[Loughla]

No, I like the way the Senate runs in theory. Equal representation for the states regardless of size. Only if it's alongside the house with proportionate representation.

That seems like a good theory that would keep itself in check.

In execution it's an absolute shit show, I'll give you. But I do believe the theory is sound. With the house and the Senate we get the best of both worlds.

In theory.

[lotsofpulp]

Why is the theory sound? It’s an arbitrary number of regions delineated by arbitrary lines given a disproportionate amount of power that run completely counter to the goal of a democracy.

[johnnyanmac]

>Why is the theory sound?

Because tyranny of the majority is still a thing. Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes. So the house is there as a large power and senate can check it.

Of course, in practice the house is way under represented so its almost like we have a senate and a mini-senate. That's where things fall apart.

[kelnos]

> Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes.

I don't see why that would be the case. To win an election you don't need to win states at all; you need to win lots of voters, and those voters could come from anywhere.

You could lose every single voter in both CA and TX and still win the election, given different political demographics across states.

As an aside, I also think abolishing the Electoral College and going strictly by the national popular vote would increase voter turnout for presidential elections. I live in a solidly blue state, and if I didn't care about down-ballot races, I probably wouldn't bother to vote in presidential elections, since my vote doesn't really matter here. Only votes in swing states matter under the current system.

[Pxtl]

Tyranny of the minority is not better.

[lotsofpulp]

> tyranny of the majority

Aka democracy.

> Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes.

No, it wouldn’t. It would switch to appealing to the most voters, who may or may not happen to live in California and Texas, but that is irrelevant to a democracy.

[johnnyanmac]

>Aka democracy.

Yes. I hope I don't need to explain the many times that the majority sentiment was in fact not the correct one. A pure democracy under the basis the US was founded under would end up much more conservative than what we have today.

> It would switch to appealing to the most voters.

So it'd switch to appealing to urban cities and ignore the rural areas. Iirc the top 10 cities today make up some 40+% of voters. Why bother going to Omaha when you can focus instead of LA and NYC?

[twixfel]

Tyranny of the majority may be undesirable but tyranny of the minority is even worse. At least the majority, are, you know, the majority.

[mlrtime]

You are taking a very narrow one sided view. We live in a Republic of states, not a Federal Democracy. I know you would like this to happen, but it won't here for good reasons.

[lotsofpulp]

There is no “good” reason. It just so happens to be the way the power dynamics of the past have played out, and there has not yet been sufficient motivation for the population to go to war.

[culi]

the senate was not originally meant to be elected. It was a way for the elites to maintain order if populism got out of hand. People often forget that the entire US Constitution is a response to the crisis of Shays Rebellion where the poor starting rebelling and even getting their members elected under the articles of confederation. The whole point of the senate is to limit democracy's threat to elites

[nullocator]

ya so instead we get multiple lifetimes of minority rule and stagnation.

[johnnyanmac]

Minority forces of change also happen for the good as well. There aren't too many landmark cases where the majority suddenly voted to give more representation, more power to workers, nor simply cede powers previously enjoyed by government.

[Loughla]

Arbitrary or not, States are sovereign things. They set their own laws.

Having 1 chamber that allows equal representation

And

Having 1 chamber that allows proportionate

Is a good system in theory. Otherwise, States (which are again separate entities) with high populations just steamroll those that have low populations.

The system now allows states with high populations to be appropriately represented in the house, which sends bills to the Senate.

I feel like it's a good system, in theory. You get your population representation and checks and balances for rural areas as well.

[nullocator]

The barrier of entry to becoming a state is currently too high, and the barrier to stopping to be a state is even higher.

[kelnos]

You keep saying "in theory". If the practice -- as you seem to admit -- doesn't actually work, then what's the point defending the theory? It doesn't work in practice, so it's a bad idea.

> Arbitrary or not, States are sovereign things.

In practice that's not really true. The federal government has many, many levers it can use to get states to fall in line.

[mlrtime]

>The federal government has many, many levers it can use to get states to fall in line.

This is a separate problem that should be fixed.

[lotsofpulp]

> (which are again separate entities)

In theory, but in practice, most states are highly dependent on a few very populous and productive ones, for economic and military protection.

Not to mention that the Feds control the purchasing power of the currency and international trade, so the states aren’t sovereign to do anything of consequence.

Hence in practice, this whole theory of states being sovereign goes out the window.

[echelon]

States are sovereign entities with their own laws. They can even, in theory, secede from the union.

The Senate is a good system, it's just that most states are Republican.

Some of the larger states might consider splitting themselves into separate states to better represent their populations. Though that may not be constitutionally possible.

If we ever add additional states to the Union (Puerto Rico, D.C., etc.), they'll want to enjoy having an equal say with every other state in the Union. It's a compelling feature of our system.

The House, as a proportional system, actually needs to be re-normalized. There are not enough representatives to have an actually proportional vote.

[nullocator]

Is it a good system? I'm not sure I understand why? The system as it's designed seems to want to incentivize having many low population states as a way to spread and gain power, and as such the current 100 power holders are incentivized to to protect their power by preventing the dilution of their power that would come with more states.

Additionally, because the population of the country is not evenly distributed across all the states, senators from some states have disproportionate power and control this is frequently mentioned and brought up several times in this post alone. Not sure what aspects make it a good system, some type of beleaguered point about preventing tyranny of the majority? At what cost? tyranny of the minority, political stagnation?

[echelon]

> Is it a good system? I'm not sure I understand why?

States have sovereignty and rights.

The point is that all states have equal representation.

> Not sure what aspects make it a good system, some type of beleaguered point about preventing tyranny of the majority? At what cost? tyranny of the minority, political stagnation?

Because states are political test tubes and need autonomy.

> Additionally, because the population of the country is not evenly distributed across all the states, senators from some states have disproportionate power and control

In my lifetime, the Senate has been majority Democratic party controlled [1].

If you go back to the second Bush term, it's been 60% Democrat.

The current party makeup is only temporary. Things are constantly in flux.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...

[valleyer]

States can not "in theory" secede from the United States. See Texas v. White: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White

From the point of view of the U.S. legal system, the Confederacy's secession was "absolutely null".

[echelon]

It's more complicated than that single case [1], and the chief justice admitted there were other routes:

> Chase, however, "recognized that a state could cease to be part of the union 'through revolution, or through consent of the States'".

Secession does not have to be done legally. Who knows what, if any, conflict that might bring about.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States

[Yizahi]

Most states are Republican only because of first past the post system. If states internally did democratic majority elections, then most of them would turn progressive very fast. Including Texas, which is already democratic, but is suppressed by a blatant corruption via gerrymandering.

[spankalee]

The Senate is a terrible system. There's no logical reason why citizens in one state should have orders of magnitude more say in the federal government than citizens in another.

The founders aren't infallible gods, and they really fucked up here.

[Centrino]

Unlike in many other countries, where provinces or regions are merely administrative divisions created to decentralize or streamline administration, the US emerged when states voluntarily came together and decided to create a country. The states were willing to outsource part of their autonomy to a federal level, on condition that guardrails were put in place to limit the power of that federal level. Those guardrails were: bicameralism, equal representation of states in the Senate, and the electoral college. The House is the voice of the people, the Senate is the voice of the states.

The practical consequence of this system is that it effectively prevents a majority of voters from large urban centers from imposing their will onto rural populations, at least at the federal level. It was designed that way.

I've seen comments here claiming that countries like Canada or France deliver better outcomes than the US. They are stronger welfare states, yes, but they also have become overly paternalistic nanny states, with heavy-handed regulations, and high taxes stifling individual initiative.

[spankalee]

The practical consequence of this system is that it effectively allows a minority of voters from rural areas to impose their will onto large urban centers

[mlrtime]

Which you want the opposite to happen , not a better system.

[teiferer]

> There's no logical reason

If you study the U.S. history in detail the you see the reasons and the main ones are quite "logical".

You might not agree with them (I don't necessarily), but that doesn't make them illogical.

[NoGravitas]

They were logical at the time they were implemented. Most of those reasons have been invalid since the Civil War, and should have been fixed during Reconstruction, except the winners didn't have the foresight or political will to do what needed to be done.