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Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

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Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#91

Post by wbsss4412 »

dbcurtis wrote: post #54
dane-pgp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other party doesn't want people having representation at all. For the record, the popular vote percentages for the Democrats in the past 3 senate elections were: 53.0%, 58.2%, and 47.0%. That averages 52.7%, so gaining an extra two senate seats would still mean the Democrats were under-represented. (I know that the purpose of the senate is not to represent each citizen equally, I just thought it was worth poi…

The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. To say that one party doesn’t want people to be represented at all is a ridiculous straw-man.

The senate exists because 13 formerly independent, sovereign political units decided to form a United federal superstructure above them. Some of these states had land claims that went out to Pacific Ocean at the time and it wouldn’t have made any sense to enter into a union with states that would be wildly out of proportion in potentially a very short time.

Since then 37 more states have joined, almost all carved out of territory formerly owned by the federal government itself, settled largely by people from other states and immigrants under the direction of said federal government. They were never independently sovereign units yet we all live under the political bargains that were struck to reach an agreement with the original 13.

The system was not designed with this reality in mind, it was a pragmatic decision dressed up with the political theory of the time. If “protecting minority interests” were that important, there are much better systems designs that actually are tailored to fit the political realities of America in 2021.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#92

Post by wbsss4412 »

rplst8 wrote: post #77
belltaco wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. Isn't DC a low population region? Then why does one party not want them to be represented at all?

DC has about 700,000 residents and a population density on par with Chicago.

Small state != rural state.

Rhode Island is a small state, it isn’t rural. Hawaii is a small state, above average population density. Small and large on an electoral basis refer to population size.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#94

Post by dang »

Macha wrote: post #4

Anyone got a mirror? The Baltimore Sun is one of those US local media outlets that block Europeans because of how much they "highly value" them. EDIT: It's syndicated to msn: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/western-maryland-lawmakers...

Ok, we've changed to that from https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-western-md-w.... Thanks!

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#95

Post by ts4z »

selestify wrote: post #89
dragonwriter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Cal 3 proposal actually made some sense Not really, even on the scale of “crazy proposals to divide California into multiple states” , of which there have been a couple hundred since it was admitted to the union. > it would have given the people living there more representation in congress in the form of 4 new senators, as well as more local control Sure, and Cal58 (each existing county as its own state) would…

What are some of these broad statewide problems in California?

2019: water.

2020: water, and vaccine mandates.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#96

Post by aaron695 »

jnwatson wrote: post #3

Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution: “The legislature, in cooperation with the properly constituted authority of any adjoining state, is empowered to change, alter, and redefine the state boundaries, such change, alteration and redefinition to become effective only upon approval of the Congress of the United States.” Essentially they’d need approval from WV, MD, and an act of Congress. Highly unlikely. This issu…

> This issue is one of the many defects in democracies: your power sometimes rests in the way somebody drew a border a long time ago.

You don't have legs?

Being hard to change is a feature.

Currently organisations that don't have strong and hard to change ties to the past are being destroyed.

AA still works because of an old set of rules. ACLU now works against what it stood for because it didn't have a hard set of rules.

Pre-internet perhaps being hard to change wasn't a feature, but post internet it certainly is.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#97

Post by prewett »

rscoots wrote: post #23
pmyteh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC doesn't want to be part of Maryland (they like being independent and feel that Maryland's concerns are not theirs) and Maryland doesn't want DC (they feel it would move the centre of gravity of the state even further towards the DC suburbs, making it worse for the further-flung parts of the state). National Democrats would also like two more Senate seats (and both DC and Maryland are predominantly Democratic, DC a…

By these arguments nearly every sizable city in the country should be its own state. >DC doesn't want to be part of Maryland (they like being independent and feel that Maryland's concerns are not theirs) and Maryland doesn't want DC (they feel it would move the centre of gravity of the state even further towards the DC suburbs, making it worse for the further-flung parts of the state).

China treats its major cities (and the nearby area) at the province level: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing. So it's not unprecedented among governing systems. And given the size of those areas, it is a pragmatic approach.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#98

Post by selimthegrim »

pmyteh wrote: post #74
dbcurtis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. To say that one party doesn’t want people to be represented at all is a ridiculous straw-man.

I mean, it isn't? If DC voted Republican then they'd be totally in favour of making it a state. It's not a secret that is the reason why DC statehood has no traction in Congress. You can make a case for retrocession, but the other arguments are understood by everyone to be a fig leaf. The same was true in the past: Alaska and Hawaii were admitted essentially as a two-for-one deal because Alaska was reliably Republica…

New Mexico had to wait quite a bit due to having too many brown people.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

dbcurtis wrote: post #54
dane-pgp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other party doesn't want people having representation at all. For the record, the popular vote percentages for the Democrats in the past 3 senate elections were: 53.0%, 58.2%, and 47.0%. That averages 52.7%, so gaining an extra two senate seats would still mean the Democrats were under-represented. (I know that the purpose of the senate is not to represent each citizen equally, I just thought it was worth poi…

The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. To say that one party doesn’t want people to be represented at all is a ridiculous straw-man.

> and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests.

By ensuring (by overrepresenting the same interests overrepresented in the House by a smaller margin, and in the electoral college by a margin in between that of the two Houses of Congress) that a particular minority will reliably be able to trample the interests of the opposing majority.

Re: Western Maryland asks West Virginia to 'consider adding us' to their state

#100

Post by pyuser583 »

jnwatson wrote: post #3

Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution: “The legislature, in cooperation with the properly constituted authority of any adjoining state, is empowered to change, alter, and redefine the state boundaries, such change, alteration and redefinition to become effective only upon approval of the Congress of the United States.” Essentially they’d need approval from WV, MD, and an act of Congress. Highly unlikely. This issu…

If WV and MD approve, why wouldn’t Congress?
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