seems crazy to me wrt population differences etc.

so the house of rep is more equitably distributed? why not the senate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Compromise

Yep, it is crazy.

Wyoming (Pop:500k) gets the same level of representation in the Senate as California (Pop:30m)? LOLGTFO

Yeah, basically because the Constitution says so, and amending it to change it would be impossible absent some civil-war like upheaval.

It's a solid check imo... makes it harder to do just about anything, and gridlock is goot.

Do they not have school where you are from?

he's not american dood.

funnily enough the great compromise and virginia plan were not taught to me IN ENGLAND at any point from ages 5-16. clearly the UK curriculum needs to be changed NOW!

also i had googled before and didn't find this so gave up after like 10 mins.

ty to ike.

still seems like a bull**** compromise imo. it's like anti-democratic? surely by structuring the house as it is, they have tacitly admitted that states with more people should get more seats. to not implement this in the senate seems nuts.

On the contrary, that is the beauty of the system. Though now completely corrupted, the Senate was designed to keep the populous states from running roughshod over the small states. There is no way the Constitution would have been ratified without this compromise. The system functioned well for a long time, it started going downhill when senators were elected directly by the people rather than state legislatures. This allows senators to pander to corporations, unions, etc in exchange for the buckets of cash that ensure their reelection. They can also essentially ignore their constituents, except for election years (example: John McCain suddenly discovering he is a "conservative" every 6 years). If they answered to the state legislatures the interests of the citizens of that state would be much better served IMO.

ya but surely it's crazy for some backwards state with not many ppl to be able to block the efforts/will of many people in another state?

why shouldn't the big states run roughshod? if they did, how would things be worse now? obv the senate would need many more seats to do it fairly. shame it wont happen

having the state legislature pick em might be better. but they should still get more in bigger states. would this be to the dems advantage?

Wasn't this problem pretty prevalent in the pre-17th amendment days, except it was state legislatures that were corrupt? In other words, the 150 members of the NY Assembly are much more corruptible than the 20,000,000 New Yorkers.


They can't. If the whole of New York wants to pass legislation, they are free to do so amongst their own people, in their state. The only way the "redneck backwards state" is able to block the efforts of the people in another state, is if those people in another state want to do something which affects those in the 'redneck backwards state'.

I think that's debatable. It would decentralize some of the power, which is good. Also, a few hundred state legislators are less likely to have the short memories of a few million voters. In other words, if you screw them they will get rid of your ass. I suppose it's all academic. Almost no one in Congress (or the President, or the SC) allows the Constitution to stop them from doing what they want, so it doesn't really matter who elects the Senators.

Would you apply the same philosophy to the United Nations?

Should nations in the U.N. get more votes if they have a greater population? Or, should each nation get just one vote?

How does it work in the E.U.?

So if you start a club with 5 6'5" 250lb Ultimate Fighters and they decide they are going to start kicking your ass every day just because they can it's cool with you? What if you decide you're not too keen on this arrangement?

Buy an assault rifle, imo.

If you mean the EU parliament each country gets seats according to the size of the population.

Well, the House of Representatives is designed to give representation by population, so it's not as if higher population states aren't represented.

It's a cool compromise and makes the senate and house different, which is a good thing.

I hate my state legislature, which simply has two state assembly districts for every state senate district. Dumb.

Cool analogy, bro.

We were talking about passing legislation, and you bring up this absurd example of pro-fighters deciding to assault you regularly?

One is illegal and clearly a violation of an individual's rights, and the other is representation based upon population.

And if by 'run roughshot' you mean have more votes/power in the senate than the smaller states, then yes, more populous states should have that.

then why even have states STA

LOL U SRS?
To handle government matters that the federal government doesn't. (state laws, handle public education)

Aren't Ron Paul types frequently raving about how state government handling a matter >> federal government handling it?

Did you really just inquire what the point of having states would be if every state didn't receive equal representation regardless of population size?

You could have generic "administrative districts" without having States like we have now.

Kind of defeats the who point of being a federal Republic. But a unitary state model "works" for countries like France FWIW. Can't see it happening here any time soon though.

Can you still call them "states"?

Equal representation by state in the Senate is actually the only facet of our government that cannot be changed by constitutional amendment. If we wanted to change this, we would essentially have to dissolve the entire constitution, or create some weird work-around like a series of amendments removing all of the Senate's powers and reinstating them in some new institution.