OK, REAL simple, since you didn’t bother to LEARN about your own damned government:
Representatives are appointed by numbers in each state in the US.
Senators are appointed in pairs for each state.
It was a compromise between the lower population states and majority population states when we became a nation, as the minority colonies would NOT sign onto the constitution if THEY didn’t get representation, the majority in terms of populace states refused to accept dominance by small states, so we have BOTH in congress.
BOTH houses had to have a majority to pass a bill to the president. Lacking a majority of either house meant and still means, said law never comes into being.
On a practical example, Alaska isn’t very endowed with a large populace, hence its interests wouldn’t be reflected in the House of Representatives. But, would be equal to ANY other state in the Senate.
There are many books written upon this subject. I humbly suggest the inquisitive seek those books, as quite a few are open source today.
Moderator Note
Wizard One, this kind of snark is inappropriate here. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
None of this is actually relevant to the OP. The historical background doesn’t have much to do with how things work in practice. If you’re going to be snarky, at least post something that relates to the question in hand.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I was having dinner with a program director from DARPA. He’d had a few drinks when he said “Congressmen think they’re hot shit; they’re nothing. Senators, they are who has the power”.
My brother was getting the royal runaround on his disability application. Seems Social Secuity thought that an AK amputation of the leg and metastatic terminal cancer weren’t permanently disabling.
We contacted the office of Senator Fred Thompson and provided verification of the medical situation to his staff. They expressed their concern to the Social Secuity Administration and suddenly the claim denials were reversed.
Note that the OP states he is from Canada and is asking for information about a government he does not live under.
When I was in the military, one of my friends was a “prior service” member (i.e. he had served in another branch of the service). He claimed that he was not given the rate (rank is for officers) he was promised as inducement for enlisting. After a few months of getting nowhere, using the proper “chain of command” steps, he went to his U.S. Senator. Since he was from Ohio, that was John
Glenn…Marine Corp Korean War hero, first American in orbit… John Glenn. That got results. He didn’t get quite what he was promised but enough to make happy.
In civilian life later, the company I worked for and others , kept trying to get New York state to install a traffic light at the intersection where we were located. New York replied it wasn’t busy enough to justify a traffic light and people needing to turn left just just guess when trying to cross
a busy highway with two lanes and no center island, just a steel barrier. So we went to our Senator Pothole, Alphonse D’Amato. The Phonz, as he was known, sent us a letter a mere week before election day (he was up for reelection) saying he had gotten through to the proper people and a traffic light would be installed in six months. He won re elction and lo and behold, he came through on his word. A traffic light was installed six months later like he said.
So I believe Senators do have a lot of power.
US Senator. A state senator would have no connection whatever with any Federal office, like the State Dept. office I had to go to.
I learned about the power of US senators when I was very young. A US senator wrote a bill for me that allowed me to re-enter the US and receive my citizenship when I was only 7-8 years old. That was because my dad wrote to him and got his cooperation.
I was born in the Free Territory of Trieste, a city East of Venice, Italy. After World War II, the city was contested by both Italy and Yugoslavia. It was occupied by US and UK troops pending a plebiscite (popular vote) that would determine which country the city would join.
My mother was an Italian citizen who met and married an American GI who was in Trieste as part of TRUST (Trieste United States Troops).
In 1953, my parents and I left for the United States. About the same time, Trieste voted to become a part of Italy.
In 1954, my parents filed papers to have my mother and me become permanent US residents. My mother’s application was accepted. Mine was not, because the US Immigration authorities determined that I was a “stateless person” since the place I was born in (The Free Territory of Trieste) no longer existed. Despite the desperate appeals of my parents, who were permitted to remain in the USA, at the age of 6 I was declared by the United States to be “Persona Non Grata” and ordered deported (by myself) to Italy, where I would doubtless be placed in an orphanage.
Needless to say, this was unacceptable to my parents. My father finally determined that a position was available for him at a US Army post in Italy, if he submitted to a voluntary reduction in rank from Sergeant First Class to Sergeant, a step backwards in his career. To preserve his family, he did so and the three of us returned to Italy.
My father’s military career never recovered from this setback, however his subsequent efforts to enlist the assistance of US Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri did eventually result in the latter’s passing a bill in the US Senate by which I was declared a “war orphan” and permitted to return to the US and reside there permanently on that basis. It is an irony of political necessity that I was neither born during the war, nor was I an orphan, but one cannot look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.
That’s what I thought, too, but you wrote “my favorite state senator.”
Yep, you are right, I probably should have written “my favorite senator from my state.” In any event, it was the US senator of course.
Called “Exterminate! The Lyndon B Johnson Story”. It’s a myth that the classic version of Johnson couldn’t use stairs - here’s photographic proof that he could.
Sorry. I’m sure American readers are tired of jokes about Robert Dallek’s name. I’ve never heard of him before. And, yes, logically it doesn’t follow that Lyndon B Johnson himself would be a Dalek just because his biographer is. But you have to admit that Franklin D Roosevelt had a bit of Davros about him, what with the wheelchair and there the similarities cease.
Unless of course Robert Dallek was so brainwashed by Dalek propaganda that he could only view the life of Lyndon Johnson through their perverted prism. And you have to wonder why a Dalek sympathiser would write a biography of Johnson. To pervert his memory? As a source of funds?
“Their Perverted Prism” would be a superb name for a really moody early-80s quasi-goth New Wave band, along the lines of Bauhaus or Section 25, in my opinion.
The distinction between “rate” and “rank” is made only by the U.S. Navy. Even then, failure to conform with the jargon of a particular organization doesn’t make it wrong. U.S. Navy “rates” are basically ranks and there’s no reason not to call them ranks.
Sorry friend, I have no clue as to what you are talking about. What’s a “Dalek” and a “Davros?”
They’re characters from Dr. Who.
I still don’t have a clue what Ashley Pomeroy is saying in post 31.
He is making a series of extremely stupid jokes about Dr. Who because Robert Dallek’s name looks kinda like Dalek.
There has not been a comedic failure of this scale since Sean Young appeared on Letterman.
Daleks are an evil race of pepperpot-shaped alien cyborgs created by the mad scientist Davros in the TV show Doctor Who.
At the risk of appearing extremely obtuse and comedically challenged, who’s Sean Young?
A crazy actress who appeared in such films as Blade Runner, Stripes, and Wall Street. After becoming well known as being a complete whack-a-doodle and ostracized from the movie business, she appeared on Letterman in an attempt to make light of her prior craziness, but just came off as even more crazy than before.
