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I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?
I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?
I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?
The two-assembly structure exists because it was a compromise to not give the densely-populated states all the power in the new Republic. Crucially, this sort of compromise was important because it helped the less-populated states get on board with the whole "federal government" concept without fearing that power over their own affairs would be continually swamped by places like New York. "Land" gets voting rights because those who were in charge of that land (the state legislators) wanted it in order to sign onto the project.
This is why I find the modern media complaints trying to do away with such structures very troubling. It may be more vestigial at this point, but the setup was supposed to emphasize a collection of states rather than mere administrative subdivisions of a faraway government. Frankly, if there would be any change to the state-based system for senators, it should come with a free ability for smaller states to secede as a group; because it would be going back on the deal.
I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?
I think the complaint about the Senate having a different makeup than the House begs the question - why even have two houses in Congress? The original Constitution had State governments choose their Senators and the House was the "People's". The 17th Amendment changed that, so now we have the People choosing two different houses of Congress based on two different ways of dividing up the population, which leads to the…
So, in some sense, the system works?
The whole point of having two different federal bodies based on different criteria is to try to ensure that minority populations or different demographic details of different states don't leave any population utterly without representation and a voice. The intent is that they will be forced to hash out their differences rather than just straight up letting one group run rough shod over everyone else completely unchecked.
>Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent. Unsettling to say the least
Question: So if you're a white male in a rural setting you're inherently a bad person?
The House and the Senate will be weighted to two largely different Americas. So, in some sense, the system works? The whole point of having two different federal bodies based on different criteria is to try to ensure that minority populations or different demographic details of different states don't leave any population utterly without representation and a voice. The intent is that they will be forced to hash out th…
It made sense the ensure states felt they had some guaranteed level of representation in order to get the states to agree to enter, or remain in, the union. But now that it's established precedent that states cannot leave the Union (at least without Congress) it's not clear to me that it's important to guarantee individual states anything.
I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?
The argument I've heard is that politicians wouldn't bother campaigning or making improvements to any of the states with low population. It's political welfare.