12 ms·

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

34 points by ss2003 8y ago

_bxg1 8y ago
I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely based on population. Why does land get voting rights?
- docdeek 8y ago
  It's not about land as I understand it but about securing equal representation in the Senate between the republic's constituent states. The House reflects the population, the Senate secures the rights of the smaller states in the face of overwhelming population elsewhere.
- bluejekyll 8y ago
  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 best time to try and rebalance the Senate. So now we’re stuck, and why would any of these less populated states give up power?
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    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 back home happy with their votes. They were more like judges. Our own little homegrown aristocracy. Looked at it that way, it makes sense that each state should have an equal number of representatives. After all, the federal system was supposedly created and maintained by the states. But after the Civil War flipped that around, and the 17th amendment called for the direct election of senators, they were really mis-configured for the job. As many people point out, now they're just direct representatives of the people, only with a mission created from the old ways of doing things. So why are they elected like this again? As you say, we're stuck with it now. The only way to answer the criticism of giving states equal senators is to use an argument that is no longer valid. [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]
    - bluejekyll 8y ago
      > 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.
- RightMillennial 8y ago
  ...it is. The House of Representatives seats are based purely upon population which is determined by a census every 10 years. The Senate is redundant because of the 17th Amendment but its original purpose was to represent the individual State governments separately from the populace.
- exegete 8y ago
  Originally the State governments directly chose their Senators. So you had a house for the States and a house for the People. The 17th Amendment brought about the situation we have today.
- snarfy 8y ago
  The argument I've heard is that politicians wouldn't bother campaigning or making improvements to any of the states with low population. It's political welfare.
  - theoh 8y ago
    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics) for some discussion of this issue.
- johnc1231 8y ago
  I don't believe there's any better reason than wanting the small population states to sign the Constitution in the 1780s. And maybe also an attempt to protect the needs of people like farmers from being ignored, since they would live in low population states compared to urban professionals. Not saying it's a good idea.
  - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    It was definitely not created to protect the interests of farmers. The vast majority of the population worked in agriculture at that point, so they wouldn't have needed any special protection.
- evanpw 8y ago
  Individual states used to be more sovereign. It's similar to the structure of the European Parliament (where small countries have 10x as many representatives per capita as large countries), or the UN (where otherwise China and India would have 1/3 of the votes).
- DanAndersen 8y ago
  (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 that power over their own affairs would be continually swamped by places like New York. "Land" gets voting rights because those who were in charge of that land (the state legislators) wanted it in order to sign onto the project. This is why I find the modern media complaints trying to do away with such structures very troubling. It may be more vestigial at this point, but the setup was supposed to emphasize a collection of states rather than mere administrative subdivisions of a faraway government. Frankly, if there would be any change to the state-based system for senators, it should come with a free ability for smaller states to secede as a group; because it would be going back on the deal.
  - aclimatt 8y ago
    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.
- zipwitch 8y ago
  Because you don't want the land to take it's water rights and transportation links (among other things) and go home?
andrewclunn 8y ago
One more article that treats demographics as destiny politically. Apparently we're not individuals, we're easily predictable by sex, age, and race, and representation isn't fair unless cities determine all policies. That this blatant race baiting, sexist, agist logic always seems to come out in articles with an anti-Republican spin should tell you all you need to know.
exegete 8y ago
I think the complaint about the Senate having a different makeup than the House begs the question - why even have two houses in Congress? The original Constitution had State governments choose their Senators and the House was the "People's". The 17th Amendment changed that, so now we have the People choosing two different houses of Congress based on two different ways of dividing up the population, which leads to these complaints.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
growtofill 8y ago
"half of the _US_ population" would be more accurate title.
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  "half of the _US_ _human_ population" would be an even more accurate title.
  - growtofill 8y ago
    I would imply “human” when “states” are mentioned. My issue is I was expecting an article about world’s population (not much interested in US domestical problems).
DoreenMichele 8y ago
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 their differences rather than just straight up letting one group run rough shod over everyone else completely unchecked.
- dannypgh 8y ago
  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 clear to me that it's important to guarantee individual states anything.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    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.
    - 8note 8y ago
      what's democratic about states being guaranteed representation? democracy is about people having a say, not abstract entities
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        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.
lucio 8y ago
From the article: >Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent. Unsettling to say the least Question: So if you're a white male in a rural setting you're inherently a bad person?
hackeraccount 8y ago
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.
- rz2k 8y ago
  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.
  - mnm1 8y ago
    You can do all these things in D.C., however so they are not the exclusive rights of states.
    - rz2k 8y ago
      I understand why one would think that the federal government does these things, but the District of Columbia and other analogs to state governments do generally serve these purposes. There are things like a "Consular Report of Birth Abroad" in some cases for children of military service members. I guess it depends on the spirit of the question and definition of what constitutes "anything that a State government can do that the Federal government can't". Generally speaking, I get the impression that most people dramatically underestimate the role of state and local government authorities in their daily lives.
JaceLightning 8y ago
Time to break up California and Texas into multiple states.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  No kidding. And Texas.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  Or even better combine some states. Loiusiana, Alabama, and Mississippi could be one state.
RickJWagner 8y ago
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.
Apocryphon 8y ago
How is it that only three of the states are named?
- pseudalopex 8y ago
  There are diagrams. I guess nobody thought about accessibility. 50%: California, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas 20%: Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Washington
ende 8y ago
Here’s a thought: in a Federal Republic, perhaps most issues that are heavily affected by population imbalances shouldn’t fall under the scope of Federal legislation.

34 points by ss2003 8y ago

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

docdeek 8y ago
It's not about land as I understand it but about securing equal representation in the Senate between the republic's constituent states. The House reflects the population, the Senate secures the rights of the smaller states in the face of overwhelming population elsewhere.
bluejekyll 8y ago
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 best time to try and rebalance the Senate. So now we’re stuck, and why would any of these less populated states give up power?
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  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 back home happy with their votes. They were more like judges. Our own little homegrown aristocracy. Looked at it that way, it makes sense that each state should have an equal number of representatives. After all, the federal system was supposedly created and maintained by the states. But after the Civil War flipped that around, and the 17th amendment called for the direct election of senators, they were really mis-configured for the job. As many people point out, now they're just direct representatives of the people, only with a mission created from the old ways of doing things. So why are they elected like this again? As you say, we're stuck with it now. The only way to answer the criticism of giving states equal senators is to use an argument that is no longer valid. [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]
  - bluejekyll 8y ago
    > 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.
RightMillennial 8y ago
...it is. The House of Representatives seats are based purely upon population which is determined by a census every 10 years. The Senate is redundant because of the 17th Amendment but its original purpose was to represent the individual State governments separately from the populace.
exegete 8y ago
Originally the State governments directly chose their Senators. So you had a house for the States and a house for the People. The 17th Amendment brought about the situation we have today.
snarfy 8y ago
The argument I've heard is that politicians wouldn't bother campaigning or making improvements to any of the states with low population. It's political welfare.
- theoh 8y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics) for some discussion of this issue.
johnc1231 8y ago
I don't believe there's any better reason than wanting the small population states to sign the Constitution in the 1780s. And maybe also an attempt to protect the needs of people like farmers from being ignored, since they would live in low population states compared to urban professionals. Not saying it's a good idea.
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  It was definitely not created to protect the interests of farmers. The vast majority of the population worked in agriculture at that point, so they wouldn't have needed any special protection.
evanpw 8y ago
Individual states used to be more sovereign. It's similar to the structure of the European Parliament (where small countries have 10x as many representatives per capita as large countries), or the UN (where otherwise China and India would have 1/3 of the votes).
DanAndersen 8y ago
(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 that power over their own affairs would be continually swamped by places like New York. "Land" gets voting rights because those who were in charge of that land (the state legislators) wanted it in order to sign onto the project. This is why I find the modern media complaints trying to do away with such structures very troubling. It may be more vestigial at this point, but the setup was supposed to emphasize a collection of states rather than mere administrative subdivisions of a faraway government. Frankly, if there would be any change to the state-based system for senators, it should come with a free ability for smaller states to secede as a group; because it would be going back on the deal.
- aclimatt 8y ago
  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.
zipwitch 8y ago
Because you don't want the land to take it's water rights and transportation links (among other things) and go home?

andrewclunn 8y ago

One more article that treats demographics as destiny politically. Apparently we're not individuals, we're easily predictable by sex, age, and race, and representation isn't fair unless cities determine all policies. That this blatant race baiting, sexist, agist logic always seems to come out in articles with an anti-Republican spin should tell you all you need to know.

exegete 8y ago

I think the complaint about the Senate having a different makeup than the House begs the question - why even have two houses in Congress? The original Constitution had State governments choose their Senators and the House was the "People's". The 17th Amendment changed that, so now we have the People choosing two different houses of Congress based on two different ways of dividing up the population, which leads to these complaints.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

growtofill 8y ago

"half of the _US_ population" would be more accurate title.

anothergoogler 8y ago
"half of the _US_ _human_ population" would be an even more accurate title.
- growtofill 8y ago
  I would imply “human” when “states” are mentioned. My issue is I was expecting an article about world’s population (not much interested in US domestical problems).

DoreenMichele 8y ago

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 their differences rather than just straight up letting one group run rough shod over everyone else completely unchecked.

dannypgh 8y ago
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 clear to me that it's important to guarantee individual states anything.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  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.
  - 8note 8y ago
    what's democratic about states being guaranteed representation? democracy is about people having a say, not abstract entities
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      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.

lucio 8y ago

From the article: >Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent. Unsettling to say the least Question: So if you're a white male in a rural setting you're inherently a bad person?

hackeraccount 8y ago

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.

rz2k 8y ago
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.
- mnm1 8y ago
  You can do all these things in D.C., however so they are not the exclusive rights of states.
  - rz2k 8y ago
    I understand why one would think that the federal government does these things, but the District of Columbia and other analogs to state governments do generally serve these purposes. There are things like a "Consular Report of Birth Abroad" in some cases for children of military service members. I guess it depends on the spirit of the question and definition of what constitutes "anything that a State government can do that the Federal government can't". Generally speaking, I get the impression that most people dramatically underestimate the role of state and local government authorities in their daily lives.

JaceLightning 8y ago

Time to break up California and Texas into multiple states.

nickthemagicman 8y ago
No kidding. And Texas.
nickthemagicman 8y ago
Or even better combine some states. Loiusiana, Alabama, and Mississippi could be one state.

RickJWagner 8y ago

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.

Apocryphon 8y ago

How is it that only three of the states are named?

pseudalopex 8y ago
There are diagrams. I guess nobody thought about accessibility. 50%: California, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas 20%: Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Washington

ende 8y ago

Here’s a thought: in a Federal Republic, perhaps most issues that are heavily affected by population imbalances shouldn’t fall under the scope of Federal legislation.