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The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. To say that o

The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. To say that one party doesn’t want people to be represented at all is a ridiculous straw-man.

belltaco 5y ago
>The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. Isn't DC a low population region? Then why does one party not want them to be represented at all?
- rplst8 5y ago
  DC has about 700,000 residents and a population density on par with Chicago.
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    Small state != rural state. Rhode Island is a small state, it isn’t rural. Hawaii is a small state, above average population density. Small and large on an electoral basis refer to population size.
pmyteh 5y ago
I mean, it isn't? If DC voted Republican then they'd be totally in favour of making it a state. It's not a secret that is the reason why DC statehood has no traction in Congress. You can make a case for retrocession, but the other arguments are understood by everyone to be a fig leaf. The same was true in the past: Alaska and Hawaii were admitted essentially as a two-for-one deal because Alaska was reliably Republican and Hawaii reliably Democrat. If both had been one or the other they might have had to wait a long time. And the arguments would have been facially plausible (but not real) here too: the importance of territorial contiguity, the low population of Alaska, the difficulties of establishing effective transportation links, whatever. The number of people who are for (small-d) democratic advances regardless of whether they benefit their own party is (in my view depressingly) low.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  New Mexico had to wait quite a bit due to having too many brown people.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wbsss4412 5y ago
The senate exists because 13 formerly independent, sovereign political units decided to form a United federal superstructure above them. Some of these states had land claims that went out to Pacific Ocean at the time and it wouldn’t have made any sense to enter into a union with states that would be wildly out of proportion in potentially a very short time. Since then 37 more states have joined, almost all carved out of territory formerly owned by the federal government itself, settled largely by people from other states and immigrants under the direction of said federal government. They were never independently sovereign units yet we all live under the political bargains that were struck to reach an agreement with the original 13. The system was not designed with this reality in mind, it was a pragmatic decision dressed up with the political theory of the time. If “protecting minority interests” were that important, there are much better systems designs that actually are tailored to fit the political realities of America in 2021.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. By ensuring (by overrepresenting the same interests overrepresented in the House by a smaller margin, and in the electoral college by a margin in between that of the two Houses of Congress) that a particular minority will reliably be able to trample the interests of the opposing majority.
8note 5y ago
No, that's the point of guaranteeing two seats in Congress. If that's the point of the Senate, those states should be sharing 1 congressional seat amongst multiple states to match their population

belltaco 5y ago

>The purpose of the senate is to make sure that low population regions have a voice, and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. Isn't DC a low population region? Then why does one party not want them to be represented at all?

rplst8 5y ago
DC has about 700,000 residents and a population density on par with Chicago.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  Small state != rural state. Rhode Island is a small state, it isn’t rural. Hawaii is a small state, above average population density. Small and large on an electoral basis refer to population size.

pmyteh 5y ago

I mean, it isn't? If DC voted Republican then they'd be totally in favour of making it a state. It's not a secret that is the reason why DC statehood has no traction in Congress. You can make a case for retrocession, but the other arguments are understood by everyone to be a fig leaf. The same was true in the past: Alaska and Hawaii were admitted essentially as a two-for-one deal because Alaska was reliably Republican and Hawaii reliably Democrat. If both had been one or the other they might have had to wait a long time. And the arguments would have been facially plausible (but not real) here too: the importance of territorial contiguity, the low population of Alaska, the difficulties of establishing effective transportation links, whatever. The number of people who are for (small-d) democratic advances regardless of whether they benefit their own party is (in my view depressingly) low.

selimthegrim 5y ago
New Mexico had to wait quite a bit due to having too many brown people.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wbsss4412 5y ago

The senate exists because 13 formerly independent, sovereign political units decided to form a United federal superstructure above them. Some of these states had land claims that went out to Pacific Ocean at the time and it wouldn’t have made any sense to enter into a union with states that would be wildly out of proportion in potentially a very short time. Since then 37 more states have joined, almost all carved out of territory formerly owned by the federal government itself, settled largely by people from other states and immigrants under the direction of said federal government. They were never independently sovereign units yet we all live under the political bargains that were struck to reach an agreement with the original 13. The system was not designed with this reality in mind, it was a pragmatic decision dressed up with the political theory of the time. If “protecting minority interests” were that important, there are much better systems designs that actually are tailored to fit the political realities of America in 2021.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> and that majority interests don’t trample minority interests. By ensuring (by overrepresenting the same interests overrepresented in the House by a smaller margin, and in the electoral college by a margin in between that of the two Houses of Congress) that a particular minority will reliably be able to trample the interests of the opposing majority.

8note 5y ago

No, that's the point of guaranteeing two seats in Congress. If that's the point of the Senate, those states should be sharing 1 congressional seat amongst multiple states to match their population