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Even if we got rid of it, the senate is still non representative with small states wielding more power, and the house isn't proportional because the seats are capped.
So much is fucked.
I agree. It’s fucked that a citizen in Wyoming has a vote weighted much more heavily than a citizen in California or New York.
However, as far as the Presidential race is concerned we have been screwed at least twice (Georgia G.W. Bush 2000, Trump 2016) by the electoral college usurping the mandate from the masses.
Gotta start somewhere. Out with the electoral college, we are not commuting by horseback any longer.
Is there some reference specifically to the electoral college and horses, or was this just about the passage of time?
Half of me thinks there was something very specific about horses and the college after you wrote that lol.
One of the arguments for the electoral college was that news travels by horseback and a new development needed a representative at Washington to accout for it.
These representatives (electors) must therefore be able to vote differently that how they were asked to if they deem the situation requires it. Say it's uncovered that one candidate was plotting treason, or has a heart attack.
Because we can communicate instantaneously now, electors are not needed to vote for people or states anymore; a direct vote is easily accomplished.
The unfair allocation of those votes is a different aspect of the Electoral College, but also a reason to be rid of it.
Ah thanks, I knew about this part "tne candidate was plotting treason, or has a heart attack." but didn't know the back story on that.
I sure wish electors would vote differently if a candidate was plotting treason.
That's how the Senate is designed and intended. That's not the issue. The capped House functions as a second Senate because it no longer represents population correctly, because of that cap imposed in the 1920s.
Its intended, but it's still a problem. It gives disproportionate power to smaller states and it gets worse as certain areas grow and other don't.
Wyoming with a population of 581k in 2022 wields as much power in the senate as California with 39 million.
And if you control either the house or senate, you can pretty much stall almost anything.
THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE SENATE. It is the reason Congress is separated in two the way it is.
In the Senate, every State is equal, regardless of physical size or population. A foundational pillar of our Union has always been State equality. The Senate is working EXACTLY as designed, it is there specifically to prevent large States from dictating what smaller States have to do. Larger States have their bigger voice heard in the House. The two serve very different purposes.
The real issue is the House needs to actually be proportional again. The cap at 435 means it cannot be properly representative with States like Delaware and California both existing. A representative in Delaware represents a fraction of the number of people as a Rep in California because the cap limits how that apportionment works. Without the artificial cap from the 1920s, and proper apportionment by population again, our House of Representatives would be more like 1,600 members and actually representative of this country instead of being a glorified pseudo Senate.
I really do get that, you don't have to try and explain it again, but it doesn't mean it's serving the country any further, just like the electoral college isn't severing the country or first past the post isn't.
Things change, and it turns out that this system is allowing for the tyranny of minority which is ironically is the opposite of the intended effect of it preventing tyranny of the majority.
I'm not offering a solution, I'm just saying its a problem just like the others. Everything can be reformed if there a problems.
But yes as I said, fixing the house would be a start.
Foundational pillars can be dumb and undemocratic. They were trying to pull together largely independent entities two hundred years ago during a fragile time that really needed unity, not setting out a perfect democratic system. There's a reason we don't just make copies of the American system when we regime change democracies into existence.
So let's win and push for ranked choice.
The Senate was never meant to be proportionate, and that would be perfectly fine if the House was actually proportionate.
Edit: I'm not going to respond individually to the same point(s)... The US is a federation of states. Whether you like it or not, the country was set up this way on purpose. And believe it or not, there was a lot of thought put into it.
There would be zero point to having a bicameral congress where both houses were proportional representation. Why not just have one at that point?
Each state has its own legislative, executive, and judicial branches. They are each microcosms of a nation within the nation. The Governor is akin to the President. State legislatures are the same concept as federal legislatures, and state judiciary is analogous to the federal judiciary. But each state has some leeway in the actual specific ins and outs of how those positions operate. And it can vary slightly state by state. This has its pros and cons, but it was completely intentional.
It makes perfect sense to have a congressional house made up of representatives from each of those states to represent their state's interests in the federal legislature. The interests of a state as a whole do not always align 100% with the will of the people. People are stupid, and often wrong.
Does that make sense? It is one thing if you are advocating to eliminate the concept of states entirely. But as long as we have the federated system that we do, it makes complete sense to have a legislative body made up of two representatives from each of those states.
While that's true, it doesn't make it right. All representation should be proportionate.
see my edit
First of all, not all state legislatures are the same. Nebraska has a unicameral system, and despite the issues with the legislature, it's overall a much better system than a bicameral one. A bicameral state legislature makes even less sense than a federal one. The federal government should be unicameral.
This isn't 1789. We aren't some loosely federated collection of colonies anymore. We are one nation, and no citizen should have greater voting power than another. The interest of a state can be effectively represented by that state's representatives working together towards a common goal.
So you give an example of a state being somewhat independent and doing things differently, and then immediately talk about how we aren't that? The exact thing that you just described?
That in no way makes it perfectly fine. It's an undemocratic kluge when trying to get individual states that were acting as independent entities to sign on. The founders weren't prophetic visionaries handing down the perfect democracy. They were horse trading for practical goals and dealing with the limitations stemming from literal horses being used to carry messages.
There's a reason when we regime-change we don't install clones of our own system.
see my edit
There's no reason to treat the US as a federation of states anymore, at least at the federal level. They're not independent entities and haven't been for a long time. There are certainly more differences in needs and beliefs within California than between North and South Dakota. That doesn't mean states need to be abolished, just that they don't have an independent nature in the federal government that justifies them having an equal say when deciding country-wide matters.
Nothing "makes sense" about giving each state equal representation, no more than expecting that state legislatures should be made up from two representatives from each town. Barely any other democracies work like this and there's nothing unique to the US that demands a different system, it's just the first and has some sacrifices for expediency that should have been ironed out long ago, except the people that the bug empowers value their power over democratic ideals and that power enables them to maintain it.
There's other reasons for bicameral legislatures than giving unequal entities equal power, most of which are seen in the differences between the Senate and the House already. Senators are elected by larger constituencies, meaning they're balancing issues from must larger areas and usually less extreme, they have longer terms giving them some resistance to quick changes in political opinion, and the split means certain tasks can be assigned to the different bodies based on whether it should be quickly reactive to changes or not.
And if the House was as able to block appointees.
Maybe... I would have to think about that more before agreeing. Also note, I made an edit to my comment to clarify my position for the "the senate makes no sense" people.