The purpose of giving every state two senators is so that the states, as distinct sovereign entities, each have the same representation in the senate. It doesn’t matter how many people live there.
This piece of information seems to be skipped by almost every high school civics class. Senators were never supposed to represent the people, they were supposed to represent the state governments. The whole purpose of Senators having longer terms than the House and being elected by each state's legislature instead of a direct election was to insulate the Senate (and by extension, Congress) from populism.
Repealing the 17th amendment today would probably a bad idea for a number of reasons but the direct-election of the Senate certainly shifted a lot of power away from the state governments and to the GOP/DNC in a way that was never intended by the Founders.
Exactly. It gives, and is meant to give, sparsely populated states an equal voice to the more populous states. The GP was talking in terms of red states versus blue states, and I was here assuming that context.
Can anyone point to any particular references in founders' documents or authoritative historians showing how this was designed as a specific feature and not a side-effect, e.g., of simply trying to treat states equally at a time when they may not have been as dissimilar (e.g., seems that having fewer people in the entire state of WY than in a single borough of NYC is far more imbalanced than the 1780s)?
"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right, that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have a PROPORTIONAL share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an EQUAL share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation. But it is superfluous to try, by the standard of theory, a part of the Constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result, not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.'' A common government, with powers equal to its objects, is called for by the voice, and still more loudly by the political situation, of America. A government founded on principles more consonant to the wishes of the larger States, is not likely to be obtained from the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former, lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and, instead of indulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous consequences which may qualify the sacrifice.
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger. But as the larger States will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser States, and as the faculty and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it is not impossible that this part of the Constitution may be more convenient in practice than it appears to many in contemplation."
20% of citizens controlling 1/3 or 2/3 of the federal government is not a healthy republic, especially when the 20% have views that are so far from average. It's not like they're a representative 20%.
No. Originally, the ratio of Senator to constituents and Representative to constituents was much closer to 1:1 than what we have now.
While there isn't any easy way to fix the imbalance in the Senate (short of adding/splitting states), we can fix the House and Electoral College by simply increasing the size of the House (easy button would be to peg the size of a district to the population of the smallest state).
Ha! Imposing their will?
"The other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally." [1]
The same time the 3/5 compromise and the other parts of the original design of the Constitution designed to preserve unity by assuring slave states that the greater voting population of the free states wouldn't lead to abolition stopped making sense, about 150 years ago.
But the power structure it set up is self perpetuating, so it doesn't matter that it stopped making sense; the people that benefit from it will always protect it and find a way to rationalize it.
There's a perceived culture war by people who live in rural america and your comment projecting it onto the purpose of the Senate is proof of that.
This reminds me of the MCAS system on the 737MAX: the software there worked perfectly, and did exactly what it was designed to do as it flew those two planes straight into the ground with over 300 passengers.
Proximity to your fellow citizens shouldn't lessen your voice, yet here we are.
And anything designed to be that antidemocratic should be recognized as such, and those of us who do care about democracy should be fighting and organizing every day to disband it and replace it with something fair.
It kind of is; the real purpose was to give places that disenfranchised large number of residents who weren't untaxed Indians (that is, slave states) additional voting power in the Senate, House, and Electoral College. Creating a reward for policies so bad they encourage voting citizens to emigrate, while in line with the generally perverse design, was not really the focus.
"Seats" is senate seats per state; "rep" is proportion of total representation; "econ" is proportion of total economic activity.
I picked 150 for the total number of seats to make the rep vs. econ gap narrower, but not so much as to make the poorest 25 completely irrelevant.
state seats rep econ
---------------------------------
California 20 13.3% 14.5%
Texas 12 8.0% 8.7%
New York 11 7.3% 8.2%
Florida 7 4.7% 5.1%
Illinois 6 4.0% 4.2%
PA OH }- 5 6.7% 7.1%
NJ GA WA MA NC }- 4 18.7% 19.5%
VA MI }
MD CO MN TN IN }- 3 10.0% 9.2%
AZ WI MI CT LA }- 2 10.7% 10.7%
OR SC AL }
KY OK IA UT KS }
NV DC AK NE MS }
PR NM HI NH WV }- 1 16.7% 12.5%
ID DE ME RI ND }
AK SD MO WY VT }
island terr. }- 0 0.0% 0.1%
---------------------------------
Total 150The perverse incentive there encourages secession, state-splitting, endless intractable battles over Puerto Rican statehood or DC representation, and engineering politics at the state level to influence interstate migrations based partly on political views on national issues.
I.e. Colorado decriminalizes recreational cannabis, and Alabama recriminalizes abortion. Lefties are incentivized to move from AL to CO, and righties the reverse. Everybody who voted Doug Jones leaves for literally greener pastures, and mall-menace Roy Moore wins the seat.
(Anecdotally, one of my co-workers is moving to Denver, and I have realized I am envious.)
It further incentivizes politically competitive states to do anything for just 0.1% of the vote, because that might just be the margin that gets you all the power, for six whole years, on election day.
I don't think going strictly by population density is the best approach either, though - that's a good way to completely alienate millions of Americans. Remember that the two branches of Congress were setup like this to force urban and rural communities to work together and compromise. The problem now is that tribalism has become so rampant on both sides that compromise no longer really happens.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_co...