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There are only 100 seats in the US senate. How can 'we' participate in that? There are somewhere around 330 million people in the US, represented by just 100 pe

There are only 100 seats in the US senate. How can 'we' participate in that? There are somewhere around 330 million people in the US, represented by just 100 people, who mostly act in their own self interest. How can one person properly represent on average ~3.3 million people? What a sham.

maxerickson 9y ago
You aren't being fair to the Senators of large states that represent tens of millions of people. I think your thesis is not correct though, the senate is less dysfunctional than the house, at least partly because they each answer to a broad constituency.
- brndnmtthws 9y ago
  The senate has an excellent track record for protecting the corporate elite, not the broad constituency.
  - 8note 9y ago
    the Senate was included in the legislative branch to avoid the government serving the broad consituency too well.
- thatcat 9y ago
  The thesis seems to be that represenative democracy doesn't scale past a certain ratio. 10E7 : 1 is an extremely centralized system. Potential amounts for corrupt pay offs increases with the number of people you represent and ease of coordinating corruption increases as the number of represenatives decrease.
Aaargh20318 9y ago
Maybe we could let people decide for themselves who represents them, that way they can choose someone they trust to do the job correctly.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
It's funny you're being downvoted. How is it not in everyone's (except those currently exploiting the system) best interest to increase their share of representation?
- brndnmtthws 9y ago
  I think a lot of people in the US still have a strong sense of patriotism/nationalism. Nationalism is a trick dictators/tyrants/corrupt govs have used for decades to control people.
- mondoshawan 9y ago
  The problem with their statement is that Senate does not represent the people. The House does.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    The senate represents the people of their state. >The Senate is composed of senators, each of whom represents a single state in its entirety, with each state being equally represented by two senators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate
mondoshawan 9y ago
The Senate isn't supposed to represent the people. They were originally supposed to be the bulwark against the "rapid" (2-year) change of the House of Representatives to prevent mob rule. That is, until we amended the Constitution to make them elected by popular vote. There are far more representatives in Congress than Senators, to the tune of almost 3:1, which is still too low. The way we fix this is by fixing our local governments first. The States determine the number of Representatives based upon their districting and constitutions. The answer is to fight to fix the districting and run as a representative.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  The number of representatives in the house is set by the Federal government. States create the districts they run in.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > There are far more representatives in Congress than Senators, to the tune of almost 3:1 It's very odd to describe exactly 4.35:1 (or 4.35:1.01, depending.on how you treat the VP) as “almost 3:1”.

maxerickson 9y ago

You aren't being fair to the Senators of large states that represent tens of millions of people. I think your thesis is not correct though, the senate is less dysfunctional than the house, at least partly because they each answer to a broad constituency.

brndnmtthws 9y ago
The senate has an excellent track record for protecting the corporate elite, not the broad constituency.
- 8note 9y ago
  the Senate was included in the legislative branch to avoid the government serving the broad consituency too well.
thatcat 9y ago
The thesis seems to be that represenative democracy doesn't scale past a certain ratio. 10E7 : 1 is an extremely centralized system. Potential amounts for corrupt pay offs increases with the number of people you represent and ease of coordinating corruption increases as the number of represenatives decrease.

Aaargh20318 9y ago

Maybe we could let people decide for themselves who represents them, that way they can choose someone they trust to do the job correctly.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

It's funny you're being downvoted. How is it not in everyone's (except those currently exploiting the system) best interest to increase their share of representation?

brndnmtthws 9y ago
I think a lot of people in the US still have a strong sense of patriotism/nationalism. Nationalism is a trick dictators/tyrants/corrupt govs have used for decades to control people.
mondoshawan 9y ago
The problem with their statement is that Senate does not represent the people. The House does.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  The senate represents the people of their state. >The Senate is composed of senators, each of whom represents a single state in its entirety, with each state being equally represented by two senators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate

mondoshawan 9y ago

The Senate isn't supposed to represent the people. They were originally supposed to be the bulwark against the "rapid" (2-year) change of the House of Representatives to prevent mob rule. That is, until we amended the Constitution to make them elected by popular vote. There are far more representatives in Congress than Senators, to the tune of almost 3:1, which is still too low. The way we fix this is by fixing our local governments first. The States determine the number of Representatives based upon their districting and constitutions. The answer is to fight to fix the districting and run as a representative.

maxerickson 9y ago
The number of representatives in the house is set by the Federal government. States create the districts they run in.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> There are far more representatives in Congress than Senators, to the tune of almost 3:1 It's very odd to describe exactly 4.35:1 (or 4.35:1.01, depending.on how you treat the VP) as “almost 3:1”.