I don’t have a cite handy, but I recall hearing that 11% of the population elects enough Senators to lock up congress.
Think about that. Not only does a state with half a million people get as many Senators as California or Texas, but even when you massively handicap the high population states with the 2-fer rule, you still need less than 50 votes to stop everything in its tracks. With the filibuster 40 votes is all you need. A tiny sliver of the population controls the country.
11% of the population can stop the will of the other 89%. That’s horrid.
Especially if you’ve spent any time in those states with very, very low populations.
That’s what I keep saying and thinking when this topic comes up. Do people not realize how many flat-out morons and lunatic get elected to the House? There are a couple in the Senate and some Senators are badly out of touch, but there is a much larger proportion of out-to-lunch Michele Bachmanns and Cynthia McKinneys and Allen Wests and (at least on some issues) Ron Pauls in the House - people who not only are nowhere near the mainstream of political discourse, but who make no pretense at even trying to figure out where that is and just represent the small and deeply partisan areas that elected them. (And no, I don’t think the House should be abolished either.) I’m coming to the reluctant conclusion that filibuster needs to be changed or eliminated since apparently Senators are too partisan or dumb to help themselves at this point.
I agree. Somewhere in elementary school, people heard or misunderstood that the U.S. is a democracy and then interpreted that to mean that more democracy is always a worthwhile goal. It isn’t. The U.S. has a republican form of government with some aspects of democracy needed to support that. Someone has to do a lot better than more democracy = good to convince me that there is a particular problem or solution that more democracy will solve.
I don’t think there is much wrong with the U.S. Senate either. Most of the arguments against it come down to it not being purely democratic but it was never meant to be. That is a feature, not a bug.
Someone pointed out that other advanced countries don’t have the Senate to worry with. Where? Like Western Europe? Somehow, I thought those types of arguments would not be made these days for self-evident reasons.
Intriguing, although I’d comment that the House of Lords isn’t purely ceremonial. It has a real impact on British lawmaking, but relies on convincing the Commons to its own viewpoint rather than coercing it into concessions.
IMHO, the levels of stupidity that occur in the House are a direct result of the bizarre redistricting methods we use; we actively encourage people running for Congress to be hyper-partisan by making so many “safe” districts. But then again, that’s also why the House is so much more racially diverse.
Was it the lunatics in the House who took a public option off the table? Were they the ones who left dozens of federal judgeships vacant, the Federal Reserve without all of its governors, and Elizabeth Warren running for office instead of being in charge of the consumer protection agency that she pushed for? Can you remind me who it was that preserved the carried-interest tax break?
No it hasn’t but America is still running strong under the same Constitution for about 225 years.Western Europe is historically a basket-case on par with the Middle-East today that happened to have a good decades long run after WWII but is about about to go into semi or total meltdown. The U.S.will be hit by their follies but we will do much better and survive intact. Some economic crises are to be expected but let’s not model ourselves after countries that have never managed a good run as long as ours.
It should be self-evident that the worship by some liberal types of Western European practices are completely inappropriate now in terms of facts and philosophy. Thank goodness I live in the U.S. under its stable Constitution. While the U.S. is still in the #1 position on lots of counts including stability, it is frankly retarded to initiate radical reforms when no other country has ever done it better.
Letting a bunch of elderly white Idahoans, Wyomingites, Utahns, North and South Dakotans, and Alaskans have many times the voting power of the rest of the country is probably a bit unbalanced.
Perhaps the Senate should have the same number of members as the House, but also based on population. This would avoid gerrymandering, while simultaneously balancing out the excess power that the elderly white voters from the states with smaller populations.
Why do I say elderly and white? AS we all know, they are more likely to 1. be registered to vote, and 2. actually have time to vote on a damn Tuesday.
And the heck with voting on Tuesday. That’s just pandering to the elderly. Let’s vote on Saturday, or create a mandatory federal half-day off so people can vote. We need a way to dilute the voting power of the elderly. It’s not fair to the young.
What makes you think young people are going to vote if they half a day off instead of just going to the movies? It’s ridiculously easy to vote in the US for anyone who has half an interest in doing so. Most people in the US can either vote early in person or just vote by mail. Make it possible for everyone to vote by mail. Problem solved. I doubt that would result in any significant increase in the youth vote (or any other vote, for that matter).
I believe that incentives can work. But you’re not talking about an incentive. You’re saying there are significant disincentives to voting. I’m not seeing it.
Are these going to be the kind of “election observers” who challenge would-be voters with caging lists? We’ll see. And we’ll see whom they challenge. Should get interesting.
