That's +4 Dem Senators

we should also add the virgin islands,Guam,American Somoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. That is potentially as many as +12 Democratic Senators. A procedural move like that would end the repuke party as we know it. There are no inhabited U.S. territories where the demographics are made up of old white people not counting tourist. And if anyone suggest the population of any of these is to small for statehood the population of Alaska was only about 50,000 when it was admitted to the Union.

If Martinique and Tahiti can vote. Why not American Samoa and Puerto Rico?

The idea being that it put the small and big states on a level playing field and that the Senate represented the state governments - not the direct will of the people.

The only way to re level the playing field at this point is to break big states into smaller ones, and then force some less populous states to merge.

Worst offenders are Vermont and Wyoming. DC has a larger population than either.

PR & the USVI should be admitted as a state. DC citizens should be given a voting house district and vote for Maryland Senators; Guam should be given a voting rep and be allowed to vote for Hawaii Senators.

it would even out the electoral college playing field in terms of race a little. The States with the lowest population also tend to have the lowest number of minorities,but in the territories the reverse is true.

Article IV, Section 3, Part 1:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

We cannot make a state within a state. (Can't let NYC become it's own state, or some such other.)

We can't make the Dakotas or Carolinas become a single state.

We can't take northwest Indiana and merge it with Northeast IL.

But, how would those territories fall under this definition? American Samoa is not part of another state, is not geographically within the jurisdiction of an existing state, and it wouldn't be merged into (for instance) Hawaii.

So, that's just Congress, right?

"The only way to re level the playing field at this point is to break big states into smaller ones, and then force some less populous states to merge."

I misaligned the thread i guess. I thought it was just in reference to turning the territories into states. I got confused as to whom your reply was directed.

My fault.

The city is at the edge of the state, so theoretically you could. Problem is, splitting New York into city and state would increase the Republican population in the senate.

Our biggest problem is the Framers didn’t anticipate how big this country would get. As it currently stands, more people live in the Seattle area than lived in the whole US the day the Constitution took effect.

In fact, the way I read that cite, they couldn't just form their own state
And I concur; same thing would happen here in Illinois

This most certainly can happen, as it has already happened twice in our county's history.

In 1820, part of Massachusetts became the state of Maine.
In 1863, part of Virginia became the state of West Virginia.

Of course, you need the consent of the state involved and Congress, but it can be done.

and California has 53. So...................

We need to increase the size of the HOR and set a hard upper limit on the number of people in a district.

At very least, electoral votes should be by population (1 EV per X number of people) to ensure that in national elections, populous states get the representation they warrant.

and Wyoming gets three. Which is why, in a normal, non-Trumpian, year, no presidential candidate ever visits Wyoming. No presidential candidate cares about Wyoming or any of Wyoming's local issues.

But fundraisers and rallies and speeches and whatnot happen all over California. Californian issues are hot button issues in speeches and debates. Being a small state is the pits! (I'm not from Wyoming, but West Virginia with its five electoral votes is also ignored, at least, in a non-Trumpian world.)

it sucks that usually no presidential candidates campaign in my state.

But I do love the wide open spaces.

The House is close to equally divided based upon population. So a person in Wyo is equally represented in the House. They have the same number of Senators as I do as a Californian. Is that fair?

If the lower house is equal representation, yet those 500k get two Senators, while I get the same two Senator allocation with a population of 40 million. How in any equation is that fair or equitable? Then add to the fact that Californians pay more in federal taxes than received. So I pay more than an equitable share of taxes, yet get less representation in DC. Ponder those numbers, your WYO residents are 80 times more represented that a Californian AND there are a shitload of states that are subsidized by CA tax dollars.

are divided in the Congress, so it may seem the Senate is more powerful but I don't think so. The real issue, I think, with our system is figuring out the Electoral College.

In this system, only House members would translate into electoral votes...Wyoming would get one EV, not three. (It would be 218 to win.)

It's not the Union of CaliforniaTexasNewYorkFlorida Said So.

Minority rights - Yes!

But it should not be a Union of <bunch-of-smaller-states-with-less population-than-CaliforniaTexasNewYorkFlorida> Said So.

I don't think the writers of the constitution ever thought we would have such a difference in population among states. Also, they didn't anticipate the country ever being as big as it is.

How can you be a united states if states have such a difference in recognized rights and laws?

When the Constitution was written, the states were about as separate as you can get. Sure, the name was "United States of America", but the states couldnt have been further divided if you tried. Which, years later would cause a civil war.

The Constitution, is the only thing keeping this country together right now. This is the only thing that is keeping Herr Strümpf, and his Minister of Propaganda Frau Huckabee from having their victory parade.

It's a weird paradox of dancing on razors though. Sure, we can have a Constitutional Convention and change things up to make things the way that you would think is better. However, once that door is open (Constitutional Convention) ANYTHING can be changed, including an abolishment of the 13th Ammendment, the 1st Ammendment, etc. etc.

And it will get used if there are any detrimental changes made to the Constitution.

It’s a dump. Truckstops, trona mines, snowdrifts, high winds, and Mormons do not a civilized environment make.

Fun fact: Cheney is a distant cousin of Obama.

Cheney is also a distant cousin of John Waters (director of 'Hairspray').

I only know this because the same person is also one of my ancestors; a French Huguenot named Mareen Duvall who came to Maryland in the 1600's. (His other descendants include Robert Duvall, Supreme Court justice Gabriel Duvall, and the Duchess of Windsor.)

(You know that joke about Kevin Bacon?)

The Duchess of Windsor...now that's some company you share in your lineage.

Wyoming has more wildlife than human there. It's a total bore and 100% flyover state. Only thing useful is Yellowstone Park. Maybe Cheyenne, but that's about it. It's either bare or abandoned with too many shit that companies leave rusting

The Senate was created to represent the states, not the people. Each state was considered individually and equally so they have the same representation in the Senate.

That is why the people originally only voted for their Representatives. State legislatures chose Senators.

Making the Senate representative and proportional to a state's population is changing the very foundation and purpose of the Senate.

You are indicating the Constitution is a suicide pact.Are you suggesting we throw out the Constitution? What shall we replace it with?

The United States was created by the 13 states, not by the people. Each state voted to join, not the people.

By joining the Constitution the states gave up some of their power. They made very sure that enough power was kept within their power that the United States would remain a union of the states.

Senators were chosen by the state legislatures so the central government could not be able to take power from the states. The Tenth Amendment made the federal powers limited and listed while the states retained all other powers. The president was chosen by electors who were chosen by the state legislatures, not the people.

All these protections for the states have gradually been eliminated so we might as well go all the way and say the United States is no longer a union of the states. We really don't even need states any more honestly.

Before the Civil War the only interaction a person ever had with the federal government was the mailman.

Now with income taxes, social security, unemployment, food stamps. medicaid etc, there really isn't much interaction with states anymore.

I know it seems impossible, but:

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.
JFK

... to represent the will of the State legislature.

more people in my California county voted for someone other than Trump* for president than live in Wyoming. And we're not the most populous county, either.

Source: Santa Clara country registrar of voters web site

but there is a fundamental inequality in the allocation of congressional districts. On average one congressional district represents about 750,000 people in California whereas the one district in Wyoming represents only 580,000 and the ratio gets worse with districts with higher population density. This correlates across to the electoral college and its allocation of electors. At the root of all this is control over how the census is conducted, control over who draws the districts, control over how elections are conducted, and control over the judiciary to stifle the inevitable fallout from disenfranchising the electorate.

Republicans are keenly aware of this. There's already been a "huge demographic change in America." They've been artificially propping up their voting bloc that don't have anything close to a majority for years. When hurricane Katrina happened the first thing the average American thought was how can I help, but I can assure you the first thing Republicans in power thought was how can we prevent or mitigate the inevitable migration of a mostly black population into surrounding "red" states which could upset their voting hold?

If we want to be more effective we should fight fire with fire: Change the regional demographics. The advantage is on our side. After all they've set it up so low population areas have a higher degree of representation. That makes it easy to change things with the rapid influx of a new population. Imagine if a fraction of money spent in an election cycle was used to erect a university in Wyoming or if a tech company built a campus and imported 50,000 people from another state overnight. Big change. No constitutional amendment required.

that is particular to the state. At that point, the low population density issue doesn't matter. You could say that for every so many thousands of people, there is one representative, but a minimum of one representative per state. The number of people becomes irrelevant at some point. Just because there are smaller families living in one apt complex doesn't make that complex's concerns over its neighborhood any less important than one that has larger families. At some point, each apt complex gets a vote in issues concerning the neighborhood. Each state has particular concerns. Each state deserves to have a representative that comes from its own state.

The House of Representatives is supposed to represent the people of the state such that the combined body in the House proportionally represents the entire population of the country. The Senate is supposed to amplify the sovereign interests that are unique to each state (i.e. the apartment complex with the smaller number of tenants).

You can argue that there should be a minimum of one representative per state for the House -- I never claimed that there shouldn't be, but higher population states should always be allocated more districts to offset over representation by the lower population state. You can take this to the extreme. Say, for example, a state had a population of one. Well then this becomes essentially the unit of representative currency. To keep the House proportionally representative states with a population of millions would be assigned millions of districts. Our country is a republic and not a direct democracy, but if such extremes existed between states then you are essentially adjusting the precision of representation closer to a pure democracy or one-for-one representation.

The US average, based on the last census, is around 711,000, but there's a lot of variance.

They disproportionately impact higher population density areas in a negative way. If our government were to adopt a method like the Wyoming Rule then Montana would pick up a district, but a state like California would pick up upwards of 20. The geography and bordering of the state is, of course, irrelevant and this is where problem is laid bare: Gerrymandering aside, the installation of additional districts would happen within dense population areas, i.e. cities, and thus, statistically would trend more Democratic which would fundamentally change the political composition of the House.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/5/1778149/-Implementing-the-Wyoming-Rule

The problem lies with gerrymandering in the House. What they have done is unAmerican

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This and the two party system and the incredibly horrible electoral system.


As they say, the US Senate is the place Democracy goes to die.

Twenty states or more have a smaller population altogether than California. 40 Senators to 2 Senators. That's why Republicans love the constitution.

Yeah yeah sure it affects Texas and Florida too - but we all know what it really means. And it seems to be getting worse all the time and matters more in every election. It may have managed to destroy the country in the last election. We now have an oligarchy.

And it can't be changed.

Yes. We're screwed.

to vote for our nominee. Giving away your power to the GOP by advocating for third parties is why the GOP has succeeded in consolidating their power.

People in big states should be screaming about it 24/7 like the conservatives complain about "media bias".

Am I missing something?

Democrats controlled the Senate from 2006-2014 despite the constraints of the Constitution. They can do so again.

The original intent was for Senators to represent the states and not the people, but what does that really mean? States are nothing without people. States are arbitrary creations of people. My Senators, Harris and Feinstein, are no more representing the state of California (whatever that might mean) than are the various Representatives of California.

What we have is a tyranny of the minority system. The fact that Democrats have been and can again be the majority in the US Senate doesn't change that.

Again, feel free to vent if it makes you feel better, but Senate allocation was designed to help get small States to pass the original Constitution. Nobody on the political spectrum (even Bernie Sanders) has ever advocated a radical restructuring of the Legislative branch. It won't happen and we have to focus on the political system we have, not a fantasy one we can't change to.

nb - while you grumble about small States, consider that while "they" have Wyoming and South Dakota, "we" have Rhode Island and Delaware.

...and are likely to win in AZ this year. these aren't default Republican senate seats if we run good candidates appropriate to the electorate.

is hooked to old traditional practices when the colonies were growing.

...it's much easier for Republicans to effectively gerrymander districts due to concentration of Democratic voters, particularly persons of color. We desperately need an impartial system (consisting of either a group of people or a computer) for drawing district boundaries.

And there should probably be many more districts than there are at present. 750,000 people is too many for a single Representative.

As for the idea that Senators represent states and not people, what does that really even mean? In reality, our Senators are no more representing states than our Representatives are. They're all representing people, at least in theory (obviously we can have a whole other discussion about how Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Banks - and so on - are getting the bulk of the 'representation').

Our system is heavily slanted in favor of Republicans and rural areas.

We recruit 300,000 liberals each from CA and NY to move to Wyoming, and the problem is solved.

And when the police came, he told them to "come back tomorrow." (Needed time to sober up.)

Has everyone forgotten this incident? Does anyone really want to live in a state with Dick Cheney?

Wyoming is beautiful. Their politics are ugly.

And Dick Cheney is a disease.

Who would want to be in the same state with him?

A system that majority of people, who reside in big as well as small states, are content with. I have yet to see a single poll that suggests a majority of people, regardless of where they may live, support changing the Senate so that the more populous states have greater representation in that body.

“This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. . . . If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be.”—NPR

An explosive exposé of the right’s relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize public education, stop action on climate change, and alter the Constitution.

Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.

In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.

Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan’s work in teaching others how to divide America into “makers” and “takers.” And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multi-armed machine to carry out Buchanan’s strategy.

Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as Vice President, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on ten years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of twentieth-century American self-government.

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indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

Its my understanding that replies to archived threads do not cause kicking.

the Senate.

Since 1986 (the Democrats have won control of the Senate 8 times, the Republican have won control 7 times and there was a 50/50 split one time.

Today, 19 states have two Republican senators, 18 states have two Democratic senators (or one Democrat and an independent that caucuses with the Democrats) and 13 states have one of each.


Not sure if that's the explanation you're looking for.

devised as a way to temper bad or hot headed policy from the House. The House represents the population of states based on population. It is a good system geared toward heading off mob rule. A one party state headed by an insane ignoramus as we have now throws a wrench in it. What would fix it is voters changing representation and parties fronting good candidates. Vote in people who protect our voting rights.

Many of the abuses you point to in your list re controlled at state and local levels. Get involved at that level.