If any representative body in the USA is unrepresentatively apportioned it is the US Senate.
Insignificant states with less population than a respectably sized city are given as much voice as are the largest and most populous states in the USA.
In the UK, situations like this were known as “rotten boroughs”. Has the US Senate become the last bastion of rotten boroughs?
Dogface, it’s a bit of a stretch to call senatorial constituencies, rotten boroughs, which were far more egregious.
As this educational link explains, most rotten boroughs “were under the control of one man, the patron. Rotten boroughs had very few voters. For example, Dunwich in Suffolk, as a result of coastal erosion, had almost fallen into the sea and by 1831 only had thirty-two people had the vote. Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, only had three houses and a population of fifteen people. With just a few individuals with the vote and no secret ballot, it was easy for candidates to buy their way to victory.”
That said, I do agree that the in the current divided climate of our country, both the senate and the electoral college have become problematic. The apportioning of homeland security funding, which stints large at-risk cities such as NY, is absurd.
Hah.
The last I looked, God did not send an archangel down from Heaven with “one man, one vote” inscribed on tablets of stone.
The United States Senate is unrepresentatively apportioned for the very good reason that it was never intended to be representatively apportioned. It represents the equality of the states, at least in theory.
Under our system of law, 13 free and independent states surrendered to a new government which they together formed a portion of their sovereignty, so that the new national government would be supreme in the specific areas in which it had authority by that cession. The residual sovereignty which they did not cede to that national government inheres in them.
And in token of this, each state is entitled to equal representation in the Senate.
If it bothers you that this is so, you are free to seek two constitutional amendments, one deleting the final clause of Article V of the Constitution – since 1809, the only provision of the Constitution not subject to amendment – and one calling for apportioning of the Senate on the basis of population.
Alternatively, you might have those “respectably sized cit[ies]” seek independent statehood.
There is one additional thought to bring to mind in this: the will of the majority, under our system of government, does not always hold. Until and unless an overwhelming majority of the citizens believes that something is sufficiently wrong that the Constitution need be amended to correct it, the rights of individuals are protected by law from majority actions that would supersede them.
Analogous to this, the powers of small-population areas, like Delaware and Wyoming, are protected from incursion by the Federal government in part by the fact that they are equally represented in the Senate. One need only read any of the gun control threads to pick up on the idea that the majority of citizens, living in urban areas, are largely clueless as to the situation faced by people living 30 miles from the nearest law enforcement agency. Likewise, the majority of people in, say, California, are clueless as to the needs of farmers in the Great Plains, and the latter likewise regarding problems in questions of water rights in the Southwest. The policy of equal representation in the Senate serves to counteract this sort of ignorance.
Poly:
Well put! Not much I could add to that.
Just out of curiosity, though, would you be comfortable using the same arguments to defend the Electoral College? I don’t recall your position on this in the various EC threads, but I was surprised at how many folks who were eager to dump the EC had no problems with the Senate as it currenlty exists. (Not trying to resurrect an EC debate, just curious.)
They aren’t analogous except in the fact that the distribution of electors parallels that of combined congressmen and senators, John. The Senate consists of legislators interested (because they want to be reelected, if for no other reason) in expressing the views of the majority in their respective states. The electoral college doesn’t work – it never meets, even the ceremonial in-state polling of electors from a given state’s constituency is a formality – and it really does not function well as a means of providing any special privilege or protection to small states. (And yes, I’ve read the statistics argument on what the odds are of one vote having a sway value under both electoral and direct popular systems.) The Senate, contrariwise, does do its job. Even dear old Jesse Helms, who got lambasted here for his Paleolithic views regularly, took care to try to carry out the will of the majority of North Carolinians as he knew it both in his use of Senatorial influence and in his activities in Senate committees and on the floor.