One of our primary functions at USDemocrazy is to help our readers understand democracy.
WAIT! COME BACK! This won’t be boring, I promise.
Our democracy is representative, so the power to lead is given by the consent of the people. If elected representatives do something a plurality of their constituents dislike, the masses can vote them out of power.
In Congress, seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are divided among states according to population, so members are elected on the principle of one person, one vote.
But in the U.S. Senate, each state gets two senators no matter how many people they have, so it’s one state, one vote.
What does all this mean? House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) represents as many people as House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). But Sen. John Voinovich (R-Ohio) represents only one third as many people as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
Ok, we admit that was pretty boring! But here is the cool part:
The senate was designed purposefully to grant smaller states disproportionate representation as a check to keep larger states from wielding too much power. There are some who like this system (not surprisingly most of them from sparsely populated states). But the effect can seem a little odd if you run the numbers.
Guess what; we ran the numbers.
The Senate is currently controlled by the Democrats 59-41. But if the Senate was organized according to the principle of one person, one vote, the numbers would look much different. Instead of a 59-41 majority, Democrats would have a 63-37 advantage.
Smaller states are being graded on the curve. Just like how a student can bomb a test with a 64 and get a 70 based on the curve, small states are given a boost in the senate. Because smaller states tend to elect Republicans, who have just enough seats in the Senate to filibuster (41), just over one third of the United State’s population has as much power as a conventional majority.
That means the nine most populous states have 51 percent of the population but only 18 senators. But wait, it gets worse! The nine least populous states have 2.8 percent of the population and they get 18 senators too!
The founders, though wise, were maybe mathematically challenged.
Factually, what elements must be present for one to act legitimately as an agent (representative) for another?
[...] to repeal the 17th amendment which provides for election of senators by the people. We figure the senate is already fairly undemocratic why not go all the [...]
[...] Jennifer Senior wrote a piece for New York Magazine looking at the senate. As regular readers know we have done a bit of our own analysis. [...]