Couldn’t it also work by guaranteeing each state X seats and then the rest Y seats are set according to census data on population?
For example a single house with 100 reserved seats, and on top of that one seat per 500k citizens?
1. A majority vote by the house whose members are allocated by population and therefore (ostensibly) represent the general population
2. A majority vote by the senate whose members are allocated by state and therefore (ostensibly) represent the will or needs of the states themselves.
As an example of why that distinction is relevant, consider Rhode Island. With a population of 1.1 million people, 100 reserved seats plus one seat per 500k would give Rhode Island 4 votes. Meanwhile, California's population of 38.9 million would give it 70 votes. That prohibits effectively representing Rhode Island as a state in any meaningful way.
As it is now, vote-by-population could allow a small number of states with the majority of population to out-vote the entire rest of the country, passing a law that states that all healthcare should be made free and the states have to pay for it themselves. Large states with strong economies and large tax bases might be in favor of that, but smaller and less populous states with weaker economies would go bankrupt.
Thus comes the senate, where a majority of states can decide that the law is inappropriate or against their interests and vote against it.
The distinction I think that most people from outside of the US probably don't fully understand is that, unlike in a lot of countries, each state is its own economy, government, politics, etc. rather than one sort of unified government that covers the whole country. Many of them see the federal government as not much more than a necessary evil to help the independent-but-united states coordinate themselves and prosper together. I remember someone once saying that it used to be "The United States are..." and not "The United States is..." and that kind of gives you an idea of the separation.
The best comparison might be the EU, where you could imagine the large, rich countries with large populations wanting to pass a vote that the smaller, poorer countries might chafe against. Imagine an EU resolution that said that all countries must spend at least 70 billion euro on defense; fine for large countries like Germany which already do, but absurd for a smaller country like Malta. The senate exists to prohibit that sort of unfairness in the US federal government.
This is exactly how I see how my country and EU works. I feel like this is something I am intimately familiar with.
> Thus comes the senate, where a majority of states can decide that the law is inappropriate or against their interests and vote against it.
What mechanism causes the senate to be more resilient to those issues than a unified Congress?
The Senate is limited to two seats per state. With the current 50 states, that makes 100 members. So only 51 seats need vote against a bill they feel would harm their states. As the Senate is divided up, a very populous state (California) receives two, just like a very small state (Delaware) receives two, so each is on "equal footing" with the other states. [note that "small" here refers to population, not land area]
If everyone was all mixed together into one bowl, then a populous state like California (52 house seats, plus 2 senators for 54) is 22% of the total votes needed for a simple majority, all by themselves.
For most day-to-day legislation, we can have 59% in favor and still have a deadlocked Senate. The House has no means to bypass/override the Senate.
But, that's probably a whole other topic and way in the weeds.
And this whole discussion gets further complex when you consider the US uses an antiquated indirect system to elect the President (who in our government is more akin to a Prime Minister in many parliamentary systems than the ceremonial president in those same systems).
In the US, each state gets a number of electors who elect the President. The number is based on the number of Sentators plus the number of House members. So the smallest states are guaranteed 3 electors no matter how out of proportion that count may be.
The consequence of this is in my lifetime, Republicans have won the Presidency twice with a minority of the popular vote (and thrice with a majority)...
2000 - George W Bush won with 47% of the vote to Al Gore's 51%. 2016 - Trump won with 46% to Clinton's 56%.
Reagan, Bush Snr, and Trump (2nd term) won with majorities of the popular vote.
Notably, a Democrat has NEVER won the presidency with LESS than a majority.
For those of who are both residents of moderately sized states, and also lean left on political issues, this certainly feels like a massive structural problem.
Yes. If you call the "X" club the Senate and the "Y" club the House of Representatives, this is exactly how our bicameral legislature works.
edit: Their votes count for passage in their chamber, not equally weighted against eachother. If you mean Y seats equal seats by population but with a minimum X, then that's how the House works. Any proposal to make the senate proportional starts to ask why we're not unicameral because then you basically have 2x house of reps but with different voting district sizes.
This is how my country works.
This inherent difficulty was the intended outcome to try to assure that only bills which had strong support overall from different perspectives and viewpoints would make it through the double gauntlet.
House ----- Impeach Purse Break Electoral Tie for President
Senate ----- Try the impeachment Break Electoral Tie for Vice President Ratify treaties Confirm executive appointments
One group of limited seats, with equal seats per state (the Senate). This is the "guarantee of at least X seats" to each state part.
A second group with the number of seats determined directly by population (the House). This is "the rest set ... according to census data on population".
One big change along the way was an amendment that capped the size of the House at 435 members to avoid it growing ever larger as the population expanded. Now the 435 are allocated to the states based on population.
Thankfully, the Permanent Apportionment Act is not actually a constitutional amendment and could be corrected with the passing of legislation rather than needing to go through a full amendment process.
The big issue is that our House of Representatives stopped being proportional to the population some 90 years ago. I believe analysts suggested that a House today would have over 1000 members, as to the 435 seats today. So that only increases representation of smaller states.
Amazingly some guys thought it up hundreds of years ago. Is your issue that it is bicameral? If so what advantage would one house have?
This is repeated all over this thread, but it is just no longer actually true.
The Permanent Apportionment Act means that it is only partially tied to census data. The low cap and guaranteed seats mean that low population states have more power per capita in the house to a significant degree.