal say), and the house proportionate to population.
That is correct. The state legislatures generally (if not always) picked the senators, but due to huge state corruption, it was almost always political qui pro quo, and some states even going full terms without selecting sla sentaor. This led to the 17th amendment (which you’ll here rednecks and/or white supremacists asposing, because states’ rights.)
Edit to add: Wikipedia knows it better than I do.
Appreciate the extra details and the link!
This is correct, and this part of the system works fine. What should have happened though is a population break point where a state has to break up if they exceed a certain population. CA should be at least 3 states. New York needs a split as well, probably a few others. There is no way a state can serve its population well when the population is measured in the tens of millions.
I agree in theory, but big cities are where things get muddy.
When a single city (e.g. New York City, population ~8 million just to use the biggest example) has a population larger than entire states, how do you “split” the state of New York? If the city itself, excluding any of the surrounding “metro area”, was its own state, it would be the 13th most populous in the US and also the smallest by area.
Do we carve up each of the boroughs as a separate state, and give New York City 10 senators? It would be more proportional representation for the people of NYC, but also their close proximity and interdependence would very much align their priorities and make them a formidable voting bloc. And even then, you could still fit 4 Vermonts worth of people into Brooklyn alone. How much would we need to cut to make it equitable? Or do we work the other way as well and tell Vermont it no longer gets to be its own state because there aren’t enough people?
For states like California, which still have large cities but not quite to the extreme of New York, how do we divide things fairly? Do we take a ruler and cut it into neat thirds, trying to leave some cities as the nucleus of each new state? Or do we end up with the state of California (area mostly unchanged), the state of Los Angeles, and the state of The Bay Area?
Are we bringing back city-states? We already have city-counties.
I like city-states, they’re my favorite part of fantasy novels.
Exactly. Eliminate the Senate, and you have Panem: An urban Capitol district unilaterally controlling the rural satellite districts.
I’ll add, it’s incredibly dumb that the house is capped at 435 seats. There just is no way 435 people can represent the entirety of the nations population. Given advances in communication technology, there’s also no reason to keep it there. They really should be increasing the size of the house dramatically and no longer have a cap. The size of the house should grow, or shrink, with the size of the population.
Can we get 25 million volunteers to move proportionally to red states for the next few years?
Lol if enough democrats moved to texas and flipped it blue, we would never have a republican president again.
I moved to a red state. Absolutely awful. Don’t do it. Texas is an irremediable shit hole.
West Virginia checking in
Move to the parts where it isn’t (Austin, Houston).
I’m in Austin, TX. I’ve lived on two continents, three countries, ten US states. This region of the world is by far the worst place I’ve ever lived… fellas, I lived in a third world country and Texas is worse. It’s a dystopian shit hole. You can’t go outside. It’s 100 degrees half the year with high humidity. The air is dirty, polluted, full of allergens. People burn garbage everywhere. There is no wildlife. Trash in the street. Everything is dead, except a few biting insects, there’s no living creatures — not even birds. Dogs chained outside in the heat. Nature is dying, yellow and faded, except for the artificial grass — a rare sign of life (until the water runs out). Houston meanwhile is a gridlocked pile of parking lots and dirty overpasses built on a swamp, so whenever it rains it floods (which is comical — why does anyone live here?). Don’t come. There is no hope.
Then what’s stopping your from leaving?
deleted by creator
Then it sounds like your one and only job (keeping her happy) is the best fucking job in the state. Ignore the shit around you and grind it out until you both save enough to move away or she promotes into another location.
You’re so right. Thank you! I am doing my best. Thanks for your kind words.
Half a million movers per month would both wreck California and rural states real quick.
Also Cali would turn red quickly. I don’t think our voter numbers show the true story. There are a lot of MAGA crazies in CA. I just doubt they bother voting atm because they know it’s pointless.
That’s a bit incomplete.
Those who stay back would find cities, economy, infrastructure and culture crumbling and uprooted. Ghost town culture doesn’t exactly inspire hope and confidence.
On the other hand, there would be somewhat of a plague syndrome benefitting those.
California can take 2 for the team.
So a win win.
rage rage rage
I’m assuming it’s working as intended.
The Senate is. The House is not. The artificial limit of 435 set in 1911 has turned it into a pseudo-Senate and done a lot of harm to this country. With the same population representation as then, we should have around 1600 Representatives now.
A lot of the issues we currently have in Congress simply wouldn’t exist with the House operating as it was designed.
To benefit Southern slave states and sparsely populated rural states? Check.
Exactly. It’s capitalism. The land is more valuable than the people on it.
(This is my observation, not my personal opinion)
To be fair, small states would never agreed to the constution without the senate.
Southern states would not have agreed to the constitution without the 3/5 compromise.
The United States would not exist without these compromises. The constitition is, as CGP Grey calls it, a Compromise-titution.
Why don’t the more populous states, the larger of the two groups, simply eat the small states?
Because there this thing called the military and they swore an oath to uphold the constitution that that includes this odd electoral system.
🤷♂️
I mean there is a way to non-violently over throw this system. Just get people who vote democratic to move to red states while keeping at least 51% majority in their original state. Then vote in democrats, take over their state government. If coordinated correctly, we can take over 3/4 of state governments and have 3/4 of the US senate. Gerrymander (political gerrymandering is legal btw) enough districts and also win at least 2/3 of the house.
With all that in control, amend the constitution, repeal the clause that requires each state to have an equal number of senators. Then an amendment to abolish the senate, and giving any of its powers to the house.
I mean while we’re at it, make the house use proportional representation. And maybe even ranked choice voting system.
I know you’re kidding but that’s not allowed per Article IV section 3
Disingenuous. That’s 21 states and 42 senators.
Now do representatives, which was originally supposed to match population distribution.
Alaska and Hawaii.
Alaska and Hawaii what?
From context I assume you mean they have a different number of senators? One? None?
Not sure why Hawaii is included in this meme. Hawaii has only had 1 Republican senator since it became a state in 1959.
Don’t blame the founding fathers that all these hippies moved to California /s
The hippies were already there. The tech CEOs and Hollywood actors are an invasive species.
Extremely low IQ meme considering this is the intended purpose of the senate.
Disagreeing with the intention of some 1700s guys is extremely low IQ?
Yes because it completely ignores the House of Representatives. It’s an ignorant post made by an idiot and defended by idiots
The senate and the house are intentionally different and serve different purposes
Ya, like how the Senate confirms judicial appointments, thus controlling two branches with the tyranny of the minority.
