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I mean the republicans can hold up any nomination under a democrat president because they have a bunch of senators representing half the population of just that

by olliej 3y ago

I mean the republicans can hold up any nomination under a democrat president because they have a bunch of senators representing half the population of just that Bay Area, and then pass anyone under a republican president. They block replacing a republican justice for a year while saying he needed to be replaced by a conservative, then replaced Ginsberg in weeks with a justice that explicitly said the Bible is more important than the constitution. Then for some reason the constitution makes bribing the justices legal. Short of the Republican Party demonstrating any respect for the rule of or the democrat states splitting up like Dakota did for the sole purpose of getting increased senate representation nothing is going to change. Seriously CA should just split into 10 substates, all of which would be bigger than a bunch of the BS states.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
You don't have to go that silly. The main reason that DC and Puerto Rico aren't states is because they lean Democrat. Which is a particularly stupid reason for denying them statehood. The US was built on a protest over "taxation without representation", but have no qualms denying it to >3M Puerto Ricans.
- trealira 3y ago
  They had no problems denying it to slaves, either. And much of the holdup for adding new states to the US in the first half of the 19th century was the political question "will it tip the balance in favor of slave states or free states?" It was easiest to admit two at a time, one slave state, one free state, so that states could be admitted without political controversy.
tweedledot 3y ago
Funny how people don’t like mechanisms explicitly designed to combat the tyranny of the simple majority and to protect minority interests when it doesn’t suit them.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- olliej 3y ago
  Yeah, instead we have a system where we get tyranny of the minority, which is clearly superior. There are multiple states that combined have lower populations than individual cities in numerous successful states. Identical senator counts only (loosely) make sense when there's at least some similarity in state populations. Once you have multiple states which even combined have lower population than single cities in multiple other states it breaks down. Currently ~60% of the senate is determined by 25% of the population. This is ignoring the abuse of prisons to get even more over-representation (The inability of prisoners to vote actively encourage criminalization of groups that vote against you by targeting their activities, and the fact that representation in the house of representative is based on population of an area regardless of voting population means you can both stop a group from voting at all, and then simultaneously use that group to bolster your own representation is immoral, but so is voter suppression, so it's not remotely surprising) I think it would be reasonable, and in the spirit of the founder's demand for "no taxation without representation" that states owe federal taxes proportional to their federal representation. That way CA residents aren't having to pay more taxes per vote than those of Wyoming.

by olliej 3y ago

bryanlarsen 3y ago

You don't have to go that silly. The main reason that DC and Puerto Rico aren't states is because they lean Democrat. Which is a particularly stupid reason for denying them statehood. The US was built on a protest over "taxation without representation", but have no qualms denying it to >3M Puerto Ricans.

trealira 3y ago
They had no problems denying it to slaves, either. And much of the holdup for adding new states to the US in the first half of the 19th century was the political question "will it tip the balance in favor of slave states or free states?" It was easiest to admit two at a time, one slave state, one free state, so that states could be admitted without political controversy.

tweedledot 3y ago

Funny how people don’t like mechanisms explicitly designed to combat the tyranny of the simple majority and to protect minority interests when it doesn’t suit them.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
olliej 3y ago
Yeah, instead we have a system where we get tyranny of the minority, which is clearly superior. There are multiple states that combined have lower populations than individual cities in numerous successful states. Identical senator counts only (loosely) make sense when there's at least some similarity in state populations. Once you have multiple states which even combined have lower population than single cities in multiple other states it breaks down. Currently ~60% of the senate is determined by 25% of the population. This is ignoring the abuse of prisons to get even more over-representation (The inability of prisoners to vote actively encourage criminalization of groups that vote against you by targeting their activities, and the fact that representation in the house of representative is based on population of an area regardless of voting population means you can both stop a group from voting at all, and then simultaneously use that group to bolster your own representation is immoral, but so is voter suppression, so it's not remotely surprising) I think it would be reasonable, and in the spirit of the founder's demand for "no taxation without representation" that states owe federal taxes proportional to their federal representation. That way CA residents aren't having to pay more taxes per vote than those of Wyoming.