As 2000 and 2016 showed, conservatives don’t really care about democracy.
You talking about the electoral college? So what. Everyone knows the rules of the game. You also know that it’s impossible to predict the outcome of an election held in an alternative universe with a different set of rules. It’s pointless and sounds whiny.
You can’t predict the outcome, but you can expect that it would more accurately reflect the will of the people.
Well, until the day state borders are erased and state governments are dissolved I don’t see any chance of the Senate changing. Just like I don’t see the governments of Belgium, Greece, etc. dissolving and ceding all powers to the EU. There is close to no incentive for smaller than average political entities ceding apparently disproportionate power.
So why not choose an avenue of reform that actually has a chance of happening?
But as you know, the formation of this country was unique in that you had thirteen states who at the time had fully sovereign powers. They agreed to unite in a country that was more that the loose association under the Articles of Confederation, but still far different than most countries.
They did not surrender all sovereignty. The only surrendered those powers that are listed in the Constitution, and even those powers were to be voted upon in a manner that did not give a one-person, one-vote across the states. The smaller states wisely saw how they would be rendered irrelevant by such a scheme.
I don’t think it is proper to say that the way our country is set up is unfair when it was done this way by the agreement of all of the states and concessions were made to the smaller ones so that we could even have this union in the first place.
So, how in your mind is it now fair and just to insist on a pure one-person one-vote national compact where the larger states can run roughshod over the smaller states? The very thing that was bargained for?
The same line of thinking also applies to intrinsic individual rights. Those have no protection in an unconstrained democracy. What’s really funny though is the notion that the abstract political entity labeled “nation” is a construct that makes perfect sense yet an abstract political entity labeled “state” does not. I honestly don’t see how one can reconcile or promote those two contradictory ideas.
Of course not. They have the power, and they are not going to give it up. Few despots voluntarily give up power. Of course, democracy is as much a benefit to the leaders, as to the people. In a democracy, the people can show their displeasure through voting out their leaders. In countries where the will of the people is ignored, regime change tends to be more violent.
The comparison fails on two fronts. The states would not be dissolving and ceding all powers to the US if the senate were more balanced to reflect the will of the people, and the states are also not actually sovereign countries like Belgium and Greece; Greece can leave the EU, can Texas leave the US?
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What do you suggest?
They never had sovereign powers. They were subject to British rule until they broke away under the articles of confederation.
You mean they wisely saw how they could get a disproportionate benefit from being stubborn and holding out until the larger states, concerned that if the small states were left to fair for themselves would fall into enemy hands and become a belligerent neighbor, gave in to their demands for the good of the nation.
This whole thing only worked if everyone signed on, and even though it would have been to their benefit to sign on without the “Great Compromise”, the held out for more, putting the entire country’s future at stake. Their primary negotiating advantage was that they had less to lose if the country failed.
The very word “compromise” is that we had to give away more than seemed fair in order to get the Constitution signed. Many were quite unhappy at it at the time, and would be even more frustrated now to see how the power has shifted even further away from the people.
If you feel that the ones with the power over the fed can “run roughshod” over states, then how in your mind is it fair to uphold a centuries old compact where smaller states can run roughshod over the larger?
The bargain then was not in good faith, and the argument to uphold it has not gotten any more sincere.
They were sovereign and made a deal to cede some of that sovereignty. Leave the Union? Sherman vs Atlanta set a strong precedent with regard to that question. That still does not mean that the states don’t have rights and sovereignty. It’s just not absolute. Which ultimately is because might makes right and nothing more.
Realistic suggestions? Expand the house. Ranked voting. Split a few of the most populous states. What’s the point of keeping California so large if states don’t have power as states? Clearly there is a lot of value with California being California and not 7 smaller states.
Speaking of California in 1850 when they became a state they had a small population.
1850 United States census - Wikipedia. Did they cry about how unfair having 2 senators when NY had, according to that website, 30 times the population?
Right, which is my point as to why Belgium’s relationship with the EU is not a useful analogy to Georgia’s relation to the US.
No one is saying that they have no rights, and balancing the senate to better reflect the population would not change that.
Well, they don’t have that. Sovereignty is supreme power or self governing. They were never that. They have rights, and they have powers of governorship, but they are not the supreme powers, and they are not self governing.
And might is often on the side that has more people on it.
I don’t disagree, and have proposed that myself. Not a popular idea though, and even if more feasible, still doesn’t solve the problem that half the legislature is beholden to a small and shrinking population.
there are many meaning that this could take, did you want to expand? I probably don’t disagree.
and/or combine some of the least.
None, other than it would take quite a bit of effort on the part of both Californians and the rest of the country in order to make it happen.
What’s that value? When we started getting into the western territories, the surveyors got lazy and just started drawing big boxes and long lines to divy up the land that no one had really seen, and fewer wanted to live.
They probably didn’t. They probably thought they were getting a great deal. I would be very surprised if there weren’t some grumblings about it among New Yorkers though.
OTOH, if the condition of becoming a state was that they would get more proportional representation in the senate to their population, do you think that that would have made them pass?
In the context of the U.S. Senate or electoral college, the people saying “South Dakota belongs to the people of South Dakota” make no sense.
Now, if North Dakota were populated with Klingons, while South Dakota was populated by Romulans, and so on, then sense might be had. But they’re not; we’re talking arbitrary lines on a map in many cases.
But … but, you say, the people of Utah have their own special culture, distinct from their neighbors. Whatever. But the people of upstate New York have their own culture, distinct from the City. By the argument shouldn’t the people of upstate New York have their own two Senators? They have a higher population than Utah.
The people in the mountains of California have different priorities than those in California coasts and cities — where are their Senators?
No; the argument that people in arbitrary map boxes with vastly different populations each need or deserve exactly two Senators is so absurd that everyone in-thread making the argument is … not entirely reasonable.
Also completely nonsensical is the bitterness I read above against the people of California who can subjugate the people of the smaller states by virtue of their higher population. 
Whites subjugate blacks the same way. For that matter, blondes are outnumbered by brunettes — do blondes deserve some extra Senators? Truck drivers outnumber riverboat captains — do we need to redress that with extra Senators? Or, on a more serious note, the large population of Californians are being subjugated by a few rednecks in tiny states like the Dakotas. Is that fair?
When viewed clearly, many of the “arguments” in favor of the Senate allocation in this thread reduce to utter gibberish. HTH.
The concept of states is a pretty antiquated one and the “hey, we made a deal 243 years ago” argument increasingly weak. Time to start talking up massive reform with the next generations of voters. They might listen when we have the aforementioned Senate Republican majority representing 25% of the population.
But if we have to maintain a Senate and states,let’s do it like this. (I like the 13-state plan)
This effort would be better channeled into some form of one-world government. Probably higher chance of success and probably better aligned with the logic being presented.
Would it make more sense, rather than abolish one house of the legislature, to add in a new one?
Make it more of a direct democracy, at large across the nation, one adult citizen, one vote. Set up a proxy system so that you can represent multiple voters who agree with your views, and if you have enough proxies, you get an office at the Capitol. Proxies can be withdrawn at any time for any reason, and all voters would be aware of how their proxy is going to vote before that vote is cast.
Give the new branch the power to vote on any bill that is passed by either original branch, where two branches passing it sends it to the president’s desk, and allow it to vote to force other branches to bring a bill or nominee to a vote. Don’t give it the power to tax or originate bills.
It would prevent some of the pitfalls of direct democracy, but still help to make sure that the population is heard.
It would take the same effort as any other structural changes to the govt, but seems a fairer compromise that could, IMHO, get more support than making changes to the senate as is.
I don’t know how, or how well, or whether, something like this would work; but your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Actually, in 1790, half the population of the US lived in only 4 states (out of 13): Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. So, with respect, the Founding Fathers were very aware of the possibility of a limited number of states having a significant majority of the population. That’s precisely why they created the Senate the way they did.
And, of course, the fact that only 9 states have half the population is exactly why many people oppose the notion of a popularly elected president; as long as urban areas have relative similarity in political viewpoint on significant issues, people who live in more rural areas will always view the potential that the urban populations will be able to dominate politics with severe skepticism.
Well, that concept was rejected. It’s obvious that several of these sort of proposals are primarily motivated by partisan concerns and not the idea that every person on the planet deserves an equal say. That’s why some boundaries matter. That’s why some history matters.
True unconstrained democracy? No one here wants that.
Hey! Don’t cloud a good debate with historical context. 
You’re right - silly of me to consider that possibility.
Forgot about those! Given that it would be a challenge for even the present Court to fail to acknowledge those precedents as controlling, I yield the point and stand corrected. 