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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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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.