3 ms·

> And, in large part due to the Electoral College and a malapportioned Senate that gives Republicans an unfair advantage in the fight for control over the judic

> And, in large part due to the Electoral College and a malapportioned Senate that gives Republicans an unfair advantage in the fight for control over the judiciary This is biased and wrong. The Senate is no more malapportioned than is the Council of Europe, which likewise gives equal weight to each member state. The U.S. Senate is meant to represent the states. This reinforces my opinion that the Seventeenth Amendment (which mandates a popular vote for senators) was a mistake. Honestly, I kinda feel that state legislatures should appoint some or all of their states' electors, too.

js2 4y ago
What Vox wrote is a correct statement of fact. Malapportionment is the creation of electoral districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics)#Malapportionment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics)#Malap... You may agree with malapportionment, but that's a difference in opinion over how a legislative body should be designed. Hamilton was not a fan though: Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. (Fed .22)
- eadmund 4y ago
  > Malapportionment is the creation of electoral districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives. That begs the question of whether the representatives represent voters or something else. I think it's obvious that Senators represent the states, and in that sense the ratio of represented to representatives is a fair and even 1:2.
  - js2 4y ago
    The term was coined in the 1960s to describe how voters are represented. Any unequal representation of the voter is by definition malapportionment. That is the common use of the term. A Google or DDG search will find dozens upon dozens of uses of this meaning: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108670 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108670 https://www.nytimes.com/1967/11/02/archives/westchester-malapportionment.html https://www.nytimes.com/1967/11/02/archives/westchester-mala... https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/and-to-malapportionment.html https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/and-to-malapport... https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/10/opinion/one-person-one-vote-for-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/10/opinion/one-person-one-vo... Etc. The Senate is a malapportioned legislative body by design and by definition.

js2 4y ago

What Vox wrote is a correct statement of fact. Malapportionment is the creation of electoral districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics)#Malapportionment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics)#Malap... You may agree with malapportionment, but that's a difference in opinion over how a legislative body should be designed. Hamilton was not a fan though: Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. (Fed .22)

eadmund 4y ago
> Malapportionment is the creation of electoral districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives. That begs the question of whether the representatives represent voters or something else. I think it's obvious that Senators represent the states, and in that sense the ratio of represented to representatives is a fair and even 1:2.
- js2 4y ago
  The term was coined in the 1960s to describe how voters are represented. Any unequal representation of the voter is by definition malapportionment. That is the common use of the term. A Google or DDG search will find dozens upon dozens of uses of this meaning: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108670 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108670 https://www.nytimes.com/1967/11/02/archives/westchester-malapportionment.html https://www.nytimes.com/1967/11/02/archives/westchester-mala... https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/and-to-malapportionment.html https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/and-to-malapport... https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/10/opinion/one-person-one-vote-for-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/10/opinion/one-person-one-vo... Etc. The Senate is a malapportioned legislative body by design and by definition.