Abolishing the US Senate?

[lpetrich]

Senators for Kavanaugh Represented 44 Percent of U.S. - The Atlantic

The People v. the U.S. Senate

A number of left-wing thinkers are calling for America to ditch the Senate. Why is the long-shot idea gaining popularity?

Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 50–48, with one senator absent and one abstaining. Only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted with the solidly Republican majority, which represented just 44 percent of the country’s population. Indeed, when Americans last voted for their senators (over a period of six years), Democrats won the popular vote by more than 8 percent. It’s that disproportionality—and the reality that a majority of the country’s population is represented by just 18 senators—that is driving concerns about the Senate’s ability to function as a representative body in a changing America.

The lower-population states are much like "rotten boroughs", low-population Parliamentary districts in 18th and early 19th cy. Britain.

Abolishing the Senate would require amending the Constitution, and it may be hard to get legislatures of smaller states to agree, since they would be sacrificing their outsized power. Also, Article V states "... and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Meaning that it may be hard to make the Senate more proportional, let alone abolish it.

Short of that, one could admit Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states. But the current president has a grudge against the mayor of San Juan, and that may make statehood for PR difficult.

One could also subdivide some of the larger states, like California and Texas, or merge some of the smaller ones.

 

[Derec]

Or make states more equal.

 

[Deepak]

I don't think it's possible because of the peculiar case that this would require unanimity among the states to enact the amendment. And the states can't be reformed without the consent of the constituent state being split or merged. No way Wyoming agrees to anything that would diminish their outsize influence.

 

[untermensche]

The Senate is exactly what the founders intended.

The body that solely serves the interests of the most rich.

 

[lpetrich]

I will consider merging the states, starting with the low-population ones. California, at 40 million people, is about 70 times more populous than Wyoming, at 580 thousand people, and most of Wyoming's neighbors are not much more populous.

I will ignore "overseas United States": Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and concentrate only on the contiguous US. I will include the District of Columbia as a state for completeness.

For less than 1 million people, I merge WY, VT, DC, ND, SD, and DE with their neighbors. I get
SD-WY: 1.4m
NH-VT: 2.0m
DC-MD: 6.7m
MT-ND: 1.8m
DC-DE-MD: 7.7m

So Maryland's cession of its part of DC gets undone, just as Virginia's got undone some decades back. Maryland also annexes Delaware.

Northern New England gets a combined state: NH-VT, and the "Far West" western-plains and mountain states get SD-WY and MT-ND.

Going up to 3 million, SD-WY, NH-VT, MT-ND, RI, ME, ID, WV, NE, NM, KS, MS, and NV all get merged. The states:
ID-SD-WY: 3.2m
ID-MT-ND-SD-WY: 5.0m
CT-RI: 4.6m
ME-NH-VT: 3.3m
KY-WV: 6.3m
KS-NE: 4.8m
NM-OK: 6.0m
MS-AR: 6.0m
NV-UT: 6.1m

So we get a big state in the northern Far West, a state with the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

To the southeast of them, Kansas and Nebraska get merged. To the southwest, Utah and Nevada get merged.

New England is now a sandwich: CT-RI in the south, MA in between, and VT-NH-ME in the north.


I'm still trying to find a good color scheme to represent the mergings. When I do so, I will try to make a video of the state mergings and upload it.

 

[Trausti]

If only the founders had made representation in one the chambers of Congress based on population rather than the states. Why didn't they do that?

 

[Politesse]

Or make states more equal.

I am trying to imagine telling all the racist fuckers in Gallup that they now belong to the state of "Shiprock". The look on their collective faces... priceless. Actually lots of Native names on that map. I approve! Can we keep?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Senators for Kavanaugh Represented 44 Percent of U.S. - The Atlantic

The People v. the U.S. Senate

A number of left-wing thinkers are calling for America to ditch the Senate. Why is the long-shot idea gaining popularity?

Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 50–48, with one senator absent and one abstaining. Only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted with the solidly Republican majority, which represented just 44 percent of the country’s population. Indeed, when Americans last voted for their senators (over a period of six years), Democrats won the popular vote by more than 8 percent. It’s that disproportionality—and the reality that a majority of the country’s population is represented by just 18 senators—that is driving concerns about the Senate’s ability to function as a representative body in a changing America.

The lower-population states are much like "rotten boroughs", low-population Parliamentary districts in 18th and early 19th cy. Britain.

Abolishing the Senate would require amending the Constitution, and it may be hard to get legislatures of smaller states to agree, since they would be sacrificing their outsized power. Also, Article V states "... and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Meaning that it may be hard to make the Senate more proportional, let alone abolish it.

Short of that, one could admit Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states. But the current president has a grudge against the mayor of San Juan, and that may make statehood for PR difficult.

One could also subdivide some of the larger states, like California and Texas, or merge some of the smaller ones.

The goal of a political system isn't primarily to create fairness. That's nice. But not the primary goal. The primary goal is to make something that works. What works is balance in the system. If you give everybody equal say you'll inevitably create a tyrany of the majority.

The reason why the British rotten boroughs were taken away was to get back balance, after it was lost. USA still has balance. It's a system that works. As democratic constitutions go, USA's is actually quite bad. All 19'th century problems that South America had was largely because they based their constitutions on USA's. But for whatever reason, in USA, it works. It was probably down to an accident in history. Whether a political system is good or bad is usually something we learn way down the road. Often any change in a working system is disaster.

So best bet is to leave it alone.

 

[RVonse]

The Democrats lost the POTUS to Trump so they wanted to eliminate the electoral collage. The electoral college has been part of the system for 200+ years.

Now they got a SC nomination they don't like, so the crybabies are asking to get rid of the senate?

Does anyone see a pattern here?

I say we get rid of the Democratic party! And replace this party with something that actually represents the middle working class.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Senators for Kavanaugh Represented 44 Percent of U.S. - The Atlantic

The People v. the U.S. Senate

A number of left-wing thinkers are calling for America to ditch the Senate. Why is the long-shot idea gaining popularity?

Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 50–48, with one senator absent and one abstaining. Only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted with the solidly Republican majority, which represented just 44 percent of the country’s population. Indeed, when Americans last voted for their senators (over a period of six years), Democrats won the popular vote by more than 8 percent. It’s that disproportionality—and the reality that a majority of the country’s population is represented by just 18 senators—that is driving concerns about the Senate’s ability to function as a representative body in a changing America.

The lower-population states are much like "rotten boroughs", low-population Parliamentary districts in 18th and early 19th cy. Britain.

Abolishing the Senate would require amending the Constitution, and it may be hard to get legislatures of smaller states to agree, since they would be sacrificing their outsized power. Also, Article V states "... and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Meaning that it may be hard to make the Senate more proportional, let alone abolish it.

Short of that, one could admit Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states. But the current president has a grudge against the mayor of San Juan, and that may make statehood for PR difficult.

One could also subdivide some of the larger states, like California and Texas, or merge some of the smaller ones.

Oh fuck no! While that 44% number is below 50%, of which it passed by, it isn't that much lower to require such a radical change.

 

[Elixir]

The Democrats lost the POTUS to Trump so they wanted to eliminate the electoral collage. The electoral college has been part of the system for 200+ years.

Now they got a SC nomination they don't like, so the crybabies are asking to get rid of the senate?

Nah, it's cool having the most ignorant, backward 18% of the population controlling 44% of a house of Congress. No change needed.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Yeah, I see a pattern of Republican pandering to the worst instincts of the stupidest segment of the population in order to maintain total power over every branch of government.

I say we get rid of the Democratic party! And replace this party with something that actually represents the middle working class.

Like, say, The Trump party? Hasn't he made enough money out of being in the White House yet?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Democrats lost the POTUS to Trump so they wanted to eliminate the electoral collage. The electoral college has been part of the system for 200+ years.

This was the second time in 5 elections that the EC disagreed with the popular vote. The EC was put into existence to prevent a Trump Presidency. It absolutely failed its purpose.

Now they got a SC nomination they don't like, so the crybabies are asking to get rid of the senate?

I think the number of people demanding the dissolution of the Senate aren't that high.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Yeah, teh GOP is off the tracks and a few liberals are panicking to figure out how to right the ship.

I say we get rid of the Democratic party! And replace this party with something that actually represents the middle working class.

Funny, because you seem to be defending the anti-worker guy.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I say we get rid of the Democratic party!

I think everybody can come together and support this.

 

[lpetrich]

If only the founders had made representation in one the chambers of Congress based on population rather than the states. Why didn't they do that?

So that's all the population representation that we deserve, right?

 

[laughing dog]

I think reforming or eliminating the Electoral College has a higher probability of becoming reality in the next 30 years than eliminating the Senate. And I think the probability of making the Electoral College accurately reflect the vote (either by reformation or elimination) so that the candidate with the most votes of the citizenry in the next 30 years is less than 2%.

 

[Elixir]

If only the founders had made representation in one the chambers of Congress based on population rather than the states. Why didn't they do that?

So that's all the population representation that we deserve, right?

The question that Trausti should be asking (himself) is "Why did the founders make one of the two houses in one of the three co-equal branches of government susceptible to being co-opted by poor or black people?"
Obviously their intent was to create an enduring representative aristocracy, so that must have been some kind of fuckup.

But no worries - it's just an idle question, since the orange shitgibbon will "fix" it, with the blessing of his Uncle.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think reforming or eliminating the Electoral College has a higher probability of becoming reality in the next 30 years than eliminating the Senate. And I think the probability of making the Electoral College accurately reflect the vote (either by reformation or elimination) so that the candidate with the most votes of the citizenry in the next 30 years is less than 2%.

The EC indeed would be much easier. Abolishing the Senate isn't just getting rid of the Senate. The Senate has specific duties to perform. Treaties, impeachment, rubber stamping Judicial/Cabinet appointments... that would need to be shifted to the House.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If only the founders had made representation in one the chambers of Congress based on population rather than the states. Why didn't they do that?

So that's all the population representation that we deserve, right?

The question that Trausti should be asking (himself) is "Why did the founders make one of the two houses in one of the three co-equal branches of government susceptible to being co-opted by poor or black people?"
Obviously their intent was to create an enduring representative aristocracy, so that must have been some kind of fuckup.

But no worries - it's just an idle question, since the orange shitgibbon will "fix" it, with the blessing of his Uncle.

That is oversimplfying it. Yes, the Senators were NOT elected, but appointed, so it was a tool of keeping the people from mucking it up. However, the underlying reason the Senate exists was to instill an equal share for each state in Government, so that Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts didn't have a near de facto control of the nation's government (26 or 59 House seats).

 

[lpetrich]

The EC indeed would be much easier.

National Popular Vote -- that's a way of getting around the EC. If enough states agree, they will award their EC votes to the winner of the popular vote. It is nearly 2/3 of the way there.

 

[ronburgundy]

The Democrats lost the POTUS to Trump so they wanted to eliminate the electoral collage. The electoral college has been part of the system for 200+ years.

Now they got a SC nomination they don't like, so the crybabies are asking to get rid of the senate?

Does anyone see a pattern here?

I say we get rid of the Democratic party! And replace this party with something that actually represents the middle working class.

The Dems are far more representative of the middle working class than the Republicans. Among households with incomes between $30k and $75k, there are more people who identify as Democrat than as both Republican and Independent combined. In contrast, among wealthier households with incomes above $75k, there are 50% more people who identify as either Republican or Independent than as Democrat.

And both parties would be forced to better represent the interests of the middle working class and other interest of the majority of voters, if the political power of each party was more tied to being supported by the majority of voters, as it would be without the EC, without the Senate, and without gerrymandered districts. So, if you or the GOP actually cared about the interests of the middle working class or in the principles of majority-rule democracy, you wouldn't find these proposals so objectionable, even if simply doing away with the Senate is a step too far and creates problems of its own.