# Is It Time For the Senate to Go?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-the-senate-to-go/608354>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 4, 2012, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-the-senate-to-go/608354 "2012-01-04T06:49:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 131

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**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-the-senate-to-go/608354/131 "2012-01-11T20:28:14Z")

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(Reposted from the other bicameral thread.)

> [@A one-house legislature is better than a two-house legislature](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-one-house-legislature-is-better-than-a-two-house-legislature/608862/78):
>
> As a citizen of a state in the United States you are entitled to representation in Congress. Your congressman in the House and your two State senators. The citizens of California receive the representation they are entitled to just as the citizens of Wyoming do. Are you arguing an individual citizen in California _doesn’t_ have three congressional representatives? And that a citizen of Wyoming has more than three?

No and no. But I would argue that “Is” is not the same as “Ought to be”.

> [@](#):
>
> What you seem hung up on is the citizen of California’s congressman represents roughly 700,000 people, and his two Senators represent 37 million, whereas the two Senators from Wyoming represent 600,000 and the lone congressman from Wyoming represents 600,000.
> 
> But that doesn’t mean any individual Californian has _less_ representation than any individual from Wyoming (what is Wyoming’s demonym?)

That’s exactly what it means. If 200,000 Wyomingites care passionately about an issue their Senators need to take that very seriously. That’s a third of their constituency. A Californian Senator? Not so much. The opinions of individual Californians count for less in the Senate than those of Wyomingites. Far less.

> [@](#):
>
> One man one vote has _never_ been a principle for anything other than the ballot box to directly elect the representatives themselves.

Well maybe. And maybe the (para)phrase in Gray v Sanders refers to full political equality. It seems to but perhaps not. In any case, political equality is something Americans have striven for throughout the existence of this nation.

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