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> The House + Senate system was setup so that less-populous states would still get a say in federal policies that impacted them. But what was "less-populous" w

> The House + Senate system was setup so that less-populous states would still get a say in federal policies that impacted them. But what was "less-populous" when this was initially configured? What was the disparity between the lowest- and highest-population states/colonies back then? Los Angeles county has a higher population than 40 states: * https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-05-12/los-angeles-county-has-a-higher-population-than-40-states-essential-california https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-05-12/los... It has a population of 9.8M: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California That's more than New Jersey: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

pie_flavor 4y ago
You say this as though this means a popular vote is a better idea, rather than a worse idea.
- danaris 4y ago
  What do you think would happen if every person in LA County had their vote for president count as much as every person in Wyoming? It's not like the vote for President is something where people from cities are going to have an opportunity to vote to harvest the blood and organs from people from rural areas or something (as if that's something they even would vote for if that were on the table). It's literally only about electing the President. That's all the electoral college affects. It's become somewhat of a meme that there's this big divide between rural dwellers and city dwellers, and that somehow if city dwellers were allowed to have genuine proportional representation, somehow they would screw over the rural dwellers, but I have never heard anyone articulate any specific thing they think would go toward that. Let alone how they think getting proportional representation purely for Presidential elections would let them do so.
  - pie_flavor 4y ago
    But the president does not just represent dwellers. He also represents jurisdictions and governments. This is the reason a state's pull in the presidential election is a combination of its pull in the House (representing purely dwellers) and its pull in the Senate (representing purely jurisdictions/governments). People who want a popular vote for the president fundamentally do not see the US as a federation. People who want a leader for LA can vote for LA's mayor. It is unfortunate how many people did not pay attention in civics class when they went over every compromise made in the formation of the Constitution, especially the ones about population proportionality as it relates to the legislative and executive branches. If you want the particular arguments for how large states would screw over small ones, the records of the Constitutional Convention are a good place to start.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      I briefly went over what the founders actually thought of people like non land owners and democracy. Spoiler: they didn’t care for democracy as much as their own class and kind having a lot of power. It’s unfortunate how much people pay attention to civics classes and never learn what the status quo has no interest in teaching them.
    - divided 4y ago
      Ah yes, the 3/5ths compromise and its relevance to today’s world. Basing one’s political beliefs on apportionment of power over the fears held by 18th century politicians feels ripe for bad takes. There are many, many other divides than high population vs low population territories that we conveniently ignore in this debate. If you want to argue in favor of the population of smaller states deserving greater representation, can I get you on board for giving black people, Muslims, LGBTQ members, and communists vote multipliers as well? You see, there’s actual historical precedent for population majorities screwing over these groups. In comparison, those small population states you fight so valiantly to protect historically receive more tax dollars than they pay in. Seems like a pretty sweet deal. Before you say hey that’s all thanks to disproportionate representation, Canada and other countries with more proportionate representation see the same thing. You see, small population states are in general beneficiaries of putting their lot in with bigger states. Giving them more vote power on top of that is… silly.
- throw0101a 4y ago
  You say this like some people's votes should count less than other people's votes.
mgoldstein5 4y ago
- hef19898 4y ago
  The ideal should be equal representation. If some over-representation is going on it has to be corrected. If not, is is undermining democracy.
  - mgoldstein5 4y ago
- divided 4y ago
  This has always been a weird belief to me. California is the US’s best economy and a leader in science, art, technology, education, trade, manufacturing, and agriculture. It has led the way on many civil rights issues which later end up being adopted by the nation as a whole. So much value for the US and it should be disfavored over those that provide so much less? Sure it has its problems, but just looking at results it’s clear California is the most successful state we have. So you want to overrepresent the unsuccessful states?
- throw0101a 4y ago
  Why?
dahfizz 4y ago
The really cool thing about Federalism is that California can make it's own laws about what happens in California. On a Federal level, California has to share power with the other 49 states. California should not be able to dictate federal policy for everyone else.
- danaris 4y ago
  And...they can't? Even with fully proportional representation, there is no state that would be able to do anything close to "dictat[ing] federal policy". California has, according to other people in this discussion, about 40 million people. The US as a whole has about 340 million people. You'd need 5 Californias, all voting in perfect unison, to "dictate federal policy" in a fully proportional system. And guess what? California does not, in fact, vote in perfect unison, and no one's proposing a system wherein the people of the state vote, and then assign their state's proportional votes entirely to whichever result in that statewide vote gets 50% + 1 votes. Oh, wait. There is a system that does that. The Electoral College. The one we're talking about getting rid of. In 2020's Presidential election, California cast more votes for Trump than Texas did. (And Texas cast more votes for Biden than New York did, for that matter.) In a fully proportional system, something like a third of California's representatives (based on those 2020 Presidential election results) would be voting for policies that the GOP favors. Once you stop looking at the Electoral College maps and thinking that they accurately depict the political leanings of the country, you start to realize that no state is homogeneous, and the idea that we need to treat them as such is, at best, a hopeless anachronism, and at worst active propaganda.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Thank you for saying two big things. (1) how relatively balanced the country is with Dem and Repub divide. I just looked and was blown away how often most states were within a 65/35 divide of voting for president. (2) bringing up a silly system that ends up being electoral college. But bringing up some “silly” alternative is an issue because doing away with 2 senators per state doesn’t automatically mean we just duplicate the house in the senate. Why is that the assumption. DC should be a state and PR should be a state if they majority vote for it too. These should be beyond obvious and agreeable if people really believe in the reasons America exists and democracy etc. When my initial comment went against the current senate set up, I didn’t say disband the senate. I’d be fine with a scaling system of Senators like 12 for California, 10 for Texas, 8 for Florida, New York, 6 for next eight states, and so on. This will lead to an amount of around 200 senators. Giving California 5-6% of the Senate instead of 2% isn’t going to suddenly destroy the farmer in Kansas from having any power.

pie_flavor 4y ago

You say this as though this means a popular vote is a better idea, rather than a worse idea.

danaris 4y ago
What do you think would happen if every person in LA County had their vote for president count as much as every person in Wyoming? It's not like the vote for President is something where people from cities are going to have an opportunity to vote to harvest the blood and organs from people from rural areas or something (as if that's something they even would vote for if that were on the table). It's literally only about electing the President. That's all the electoral college affects. It's become somewhat of a meme that there's this big divide between rural dwellers and city dwellers, and that somehow if city dwellers were allowed to have genuine proportional representation, somehow they would screw over the rural dwellers, but I have never heard anyone articulate any specific thing they think would go toward that. Let alone how they think getting proportional representation purely for Presidential elections would let them do so.
- pie_flavor 4y ago
  But the president does not just represent dwellers. He also represents jurisdictions and governments. This is the reason a state's pull in the presidential election is a combination of its pull in the House (representing purely dwellers) and its pull in the Senate (representing purely jurisdictions/governments). People who want a popular vote for the president fundamentally do not see the US as a federation. People who want a leader for LA can vote for LA's mayor. It is unfortunate how many people did not pay attention in civics class when they went over every compromise made in the formation of the Constitution, especially the ones about population proportionality as it relates to the legislative and executive branches. If you want the particular arguments for how large states would screw over small ones, the records of the Constitutional Convention are a good place to start.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    I briefly went over what the founders actually thought of people like non land owners and democracy. Spoiler: they didn’t care for democracy as much as their own class and kind having a lot of power. It’s unfortunate how much people pay attention to civics classes and never learn what the status quo has no interest in teaching them.
  - divided 4y ago
    Ah yes, the 3/5ths compromise and its relevance to today’s world. Basing one’s political beliefs on apportionment of power over the fears held by 18th century politicians feels ripe for bad takes. There are many, many other divides than high population vs low population territories that we conveniently ignore in this debate. If you want to argue in favor of the population of smaller states deserving greater representation, can I get you on board for giving black people, Muslims, LGBTQ members, and communists vote multipliers as well? You see, there’s actual historical precedent for population majorities screwing over these groups. In comparison, those small population states you fight so valiantly to protect historically receive more tax dollars than they pay in. Seems like a pretty sweet deal. Before you say hey that’s all thanks to disproportionate representation, Canada and other countries with more proportionate representation see the same thing. You see, small population states are in general beneficiaries of putting their lot in with bigger states. Giving them more vote power on top of that is… silly.
throw0101a 4y ago
You say this like some people's votes should count less than other people's votes.

mgoldstein5 4y ago

hef19898 4y ago
The ideal should be equal representation. If some over-representation is going on it has to be corrected. If not, is is undermining democracy.
- mgoldstein5 4y ago
divided 4y ago
This has always been a weird belief to me. California is the US’s best economy and a leader in science, art, technology, education, trade, manufacturing, and agriculture. It has led the way on many civil rights issues which later end up being adopted by the nation as a whole. So much value for the US and it should be disfavored over those that provide so much less? Sure it has its problems, but just looking at results it’s clear California is the most successful state we have. So you want to overrepresent the unsuccessful states?
throw0101a 4y ago
Why?

dahfizz 4y ago

The really cool thing about Federalism is that California can make it's own laws about what happens in California. On a Federal level, California has to share power with the other 49 states. California should not be able to dictate federal policy for everyone else.

danaris 4y ago
And...they can't? Even with fully proportional representation, there is no state that would be able to do anything close to "dictat[ing] federal policy". California has, according to other people in this discussion, about 40 million people. The US as a whole has about 340 million people. You'd need 5 Californias, all voting in perfect unison, to "dictate federal policy" in a fully proportional system. And guess what? California does not, in fact, vote in perfect unison, and no one's proposing a system wherein the people of the state vote, and then assign their state's proportional votes entirely to whichever result in that statewide vote gets 50% + 1 votes. Oh, wait. There is a system that does that. The Electoral College. The one we're talking about getting rid of. In 2020's Presidential election, California cast more votes for Trump than Texas did. (And Texas cast more votes for Biden than New York did, for that matter.) In a fully proportional system, something like a third of California's representatives (based on those 2020 Presidential election results) would be voting for policies that the GOP favors. Once you stop looking at the Electoral College maps and thinking that they accurately depict the political leanings of the country, you start to realize that no state is homogeneous, and the idea that we need to treat them as such is, at best, a hopeless anachronism, and at worst active propaganda.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Thank you for saying two big things. (1) how relatively balanced the country is with Dem and Repub divide. I just looked and was blown away how often most states were within a 65/35 divide of voting for president. (2) bringing up a silly system that ends up being electoral college. But bringing up some “silly” alternative is an issue because doing away with 2 senators per state doesn’t automatically mean we just duplicate the house in the senate. Why is that the assumption. DC should be a state and PR should be a state if they majority vote for it too. These should be beyond obvious and agreeable if people really believe in the reasons America exists and democracy etc. When my initial comment went against the current senate set up, I didn’t say disband the senate. I’d be fine with a scaling system of Senators like 12 for California, 10 for Texas, 8 for Florida, New York, 6 for next eight states, and so on. This will lead to an amount of around 200 senators. Giving California 5-6% of the Senate instead of 2% isn’t going to suddenly destroy the farmer in Kansas from having any power.