It’s worth noting that many federal countries (Germany and Canada to name at least two) also have upper houses in which the representation of each state doesn’t follow strict rep-by-pop rules. The US is quite radical with the idea that every state, regardless of population, should have the exact same number of senators, but the idea that in a federal country the constituent states should keep a fair amount of sovereignty and the political weight to represent themselves in the federal legislature is quite common.
I’d say that the electoral college would be a fairly good idea if it worked as it was supposed to; that is, states send (more or less in proportion to their population) representatives to elect the American president. But the way the American political culture is today, it has the effect that usually the candidate with the most popular support becomes president but sometimes not, which makes the process look somewhat illegitimate.
Actually, Supreme Court justices do recuse themselves from time to time, so there are sometimes an even number considering a case. Both United States v. Nixon and United States v. U.S. District Court, big Watergate-era cases, were decided by just eight justices, when then-Justice Rehnquist sat out because he had previously served in the Nixon Justice Department. But the court has its own rules for tie votes (usually it means the lower court’s decision is left undisturbed, IIRC).
As it happens, in Baker v. Carr and later cases, the Supremes held that state senates cannot follow the example of the Great Compromise (such as, for instance, following county lines alone). All state senates now are based on population, just like all state houses of representatives.
friedo, thank you. That was the biggest laugh I’ve had all day.
Look at the way the Senate is established in Article 1 of the Constitution.
Two Senators for each state
Each serving a term of six years
Apportioned so that 1/3 of the Senate is up for election every two years.
The whole setup is designed so that the Senate has more continuity than the House of Representatives, even more than the President. The six-year term is longer than the President or any representative, the staggered elections means that each state would always have an experienced Senator in office (unless like the House, where a delegation could turn over with every election), and two Senators for each state means that each state would always have a representative in the Senate, even if one died or resigned in mid-term.
Sure, it also meant the Senate could have tie votes, but the Constution also had a tie-breaker in place.
Add to **Joe Frickin Friday’s **point about the Senate serving state governments, and you get an answer that is simple, logical and practical in 1787 terms.
That’s correct. It takes a majority decision by the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s decision. Since an even split isn’t a majority, the lower court decision stands, and the Supreme Court decision has no precedential value; all it means is that the lower court decision stands.
I was under the impression that Congress was based on the English Parliament. Two houses, the House of Commons and The House of Lords.
Senator is a more prestigious position (same as House of Lords). There are only 100 of them, and they hold office for six years. The common folk in the House of Representatives only hold office 2 years. A lot of Senators got their start in the House. They eventually build a political base and win a Senate seat.
What **Gagun **said was that three “seems a bit more proper, since three can’t be split evenly on an issue.” ISTM that such a comment is only relevant when discussing the Senate *as a whole *versus any particular state’s delegation. Who cares whether or not a given state’s vote can be split evenly?
What about those rare cases (such as a dispute between two states) where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction? What’s the tie-breaking rule there?
That’s a great question. It’s never come up that I know of. The court usually appoints an outside expert (“special master”) to look into such cases and advise the court, and then invariably follows his or her advice unanimously or near-unanimously, IIRC.
Good point.
I guess I was thinking more along the lines of how one party tends to take complete control over the senatorial delegation and thought that a third senator might make a more balanced mix more probable.
As usual, I have learned a lot from reading this thread.
The rule in appellate cases, by the way, is that a tie vote affirms the ruling of the lower court from which cert was granted. In the event there’s a tie vote on a suite of cases involving disagreement between circuits, the entire suite is DIGged (dismissed as improvidently granted), with the effect of continuing the disagreement for the nonce. That happens rarely, though – they’ll nail down a narrow principle they can agree on to break the tie before they’ll allow the disagreement to stand.
The authors of the Constitution may not have foreseen how divergent state populations would become. In 1790, the least populous state was Delaware with 59,096 people. The most populous state, Virginia, had 747,610. So the ratio of largest to smallest was less than 13:1. Today (actually 2008) Wyoming has a population of 532,668 and California has a population of 36,756,666; a ratio of over 69:1.
A lot of Senators got their start in the House. They eventually build a political base and win a Senate seat.