[maxerickson]

You aren't being fair to the Senators of large states that represent tens of millions of people.

I think your thesis is not correct though, the senate is less dysfunctional than the house, at least partly because they each answer to a broad constituency.

[thatcat]

The thesis seems to be that represenative democracy doesn't scale past a certain ratio. 10E7 : 1 is an extremely centralized system. Potential amounts for corrupt pay offs increases with the number of people you represent and ease of coordinating corruption increases as the number of represenatives decrease.

[brndnmtthws]

The senate has an excellent track record for protecting the corporate elite, not the broad constituency.

[8note]

the Senate was included in the legislative branch to avoid the government serving the broad consituency too well.