President Trump doubled down on his comments suggesting Iran could hit Los Angeles and San Diego during a rally in Texas on Wednesday, adding that the U.S. would not let such a scenario play out. &…
Indeed. It borders on the absurdly ridiculous. I’m not sure the founders, even when they were trying to balance the interests of slave states anticipated such a wild imbalance of having one state having 67 times the number of people in another state.
This is not a problem. The Senate is half of one branch of government, and it’s fine to give land limited say. It helps prevent us from turning the less populated states into dumping grounds.
Even if you disagree, there are much bigger issues. Gerrymandering and Citizens United both do infinitely more damage.
The Senate confirms justices for a lifelong position on the Supreme Court. The Senate being overly right wing and not properly representative of the people is not the entire problem, but it’s definitely a problem.
It helps prevent us from turning the less populated states into dumping grounds.
You’re going to have to prove that’s what would happen.
You’re also going to have to explain why that’s worse than underfunding and not meeting the everyday needs of actual people- the vast majority of whom do not live in rural America- to prevent rural America from
“Becoming a dumping ground”.
(Also while you’re at it, show how republicans aren’t already turning rural America into literal dumping grounds with their regulatory rollbacks.)
Equal representation is a foundation of democracy.
The US doesn’t have that. And has never had it. If the foundation is shit, everything else is going to go to shit.
That includes citizens united and gerrymandering.
Which it needs to be said is a false dichotomy and all three things can be done simultaneously. It’s as lazy and fucking disingenuous as saying urban and suburban voters can’t vote responsibly for rural decisions but rural voters can vote responsibly for urban decisions.
Any argument you can make for rural voters receiving more voting power can be echoed right back at you and it’s all a load of bullshit.
So yeah. You’re absolutely going to have to defend the argument you fucking made when that argument is ultimately to disenfranchise 80% of American voters.
The Senate is pretty clearly spelled out in the Constitution. Citizens United is a pretty far fetched, liberal interpretation, and gerrymandering isn’t in the Constitution at all.
Eliminating the Senate is more difficult and not on my priority list, and you haven’t exactly convinced me to support that. It’s a great idea if your goal is to get nothing done.
You don’t need to eliminate the senate to make it representative of actual people.
The constitution isn’t meant to be unchanging, perfect or worshipped. It was designed to be changed as the needs of the people changed. As the world changed.
You can take your “agree to disagree” and shove it up your ass. Your attitude is literally disenfranchising ~80+% of Americans because of something you can’t even demonstrate to be likely, never mind totally true.
Edit, by the way, if what you said is true, farm bills would never pass the house. They almost always pass as a matter routine.
The founders did not have a situation in which we have nearly 40 million people in one state, and 588K in another, and I don’t know if they anticipated such a situation, either. I don’t know that the Senate should be abolished, but it could use adjusting.
Maybe you start adding Senators for states above a certain multiple over the lowest state’s population. If you are 20x more population than Wyoming (least population), you get a Senator. For every 5x times above 20x, you get one more.
California has 67 times more people in it than Wyoming. Something like this would give them 1 for the 20x + 9 for the rest (47 / 5), which would bring them to 12 Senators. That’d still be only 6x more Senators, but at least it would not be so wildly out of sync with how many people we are talking about.
That, or we combine states like Wyoming with several others that hardly have anyone in them.
The founders did not have a situation in which we have nearly 40 million people in one state, and 588K in another
They did. When Kentucky was admitted to the Union the population was around 73k. The official population of Virginia was 747,610. Virginia had 10x the population of Kentucky when Kentucky was admitted.
1 out of 8 people in us live in California. That’s 12.5% of the population.
And they get 2 senators, same as the 0.172% of Americans living in Wyoming. The US needs constitutional reforms in so many ways.
Indeed. It borders on the absurdly ridiculous. I’m not sure the founders, even when they were trying to balance the interests of slave states anticipated such a wild imbalance of having one state having 67 times the number of people in another state.
This is not a problem. The Senate is half of one branch of government, and it’s fine to give land limited say. It helps prevent us from turning the less populated states into dumping grounds.
Even if you disagree, there are much bigger issues. Gerrymandering and Citizens United both do infinitely more damage.
It is 100% a problem that Vermont and California both get 2 senator each.
California has 60 times the population VT has. 60. Same proportional representation in the senate.
Vermont has 3 total representatives in Congress, one of which is Bernie Sanders. California has 54.
If the Senate was the entire legislative branch, I would agree with you that it’s a problem. It’s not.
The Senate confirms justices for a lifelong position on the Supreme Court. The Senate being overly right wing and not properly representative of the people is not the entire problem, but it’s definitely a problem.
3:54 < 1:60
And you get closer to 1:1 by increasing the size of the senate.
You’re going to have to prove that’s what would happen.
You’re also going to have to explain why that’s worse than underfunding and not meeting the everyday needs of actual people- the vast majority of whom do not live in rural America- to prevent rural America from “Becoming a dumping ground”.
(Also while you’re at it, show how republicans aren’t already turning rural America into literal dumping grounds with their regulatory rollbacks.)
I’m going to have to what? Sounds like I didn’t need to do shit.
You’re going to have to prove eliminating the Senate is more important than fixing Citizens United or gerrymandering.
Equal representation is a foundation of democracy.
The US doesn’t have that. And has never had it. If the foundation is shit, everything else is going to go to shit.
That includes citizens united and gerrymandering.
Which it needs to be said is a false dichotomy and all three things can be done simultaneously. It’s as lazy and fucking disingenuous as saying urban and suburban voters can’t vote responsibly for rural decisions but rural voters can vote responsibly for urban decisions.
Any argument you can make for rural voters receiving more voting power can be echoed right back at you and it’s all a load of bullshit.
So yeah. You’re absolutely going to have to defend the argument you fucking made when that argument is ultimately to disenfranchise 80% of American voters.
The Senate is pretty clearly spelled out in the Constitution. Citizens United is a pretty far fetched, liberal interpretation, and gerrymandering isn’t in the Constitution at all.
Eliminating the Senate is more difficult and not on my priority list, and you haven’t exactly convinced me to support that. It’s a great idea if your goal is to get nothing done.
I guess we can agree to disagree.
You don’t need to eliminate the senate to make it representative of actual people.
The constitution isn’t meant to be unchanging, perfect or worshipped. It was designed to be changed as the needs of the people changed. As the world changed.
You can take your “agree to disagree” and shove it up your ass. Your attitude is literally disenfranchising ~80+% of Americans because of something you can’t even demonstrate to be likely, never mind totally true.
Edit, by the way, if what you said is true, farm bills would never pass the house. They almost always pass as a matter routine.
Good luck eliminating the Senate then.
The founders did not have a situation in which we have nearly 40 million people in one state, and 588K in another, and I don’t know if they anticipated such a situation, either. I don’t know that the Senate should be abolished, but it could use adjusting.
Maybe you start adding Senators for states above a certain multiple over the lowest state’s population. If you are 20x more population than Wyoming (least population), you get a Senator. For every 5x times above 20x, you get one more.
California has 67 times more people in it than Wyoming. Something like this would give them 1 for the 20x + 9 for the rest (47 / 5), which would bring them to 12 Senators. That’d still be only 6x more Senators, but at least it would not be so wildly out of sync with how many people we are talking about.
That, or we combine states like Wyoming with several others that hardly have anyone in them.
They did. When Kentucky was admitted to the Union the population was around 73k. The official population of Virginia was 747,610. Virginia had 10x the population of Kentucky when Kentucky was admitted.