What is so sound about the notion of a senate in the first place? Supposedly it improves legislation but is there any evidence that this is so? Is legislating in Nebraska inferior to legislating in other states? Are our rights and customs safer here than they are in Canada with its vestigal upper chamber? Where is the proof? Because all I see are empty platitudes distracting people from the reality that complicating lawmaking favors the vested interests. And nationally it also favors people in the square states since they tend to have lower populations.
At least according to the Wiki articles, Poland-Lithuania got partitioned by the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Monarchy, so that wouldn’t have still have existed had it only had a U.S. senate like body. Austria-Hungary was ruled by three elements:" common foreign, military and joint financial policy under the monarch, the “Austrian” or Cisleithanian government, the Hungarian government" Likewise, "In the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic Yugoslavia), each republic and province had its own constitution, supreme court, parliament, president and prime minister. "
So these in these joined states, the members had far more power than the states of the US via the senate and, yet, as you said they fell apart. Perhaps suggesting that less, not more power to the separate states is the key to survival.
It should be noted that current Senate representation is even worse than gerrymandering. Districts are restructured every Census based on population. For senate seats the borders are still arbitrary, but population isn’t even relevant.
How is Wyoming NOT a rotten borough?
Here’s a scenario (ridiculous by intent): Suppose a Canadian terrorist bombs an American day care center. The American public is outraged and in the next congressional election, it is THE issue of the campaign. Enough representatives who ran on a platform of building an impenetrable wall on the Canadian border get elected to form a majority. But since only 1/3 of the Senate was up for election, that silly idea doesn’t get passed and in two more years the fervor dies down. That’s the beauty of the system- the Senate prevents the House from enacting stupid legislation that might be wildly popular at the moment.
That’s probably the most sensible thing posted in this thread wrt changing the Senate. I really do think that eliminating the Senate would risk breaking up the union, especially since it would have to be done by force. But much of what people see that is “wrong” with the Senate can be fixed or mitigated by making less drastic changes than eliminating that legislative body.
I’m not quite sure that your second proposal would get through the amendment process, but the Senate rules are nothing more than whatever the Senate decides they should be. Notice, though, that there is no real chance of the filibuster being eliminated. Neither party is willing to give up that power since each knows it will be, from time to time, the minority party.
I can’t think of a single way in which this makes sense. The borders were drawn irrespective of population and representation and they won’t change, which means it’s not gerrymandering.
The filibuster wasn’t objectionable until it got to be overused in the last two Congresses. When every single thing has to get 60 votes to pass, it’s crazy. Go back to the old days where if you wanted to filibuster, you had to be like Mr. Smith goes to Washington and actually keep talking while the Senate was in session.
Then stagger the elections for the House and increase their terms.
How, specifically, does the Senate structure bring something special to your hypothetical?
This is the true biggest problem of the Senate, in recent years you have had to acquire a filibuster-proof majority to get anything done, which is patently ridiculous.
I (obviously) have no problem with each State having equal representation in the Senate.
I have in the past however advocated for proper equalization of representation in the House. I’m assuming on this forum most people realize that the House is not constitutionally set at 435 members, that number was set in the past and new census results just result in the states re-distributing their share of the 435.
I’ve argued in the past what we should do is take the smallest state in the country by population (believe Wyoming), and set the base line congressional district to be equal to that in size. So California or New York’s number of representatives would be determined by (State Population / Wyoming Population). Then you give the whole number of representatives to them.
This would still result in a bit of under-representation in the House, because of the fact that you aren’t dividing equally, but it would significantly alleviate the problem.
The number of reps created also wouldn’t be insane, I think I did the math once and it resulted in a ~600 member house.
Of course, this also wouldn’t be such a problem if we hadn’t consolidated so much power in Washington in the first place. I’m not too happy with the folks in Mississippi, fine though they may be, with having much say over what we in CA do.
Let the states handle things like Health Care. They can team up regionally if that makes sense, but don’t shoehorn the whole country into one system.
Your understanding of the history isn’t really correct. I won’t get into it all here but Poland-Lithuania formally recognized Poland and Lithuania as equal parts of the federation. I’ve read quite a bit about the P-L Commonwealth, and the actual history is one of long Polish absolute domination, primarily because the monarch was Polish and pro-Polish in nature. There were checks on monarchical power that were unique to the commonwealth, but still tended to favor Polish nobility over Lithuania. P-L was one of the largest and most populous countries of Europe in its time, the reason it fell militarily is primarily because of its deep systemic dysfunction that made it unable to defend itself.
I forgot to follow up with Austria-Hungary; it was essentially the same situation. You had a dual monarchy in which the two kingdoms were ostensibly equal, but the monarch was an Austrian Habsburg who would always put Austria’s interests first. They aren’t perfect analogies for modern political systems because of the fact that A-H had a very strong monarch and was not in any means a democracy.
The Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth actually had a more limited monarchy, but its monarch was still a Pole and their interests were still always to the benefit of Poland over Lithuania.
It’s sort of similar to another personal union, one between Scotland and England, that later evolved into the United Kingdom. Many of the Scots did not like this, because ever since the personal union the monarch had rarely even set foot in Scotland. In fact James, the first Scottish King to take over the English crown, I don’t believe ever set foot in his home country again after succeeded Elizabeth. The problem with such unions is over time the more powerful party tends to dominate, and I think that is why the Scottish have independence grumblings. Scotland has different politics than England, and it’s starting to feel that the structure of the UK isn’t amenable to them being able to express those political differences in a way satisfactory to Scotland. With devolution you have a sort of federalism brewing in the UK, so obviously the UK is trying to give more power to its constituent parts to try and preserve the union, not less.
Bearing in mind that this entire discussion is purely hypothetical, as there is precisely zero chance of the US changing the basic structure of the senate, I think there’s a big difference between something like Scotland, which is in an enormous number of ways its own country, with a flag, a national identity, its own World Cup soccer team, etc., and something like Oregon.
Personally, I’m from California, and I do I feel a common bond of shared identity and purpose with other Californians? Not really. Maybe somewhat with other computer programmers living in Silicon Valley… but with ranchers from the central valley? Or pot smokers from Humboldt? Or whoever the heck lives in Orange County? Not at all.
I think a large part of the division in this thread is between people who really view states as they were in the late 1700s, individual cohesive political and cultural units, vs people to whom states are just another subdivision in the string city-county-state-country, but not something with particular history or resonance.
We could pick a Wyoming-sized region out of agricultural Northern California, and any argument you could make that Wyoming and its residents have their own particularly needs and issues which demand representation in DC would also apply to the Wyoming-sized region of agricultural Northern California. The fact that one gets it and one doesn’t is basically an accident of history.
CA isn’t a good example because a strong argument could be made that is should be broken up into 2 or 3 states (maybe more). But even still, CA has a long history of being different from the rest of the country, and although I’m not from here, I do feel a sense of “statehood”. It’s quite different crossing the border into Nevada than driving to LA.
Strange use of the word accident, to describe something that was deliberate, desired, and intentional.
Federalism is necessary in scenarios where you have geographical regions which self-identify to such a degree that persons from those regions will work to that region’s benefit. Whenever such a scenario is going on, you have to have some way to protect the smaller regions or they will be negatively impacted by the larger regions. To do so, you essentially must give the smaller regions disproportionate power; but in truth in a proper system their power will be less than the larger regions.
Hyperbole aside, if you think Wyoming actually wields more influence in the U.S. Federal Government than California, you are patently incorrect.
Now here’s the thing, I’ve already said I don’t really view myself as a “Virginian” but an “American.” I’m sure most people are the same way. However we aren’t in bizarro world where we have 300 million “Americans” who we are then going to randomly disperse around the U.S. geography and then draw mathematically derived districts for their representation.
We’re positing, I assume, destruction of the Senate, but leaving the rest of the American political system the same. As long as States exist, the Senate must exist.
The reason being, historically and traditionally, groups of congress critters from the same state work together on issues relating to their state. Especially in matters of getting money and things of that nature for stuff back home. This is one of the few things that even in today’s political climate can still bolster bipartisanship.
What I see happening if you eliminated the Senate, is yes, the 600,000 people in Wyoming would have the same legal representation as any random district in California. But it’s ludicrous to assume the House’s Californian caucus would evaporate, no, those Reps would still have that association and on issues important to California they would form a voting block. What this means is, because the random agricultural district in California would have 50+ other district reps in California working to their interest, that agricultural district in California would receive benefits the one in Wyoming never would.
Why would a bunch of people living in an agricultural region in California form common cause with a bunch of people living in LA rather than with a bunch of people living in an agricultural region in Oregon? Or Wyoming? Or, heck, Georgia?
I agree that this whole general issue can be problematic if you want a well-functioning representative democracy. In particular, imagine a very simple country that has one big city with one million people surrounded by farmlands with 100,000 people. If all the people in the city always vote one way and all the farmers vote the other way, the farmers will always lose. Is that going to lead to a well-run country? But if we do something special via disproportionate representation to make sure the 100,000 farmers get their voices heard, what about the 100,000 teachers who live scattered throughout the country? Why are farmers specialer than teachers? etc etc etc.
In any case, the current state boundaries we have frequently don’t even address that type of issue all. Why are all the people who live in upstate New York in the same state as people who live in Manhattan? Why is LA in the same state as pretty much any other place in California? etc.
I’m not really suggesting we do anything different than what we’re doing now (as, constitutionally, we couldn’t possibly do so in any case). I just think the “oh, we 500,000 Wyomings need to have our two senators or everyone would ignore us” argument is both facile and illogical.
Thats great. But what if it’s the House that is trying to pass important legislation after being elected with a mandate to do just that and holdovers from previous elections are blocking it in the Senate? It cuts both ways. Given the lack of evidence that unicameral systems are prone to instability it doesn’t seem like it’s worth the perversion of democracy inherent in the Senate through unequal representation and greater influence of moneyed interests.
Which is what the House of Representatives is for. Let’s say there is a bill to increase the tarriffs on China’s goods. My local Rep should vote on what is best for the people in my area which being the bastion of granola-eaters that it is, he will amend the bill to say “but hugs shall be free in perpetuity.” However, where I work is a large city so their Representative may (and probably would) vote differently.
However, my 2 Senators have to look at the big picture and ask what would benefit Colorado as a whole. Sure it may screw over the melon farmers in Rocky Ford but by the same token I’m now getting hugs from idiots saying, “Take one. It’s free.” :mad:
So two things to remember, in any republic, someone gets screwed and I hate living in hippieville.
Should we really be concerned that without the Senate more populous states would get extra pork? When right now the unproportional representation there means that low population states get extra pork? What is good for the goose is completely unacceptable for the gander? Pork is trivial. This country is facing real problems. The world is changing at a faster and faster pace. We need lean and responsive governmental structures that can adapt quickly. Whatever its utility in the past, in the modern world the Senate is the antithesis of good government.
Because as far as I can see there’s nothing to suggest that just because you have no Senate, the reps from California will be exclusively interested in American issues or issues specific to their district, while ignoring Californian issues.
Because of the structure of our country, much Federal appropriations are divvied up on a state by state level. So as a congressman from an agricultural district in California, I may see eye to eye a lot better with a Congressman from Wyoming. However, if I want stuff for my district I’m better served to ally with the other California house reps who can steer money into my state, where it can then be steered into my district.
On issues totally divorced from State level stuff, I’ll certainly vote however I would vote–unless it might piss off the rest of the California delegation and I feel I will need their support on something more important down the line.
For example say there is a bill that supports the removing a prohibition on some random pesticide or fertilizer. As congressmen from an agricultural district in California me and my colleague from Wyoming will both be in favor of this. But, my fellow reps from California are all into being green and what not, so they come to me asking me not to vote for this bill. I’ll of course say, “Well this bill is good for my district…” And they’ll say, “Oh, well remember how we got a deal for a new FBI center to be built in California, side with us on this and we’ll make sure it is built in your district.” So suddenly I’m a congressman from a farming district voting against farming interests.
I’m not saying that kind of horse trading doesn’t happen across state lines, it definitely does. However, because a rep from California will sometimes be dealing with an appropriations process that gives money on a State level, there will be incentives for the representatives from California to work together on a State level.
This is just a simplistic example, there are lots of things that aren’t appropriate like that, but are appropriated at even smaller levels or etc. But suffice to say many transactions between Federal and local are Federal–>State transactions, and the laws underlying those transactions would be written by representatives who will band together with other representatives from their state to make sure those transactions are favorable to their state. On issues totally outside of the realm of those things, certainly the State delegations won’t be as important (that basically mirrors the current situation in the House btw.)
Unless House districts weren’t apportioned state by state, I don’t see how you could avoid this (meaning you would have overlapping districts crossing state lines.) That would weaken State-level delegations, but to really be practical I think you have to go all the way and eliminate the States altogether, or you have to create a more “split” system in which the Federal government loses power to do certain things to the states.
I think, without being an expert on Germany, that might be how it works there. The Federal legislature has a certain clear area of responsibility and the States have a clear area of responsibility and unlike in our system they are more specified and more adhered to–in such a system I could see a weak State-level representation in the Federal legislature working. However weaker, even Germany has some state level representation at the Federal level.