3 ms·

And that made sense when the Senate was the representation of the states' desires and most states chose their Senators at the state legislature level. The syste

by jadell 8y ago

And that made sense when the Senate was the representation of the states' desires and most states chose their Senators at the state legislature level. The system as set up so that that the people chose their Representatives directly, and the states chose their Senators at a state level. Now, thanks to the 17th Amendment, Senators AND Representatives are chosen by popular vote. So the initial reasoning behind splitting the two house of Congress is basically moot. Realistically, if we went back to allowing state legislatures to choose their Senators, Republicans would have an essentially permanent 60-70+ seat veto- and filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
Although you may have a valid criticism of the change in mechanism, I would not agree that the change makes it outright moot. The Senate still allows each state the same number of votes as any other state for that body. The House allots a varying number of representatives based on population. This was done intentionally so that larger/more populous states can't simply ignore smaller states. It preserves the voice of smaller states to some degree. It was intended to balance concerns and make sure that neither a demographic majority nor a demographic minority was at the mercy of the other.
- jadell 8y ago
  I agree with you that the Senate is not moot, as far as the need for giving individual states a voice. It's power has shifted, though, from making sure that more populous states could not ride roughshod over less populous, to the opposite of that. Less populous states can now ignore more populous states (in the Senate at least) because the Senate is more directly representing the people than it is the state. In essence, 100k people in a midwestern state have the same voting power as 1mil people in a coastal state. Additionally, Senators now have to worry about campaigning directly to the people instead of the legislatures, which makes them more subject to the whims of the people rather than their expected job of representing the states. The Senate is now just another House of Representatives, except an individual Senator has extremely outsized voting power compared to the number of people who elected them.

by jadell 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

Although you may have a valid criticism of the change in mechanism, I would not agree that the change makes it outright moot. The Senate still allows each state the same number of votes as any other state for that body. The House allots a varying number of representatives based on population. This was done intentionally so that larger/more populous states can't simply ignore smaller states. It preserves the voice of smaller states to some degree. It was intended to balance concerns and make sure that neither a demographic majority nor a demographic minority was at the mercy of the other.

jadell 8y ago
I agree with you that the Senate is not moot, as far as the need for giving individual states a voice. It's power has shifted, though, from making sure that more populous states could not ride roughshod over less populous, to the opposite of that. Less populous states can now ignore more populous states (in the Senate at least) because the Senate is more directly representing the people than it is the state. In essence, 100k people in a midwestern state have the same voting power as 1mil people in a coastal state. Additionally, Senators now have to worry about campaigning directly to the people instead of the legislatures, which makes them more subject to the whims of the people rather than their expected job of representing the states. The Senate is now just another House of Representatives, except an individual Senator has extremely outsized voting power compared to the number of people who elected them.