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I really strongly believe that each state legislature should have a structure similar to the federal legislature in order to address this: state representatives

I really strongly believe that each state legislature should have a structure similar to the federal legislature in order to address this: state representatives should be apportioned by population and state senators should be apportioned by counties. This way the geographic regions of states would have a say, and you wouldn't have places like Boston, New York City or Denver running roughshod over the rest of their respective states.

ghaff 8y ago
While I tend to agree in principle, there's nothing special about how county lines are drawn. In Massachusetts (like many states), counties are pretty much irrelevant except for some fairly specific purposes. (For example, state courts and related legal institutions are organized by country.)
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
I like this idea. It seems like it would work well considering that the population in the US in 1800 was on the same order as the population of many states.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
> This way the geographic regions of states would have a say What's the ideological basis for giving "geographic minorities" extra voting power? Should we give extra voting power for other minorities too, based on race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.? Should we give Muslims and Jews their own legislative house so the Christian majority doesn't run roughshod over them? Maybe a separate house for racial minorities, or for gay people so that the straight majority doesn't dominate them?
- bcgraham 8y ago
  Many (most?) of the risks governments are trying to mitigate are fundamentally geographic - interpersonal violence, spread of fire, spread of disease, etc.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    Why does, say, halting the spread of fire or disease require extra voting power given to rural areas? And couldn't you make a similar argument for, say, the government dealing with racial discrimination/dismantling oppressive power structures? There are fewer women in legislative roles than men, and women deal with all kinds of crap in society, does that mean women should be given extra votes?
    - ameister14 8y ago
      Well, because the majority of the population might not vote to distribute money to infrastructure outside of their area - why should the state pay for something that the majority of the state won't immediately use? Without some political power, the rural areas wouldn't be likely to even get proportional funding and infrastructure. There are a lot of issues that are fundamentally important to people living in one area that those in another don't care about. Water rights for agriculture are a good example. The most important part, though? If you live in the city and your vote counts 9/10ths of the vote of a person in a rural community, you're probably not going to complain about lack of representation. If you live in a rural community and you have one representative and the city has 12, you may complain and that complaint may turn into violence or rebellion, because you feel you don't have adequate representation even though statistically speaking, you do.
      - vkou 8y ago
        The majority of the population might not vote to extend the same services, rights, protection, or opportunities to minorities. There's a lot of issues important to those demographics, that are, in the world we live in, not important to others. If you give cis white people 9/10th of the vote of a trans black person, people will absolutely complain about lack of representation. They will lose their minds. Have you been paying any attention to gender/race issues over the past... Well, ever? There are political movements, with street marches, and torches focused on 'taking the country back' from people who are, by most metrics, are getting the short end of the stick.
- rukittenme 8y ago
  > Should we give "X" their own legislative house so the "Y" majority doesn't run roughshod over them? Yes. Though that method is more inefficient than the ones we already have. The Constitution's purpose is the suppression of the majority. At every end it is designed to impede 'progress'. Three houses of government, a bi-cameral legislature, voting rules which require large majorities of representatives, voting rules which require large majorities of states, differing term lengths, and "hard" limits on federal power (admittedly this section of the constitution has failed). If we wanted the majority to get what they wanted we would just vote in referendums.
- rileyphone 8y ago
  Sounds similar to the way the Lebanese government works.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
The senate's structure made sense at the time of the country's founding, when people thought of themselves as citizens of their state first, and citizens of their (very recent) country second. But that hasn't been true for at least decades now, and thus the Senate is rather anti-democratic. People shouldn't have more or less voting power just because of where they live in the US.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The senate's structure made sense at the time of the country's founding, Sure, when the question of “how do we make sure the slave states, who have smaller population and even smaller yet free, voting populations than the free states, are able to protect the institution of slavery” was current, all of the structure of the Senate, it's mirror in the electoral college, and the 3/5 compromise for the House made sense.
  - aaron-lebo 8y ago
    The Virginia Plan (also known as the Randolph Plan, after its sponsor, or the Large-State Plan) was a proposal by Virginia delegates for a bicameral legislative branch.[1] The plan was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.[2][3] The Virginia Plan was notable for its role in setting the overall agenda for debate in the convention and, in particular, for setting forth the idea of population-weighted representation in the proposed national legislature. Quoting this because it's important to note it's not nearly as simple as that. Virginia was the largest state (and largest slaveholding state).
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Yes, but looking at the larger picture, the tidewater aristocracy's interests were protected by the disproportionate power given to the South up till the Civil War, so I think the claim you're responding to is compelling.
      - 8y ago
dragonwriter 8y ago
A number of states did have that kind of structure, before this unequal distribution of voting power was successfully challenged as a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Giving people extra votes because of empty land, or slaves, is just a way of saying some people are more worthy of having government reflect their will than others.
- eadmund 8y ago
  > A number of states did have that kind of structure, before this unequal distribution of voting power was successfully challenged as a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. It's ludicrous to claim that the constitutional form of government violates the Constitution. Since apportionment of federal senators by state doesn't violate the Constitution, apportionment of state senators by county doesn't either.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Not at all. States are sovereign, counties are lines on a map. The county that I live in is an artifact of a feudal Dutch patroonship and was 3x larger a 150 years ago. A county about an hour from me is the legacy of a land-grant to a revolutionary war hero and is mostly berfit of people. Why should a mountain be better represented than my family? Apportionment of US Senators doesn't violate the constitution because it is explicitly referenced in the constitution. The Senate has always been a reactionary force in US politics, placed there to ensure the political power of the south -- since their population of "human chattel" would have limited their political influence. The openly corrupt nature of it's early makeup (ie. no direct election of Senators) was partially addresses via constitutional amendment. The legacy of the Senate isn't pretty -- it is directly responsible for the system of vigilante lynching that terrorized the south, for example. What's ludicrous is replicating that legacy of regressive policy and difficult to hold accountable representatives in other layers of government.
    - aaron-lebo 8y ago
      The Senate is directly responsible for lynching? Holy claims Batman, you should back up such an assertion. They were, among other things, aping the British system, where a reactionary upper house was an old feature.
Spooky23 8y ago
All things being equal that would be great, but things are not equal. There is more than ample evidence that racism and partisan politics would disenfranchise voters and cause more harm than the current "one person, one vote" system. With an exception of the US Senate, which is a nod to the nominal sovereignty of US states, american representatives at all levels represent people, not territory. I don't know too much about Colorado or Massachusetts, but the issue in New York has nothing to do with voting policy. Our national policy for 50 years has been to sacrifice the overall prosperity of the nation and gut all of the productive sectors. In my father's lifetime, the corridor from Utica to Syracuse to Rochester to Buffalo was an economic powerhouse. Decades of tax and fiscal policy sent industry south and abroad, and turned those places into shadows of their former selves. Springfield and Holyoke are similar stories in Massachusetts. People out there resent the ever creeping outward Boston metro, but the core of their economy is educating Boston metro kids. The only reasons that public institutions in these place still function is the tax revenue generated in the big cities.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  > With an exception of the US Senate, which is a nod to the nominal sovereignty of US states, american representatives at all levels represent people, not territory. The Senate could be seen as a nod to geographic minorities, allowing the few people in, say, Wyoming to have an equal footing with more populous states like New York. Most states have a Senate, it's not just a national thing - unless you think the state Senate is a nod to nominal sovereignty of the counties?
  - eropple 8y ago
    Most state senates, as far as I am aware--and while I used to do work in this space I am no expert--are elected by roughly equivalently-populated districts. They're an "upper house" that might be elected on a longer cycle but they're still fairly similar in partitioning (just usually fewer of its members). Which is fine to me, tbh. Land doesn't need to vote.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    There is certainly a valid view to see it as a way to represent those interests. To my knowledge, counties and cities are almost always political subdivisions of the State, so that "nod" to geography isn't justified by that nominal sovereignty. Usually a state senate is an upper house that has a smaller number of members, and usually has unique "advise and consent" powers over judicial and executive appointments.
nhfoiwehf 8y ago
Your proposal would make a city-dweller's vote worth less than the vote of a rural resident. This is brazenly unequal and undemocratic.

ghaff 8y ago

While I tend to agree in principle, there's nothing special about how county lines are drawn. In Massachusetts (like many states), counties are pretty much irrelevant except for some fairly specific purposes. (For example, state courts and related legal institutions are organized by country.)

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

I like this idea. It seems like it would work well considering that the population in the US in 1800 was on the same order as the population of many states.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> This way the geographic regions of states would have a say What's the ideological basis for giving "geographic minorities" extra voting power? Should we give extra voting power for other minorities too, based on race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.? Should we give Muslims and Jews their own legislative house so the Christian majority doesn't run roughshod over them? Maybe a separate house for racial minorities, or for gay people so that the straight majority doesn't dominate them?

bcgraham 8y ago
Many (most?) of the risks governments are trying to mitigate are fundamentally geographic - interpersonal violence, spread of fire, spread of disease, etc.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  Why does, say, halting the spread of fire or disease require extra voting power given to rural areas? And couldn't you make a similar argument for, say, the government dealing with racial discrimination/dismantling oppressive power structures? There are fewer women in legislative roles than men, and women deal with all kinds of crap in society, does that mean women should be given extra votes?
  - ameister14 8y ago
    Well, because the majority of the population might not vote to distribute money to infrastructure outside of their area - why should the state pay for something that the majority of the state won't immediately use? Without some political power, the rural areas wouldn't be likely to even get proportional funding and infrastructure. There are a lot of issues that are fundamentally important to people living in one area that those in another don't care about. Water rights for agriculture are a good example. The most important part, though? If you live in the city and your vote counts 9/10ths of the vote of a person in a rural community, you're probably not going to complain about lack of representation. If you live in a rural community and you have one representative and the city has 12, you may complain and that complaint may turn into violence or rebellion, because you feel you don't have adequate representation even though statistically speaking, you do.
    - vkou 8y ago
      The majority of the population might not vote to extend the same services, rights, protection, or opportunities to minorities. There's a lot of issues important to those demographics, that are, in the world we live in, not important to others. If you give cis white people 9/10th of the vote of a trans black person, people will absolutely complain about lack of representation. They will lose their minds. Have you been paying any attention to gender/race issues over the past... Well, ever? There are political movements, with street marches, and torches focused on 'taking the country back' from people who are, by most metrics, are getting the short end of the stick.
rukittenme 8y ago
> Should we give "X" their own legislative house so the "Y" majority doesn't run roughshod over them? Yes. Though that method is more inefficient than the ones we already have. The Constitution's purpose is the suppression of the majority. At every end it is designed to impede 'progress'. Three houses of government, a bi-cameral legislature, voting rules which require large majorities of representatives, voting rules which require large majorities of states, differing term lengths, and "hard" limits on federal power (admittedly this section of the constitution has failed). If we wanted the majority to get what they wanted we would just vote in referendums.
rileyphone 8y ago
Sounds similar to the way the Lebanese government works.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

The senate's structure made sense at the time of the country's founding, when people thought of themselves as citizens of their state first, and citizens of their (very recent) country second. But that hasn't been true for at least decades now, and thus the Senate is rather anti-democratic. People shouldn't have more or less voting power just because of where they live in the US.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> The senate's structure made sense at the time of the country's founding, Sure, when the question of “how do we make sure the slave states, who have smaller population and even smaller yet free, voting populations than the free states, are able to protect the institution of slavery” was current, all of the structure of the Senate, it's mirror in the electoral college, and the 3/5 compromise for the House made sense.
- aaron-lebo 8y ago
  The Virginia Plan (also known as the Randolph Plan, after its sponsor, or the Large-State Plan) was a proposal by Virginia delegates for a bicameral legislative branch.[1] The plan was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.[2][3] The Virginia Plan was notable for its role in setting the overall agenda for debate in the convention and, in particular, for setting forth the idea of population-weighted representation in the proposed national legislature. Quoting this because it's important to note it's not nearly as simple as that. Virginia was the largest state (and largest slaveholding state).
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Yes, but looking at the larger picture, the tidewater aristocracy's interests were protected by the disproportionate power given to the South up till the Civil War, so I think the claim you're responding to is compelling.
    - 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

A number of states did have that kind of structure, before this unequal distribution of voting power was successfully challenged as a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Giving people extra votes because of empty land, or slaves, is just a way of saying some people are more worthy of having government reflect their will than others.

eadmund 8y ago
> A number of states did have that kind of structure, before this unequal distribution of voting power was successfully challenged as a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. It's ludicrous to claim that the constitutional form of government violates the Constitution. Since apportionment of federal senators by state doesn't violate the Constitution, apportionment of state senators by county doesn't either.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Not at all. States are sovereign, counties are lines on a map. The county that I live in is an artifact of a feudal Dutch patroonship and was 3x larger a 150 years ago. A county about an hour from me is the legacy of a land-grant to a revolutionary war hero and is mostly berfit of people. Why should a mountain be better represented than my family? Apportionment of US Senators doesn't violate the constitution because it is explicitly referenced in the constitution. The Senate has always been a reactionary force in US politics, placed there to ensure the political power of the south -- since their population of "human chattel" would have limited their political influence. The openly corrupt nature of it's early makeup (ie. no direct election of Senators) was partially addresses via constitutional amendment. The legacy of the Senate isn't pretty -- it is directly responsible for the system of vigilante lynching that terrorized the south, for example. What's ludicrous is replicating that legacy of regressive policy and difficult to hold accountable representatives in other layers of government.
  - aaron-lebo 8y ago
    The Senate is directly responsible for lynching? Holy claims Batman, you should back up such an assertion. They were, among other things, aping the British system, where a reactionary upper house was an old feature.

Spooky23 8y ago

All things being equal that would be great, but things are not equal. There is more than ample evidence that racism and partisan politics would disenfranchise voters and cause more harm than the current "one person, one vote" system. With an exception of the US Senate, which is a nod to the nominal sovereignty of US states, american representatives at all levels represent people, not territory. I don't know too much about Colorado or Massachusetts, but the issue in New York has nothing to do with voting policy. Our national policy for 50 years has been to sacrifice the overall prosperity of the nation and gut all of the productive sectors. In my father's lifetime, the corridor from Utica to Syracuse to Rochester to Buffalo was an economic powerhouse. Decades of tax and fiscal policy sent industry south and abroad, and turned those places into shadows of their former selves. Springfield and Holyoke are similar stories in Massachusetts. People out there resent the ever creeping outward Boston metro, but the core of their economy is educating Boston metro kids. The only reasons that public institutions in these place still function is the tax revenue generated in the big cities.

LeifCarrotson 8y ago
> With an exception of the US Senate, which is a nod to the nominal sovereignty of US states, american representatives at all levels represent people, not territory. The Senate could be seen as a nod to geographic minorities, allowing the few people in, say, Wyoming to have an equal footing with more populous states like New York. Most states have a Senate, it's not just a national thing - unless you think the state Senate is a nod to nominal sovereignty of the counties?
- eropple 8y ago
  Most state senates, as far as I am aware--and while I used to do work in this space I am no expert--are elected by roughly equivalently-populated districts. They're an "upper house" that might be elected on a longer cycle but they're still fairly similar in partitioning (just usually fewer of its members). Which is fine to me, tbh. Land doesn't need to vote.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  There is certainly a valid view to see it as a way to represent those interests. To my knowledge, counties and cities are almost always political subdivisions of the State, so that "nod" to geography isn't justified by that nominal sovereignty. Usually a state senate is an upper house that has a smaller number of members, and usually has unique "advise and consent" powers over judicial and executive appointments.

nhfoiwehf 8y ago

Your proposal would make a city-dweller's vote worth less than the vote of a rural resident. This is brazenly unequal and undemocratic.