Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#21

Post by bluejekyll »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10
bluejekyll wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compromise. When the Constitution was drawn up, there was already a large disagreement about this. The North was more densely populated than the South. It would have meant that North would have dictated all the policies. The South had an agricultural industry that was reliant (at least they believed it was reliant) on the horrid practice of slavery. The Civil War settled the issue of slavery, and probably was the bes…

Looking back, from a systems perspective (not necessarily the view taken at the time), the Senate was created to represent the structure of government. They were supposed to be the old party hacks from each state that were sent to DC to help architect and fix the architecture of the federal government. Their interest was in the system, in the political structure and operation of the government, not making the folks b…

> Insert long discussion here about how nobody wanted a democracy in the U.S. It was never a goal and it was feared by the founders

I wouldn’t say exactly they didn’t want it... but they definitely feared it. The presidency was also not directly elected, and now we’re dealing with that and the idiocy of the electoral college.

At least that one seems more feasible to fix, as the states themselves can decide how to allocate their electoral members.

I do wonder if the equal protections clause could be a mechanism to force a rebalancing of the constitutional senate allocation. I’m no lawyer, but it seems they they could be in conflict with each other.

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#22

Post by hackeraccount »

It should be noted that this effects the House as well as the Senate.

Federalism is ingrained in the US Constitution. The degree to which power has flowed to DC is something that's happened despite the Constitution not because of it. There's a line in the Constitution that says everything that's not explicitly granted to the Federal government is in the hands of the State governments. Think about that.

Can anyone name anything that a State government can do that the Federal government can't? I'm not saying things that it doesn't do but things that it cannot do.

As long as that's the case having an undemocratic Senate - and that's what it is - is trouble. It will in the long run end up weakening the Senate as an institution. To the degree the US system is a federated one you can make an argument for the Senate but as things become more centralized the arguments for the Executive and the House - indeed for changing the House into a genuinely proportionally elected body become more and more plausible.

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#25

Post by aclimatt »

DanAndersen wrote: post #14
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?

(I assume you're referring to the Senate and not the House, which does do somewhat population-based apportionment) 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…

Correct. However one of the key differences is that when the Republic was established, per the Constitution, States' Rights were a primary aspect of legislation. The federal government had very little power and very few laws compared to today. Most laws existed on a state-by-state basis. The USA of the late 1700s was really more like the EU than it is today.

And that's why New Hampshire needed senators. New Hampshire needed to ensure that it could still get the things it needed from the federal government (presumably money in most cases) to make New Hampshire a good place to live. That's why land has voting rights -- New Hampshire (using it as an example for all less-populated rural states) used to be a lot more sovereign.

Now things have changed. New Hampshire isn't just ensuring that it gets the resources it needs. Because most laws in the US are now enacted on a federal level, New Hampshire is deciding implicitly how /other/ states behave. And this is the problem, and is clearly against the intent of the Constitution ("any power not explicitly granted to the federal government will be left to the states").

So, the bicameral legislature as designed made sense. But in its current context, it's fundamentally broken. If we want to return it back to its original intent, then it's time to get back to a period of States' Rights.

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#26

Post by RickJWagner »

This is why states' rights are important.

America is not a homogeneous nation, nor should we be. Residents of Wyoming should not live in the same environment residents of New York do.

Through diversity comes greatness. The wisdom of the founders is amazing.

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#27

Post by DoreenMichele »

dannypgh wrote: post #19
DoreenMichele wrote: post #17

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…

The only entities that are guaranteed representation are states. It's not obvious that statehood maps to any other demographic attribute over time. 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 cle…

I'm trying to comply with HN guidelines and not be snarky here, but, to my ears, that sounds an awful lot like "Now that the states are the bitches of the federal government, they don't need a voice at all." And that doesn't remotely sound like a democratic system to me. It sounds pretty tyrannical.

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#28

Post by 8note »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #27
dannypgh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only entities that are guaranteed representation are states. It's not obvious that statehood maps to any other demographic attribute over time. 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 cle…

I'm trying to comply with HN guidelines and not be snarky here, but, to my ears, that sounds an awful lot like "Now that the states are the bitches of the federal government, they don't need a voice at all." And that doesn't remotely sound like a democratic system to me. It sounds pretty tyrannical.

what's democratic about states being guaranteed representation? democracy is about people having a say, not abstract entities

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#29

Post by rz2k »

hackeraccount wrote: post #22

It should be noted that this effects the House as well as the Senate. Federalism is ingrained in the US Constitution. The degree to which power has flowed to DC is something that's happened despite the Constitution not because of it. There's a line in the Constitution that says everything that's not explicitly granted to the Federal government is in the hands of the State governments. Think about that. Can anyone nam…

My guesses offhand would be marriage licenses, birth and death certificates. States register real estate and collect property taxes, and you need a state to allow you to incorporate a business.

Re: In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states

#30

Post by DoreenMichele »

8note wrote: post #28
DoreenMichele wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to comply with HN guidelines and not be snarky here, but, to my ears, that sounds an awful lot like "Now that the states are the bitches of the federal government, they don't need a voice at all." And that doesn't remotely sound like a democratic system to me. It sounds pretty tyrannical.

what's democratic about states being guaranteed representation? democracy is about people having a say, not abstract entities

Funny, the comment I was replying to asserts that only states get representation in the US, not people.

Technically, the US is not a true democracy. Our state's speak for us and our state's represent us. This is how a presidential candidate can get less than a majority vote and still be president.

There is a term for it -- maybe republic -- but I'm not that awake and can't quite put my finger on it.

Post reply on HN