That seems like a good theory that would keep itself in check.
In execution it's an absolute shit show, I'll give you. But I do believe the theory is sound. With the house and the Senate we get the best of both worlds.
In theory.
Because tyranny of the majority is still a thing. Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes. So the house is there as a large power and senate can check it.
Of course, in practice the house is way under represented so its almost like we have a senate and a mini-senate. That's where things fall apart.
I don't see why that would be the case. To win an election you don't need to win states at all; you need to win lots of voters, and those voters could come from anywhere.
You could lose every single voter in both CA and TX and still win the election, given different political demographics across states.
As an aside, I also think abolishing the Electoral College and going strictly by the national popular vote would increase voter turnout for presidential elections. I live in a solidly blue state, and if I didn't care about down-ballot races, I probably wouldn't bother to vote in presidential elections, since my vote doesn't really matter here. Only votes in swing states matter under the current system.
Aka democracy.
> Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes.
No, it wouldn’t. It would switch to appealing to the most voters, who may or may not happen to live in California and Texas, but that is irrelevant to a democracy.
Yes. I hope I don't need to explain the many times that the majority sentiment was in fact not the correct one. A pure democracy under the basis the US was founded under would end up much more conservative than what we have today.
> It would switch to appealing to the most voters.
So it'd switch to appealing to urban cities and ignore the rural areas. Iirc the top 10 cities today make up some 40+% of voters. Why bother going to Omaha when you can focus instead of LA and NYC?
Having 1 chamber that allows equal representation
And
Having 1 chamber that allows proportionate
Is a good system in theory. Otherwise, States (which are again separate entities) with high populations just steamroll those that have low populations.
The system now allows states with high populations to be appropriately represented in the house, which sends bills to the Senate.
I feel like it's a good system, in theory. You get your population representation and checks and balances for rural areas as well.
> Arbitrary or not, States are sovereign things.
In practice that's not really true. The federal government has many, many levers it can use to get states to fall in line.
This is a separate problem that should be fixed.
In theory, but in practice, most states are highly dependent on a few very populous and productive ones, for economic and military protection.
Not to mention that the Feds control the purchasing power of the currency and international trade, so the states aren’t sovereign to do anything of consequence.
Hence in practice, this whole theory of states being sovereign goes out the window.
The Senate is a good system, it's just that most states are Republican.
Some of the larger states might consider splitting themselves into separate states to better represent their populations. Though that may not be constitutionally possible.
If we ever add additional states to the Union (Puerto Rico, D.C., etc.), they'll want to enjoy having an equal say with every other state in the Union. It's a compelling feature of our system.
The House, as a proportional system, actually needs to be re-normalized. There are not enough representatives to have an actually proportional vote.
Additionally, because the population of the country is not evenly distributed across all the states, senators from some states have disproportionate power and control this is frequently mentioned and brought up several times in this post alone. Not sure what aspects make it a good system, some type of beleaguered point about preventing tyranny of the majority? At what cost? tyranny of the minority, political stagnation?
States have sovereignty and rights.
The point is that all states have equal representation.
> Not sure what aspects make it a good system, some type of beleaguered point about preventing tyranny of the majority? At what cost? tyranny of the minority, political stagnation?
Because states are political test tubes and need autonomy.
> Additionally, because the population of the country is not evenly distributed across all the states, senators from some states have disproportionate power and control
In my lifetime, the Senate has been majority Democratic party controlled [1].
If you go back to the second Bush term, it's been 60% Democrat.
The current party makeup is only temporary. Things are constantly in flux.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...
From the point of view of the U.S. legal system, the Confederacy's secession was "absolutely null".
> Chase, however, "recognized that a state could cease to be part of the union 'through revolution, or through consent of the States'".
Secession does not have to be done legally. Who knows what, if any, conflict that might bring about.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States
The founders aren't infallible gods, and they really fucked up here.
The practical consequence of this system is that it effectively prevents a majority of voters from large urban centers from imposing their will onto rural populations, at least at the federal level. It was designed that way.
I've seen comments here claiming that countries like Canada or France deliver better outcomes than the US. They are stronger welfare states, yes, but they also have become overly paternalistic nanny states, with heavy-handed regulations, and high taxes stifling individual initiative.
We absolutely do have minority rule. In both the Senate and the House, the Republican majorities represent a minority of the population.
The fact that both the House and Senate are nearly 50% by party again points to the fact that we have a good balance.
The fact that we have minority rule in the Senate, House, and Supreme Court is exactly why we don't have any checks and balances any more and Trump gets to act like an emperor.
It seems clear that the majority in the 2024 election preferred Republican governance, and so they gained control over President/House/Senate.
Republicans have a majority in the Senate when their senators received a minority of votes, by about 24 million votes.
Update
Here are some rough numbers I found quickly (because your numbers are obvious nonsense):
President
R - 77.3m - 49.8%
D - 75.0m - 48.3%
Others - 2.9m - 1.9%
Senate
D - 55.9m - 49.1%
R - 54.4m - 47.7%
Others - 3.7m - 3.2%
House
R - 74.4m - 49.8%
D - 70.6m - 47.2%
Others - 4.6m - 3.1%
So fewer voters and constituents for a pretty significant majority in senators.
So if 49% of California voted Republican, but both Senators are Democrats, then the entire population they represent should be counted as Democrats.
A flawed argument.
It also completely ignores the entire reason the Senate exists in the first place, to represent the States.
What makes you say that Republican senators represent a minority of the population?
There is no real way to determine the population in each state represented by a party other than votes. The presidential vote tallies (the only truly national vote) are the closest we have to this. Numbers in the Senate are fairly close to the popular vote (not a coincidence).
Obviously I understand that not every person voted in the election (many are not even eligible). It is simply not relevant to this conversation, and is an often trotted out diversion meant to diminish the mandate given by the actual voters.
If you study the U.S. history in detail the you see the reasons and the main ones are quite "logical".
You might not agree with them (I don't necessarily), but that doesn't make them illogical.