30 Comments

The Senate should not be under the control of one man. Why do we have 100 Senators , and one man holds all the power. Our government is not working like it is supposed to , and there are no checks and balances. It seems the executive branc , consists of federal courts , the Supreme Court the Senate , the Attorney General ,and the justice Dept. Who's doing the checking and balancing?

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Excellent article! I was taught in civics class that the House representation was based on population, but the Senate representation was equal for each state so that small states would not be under the thumb of large states because they had so little power in the House. At the time the Constitution was written that seemed like a reasonable compromise when forming a federal government from a collection of independent states. I suspect many rural states today would say that it is still important, but clearly the Senate is primarily functioning as a tool for the wealthy to hold onto power which I see as a much bigger problem than the rural/urban divide.

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Our Government would have a better chance of actually serving the People if the Senate was abolished. As things are the Senators or at least most of them serve their Rich Masters.

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Wow! I didn't realize how explicitly elitist the Senate was, designed to protect not just smaller states but wealthy landowners.

So was curious how bad it could get, how undemocratic the inequality could become. If we add up the population of the 25 smallest states, we get about 20% of the total population. So if for some reason those 25 smallest states were dominated by Republicans but only by a mere 50% in each state, that would mean half the Senate could be elected by a mere 10% of the population.

But it could be even worse: If the largest 25 states had close to 100% Democratic support, then 90% of the total population would be Democrats, but nevertheless, the 10% of the total population who are Republicans being concentrated in those smaller states would still dominated the Senate.

This seems like an unlikely extreme, but we're already trending in that direction. How bad does the undemocratic imbalance need to get before there is an uprising?

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Keep up the good work! In my view, the US Senate is the basis and linchpin of the "British" Whig conservative Iron Triangle of Senate, Supreme Court and Executive. Eliminate the Senate and the Court must be directly elected by popular vote, the election for President is much more democratic even with the EC still in place, the House can enact legislation without Senatorial veto, and House and Executive can conduct a far more coherent foreign policy.

Really, it is long past time we got rid of the anachronism of a nearly 240 year old 18th century British Whig constitution that allowed a TV reality character into the highest office in the land.

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Oct 10, 2020Liked by Esha

This rightly exposes a flaw in the constitution which was devised as a compromise among the framers who were dealing with concerns, many of which that no longer exist and others that were and remain unenlightened. But a constitutional convention to rewrite it might make it worse unless it were done with more intelligence and sense of fairness than seems to be the norm.

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I don't see any problem with the senate that can not be addressed by decent campaign finance reform. A senate seat is a state wide election, and such are ex$pencive.

A good explanation of why Republicans dominate is that they usually have more campaign cash--and often a lot more. If the wealthy are allowed to continue to do the lion's share of campaign finance, they will continue to be allowed to set the agenda.

Senate seats cannot be gerrymandered like house seats can.

I believe there are actual working class people in these smaller states. Maybe I'm imagining things. But if there are, I also imagine they make up the majority of the population there.

If we were to be as bold as to have effective campaign finance reform, a lot of the political gravely train would be derailed. House and senate seats would likely change hands more frequently - - something almost all incumbents would likely detest.

But it would look a lot more like democracy than what we have now.

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Oct 10, 2020Liked by Esha

Since they are to represent wealth let us assign them by state according to population within the top 5% of income earners as measured by income reported on their 1040

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What source do you provide for these charts? Or did you just make them up?

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If the numbers are correct, the Senate is elected by the people and we should be able to make our will known through our vote. I believe that only a minority of people usually vote. If most people support Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, as the graph indicates, and they voted that way, we could make it happen. It takes persistence, determination, and the willingness to be engaged.

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Then it was never intended, by Madison, to be a democracy, but an oligarchy. restructure the whole system.

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Shame to have hillbillies running our lives. Kansas gets two senators. That's about the average IQ of the rural counties, eg 2. This remanent of the Slavers and Enablers Club of 1789 has to go. Unicameral is what we need.

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Stunning numbers. That small state, big state argument of the Slavers and Enablers Club of 1787 really came back to bite us. Hard to believe my life is controlled to some extend by a couple of 100K rubes in the former and new Confederacy. But that is a fact. Kill the Senate.

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Funny how the most populated states are also the wealthiest and are where the most wealthy people live. Seems like the wealthy would still end up controling the Senate.

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The US needs a bi-cameral legislature as a check against a stochastic and actually unrepresentative take over. For example, if an unrepresentative Tea Party briefly were to take over the House again, a more stable Senate (if more representative of the populace than the House at that moment) could hold it in check. Constitutional amendment has already revised the appointment of senators from what was originally conceived. And to become democratic and reflect the nation's modern demographics, the Senate certainly needs further constitutional reform both in its composition and in its internal operation. Abolishing the Senate is a bad idea; but its thorough reform is necessary.

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