3 ms·

Only his first point (about getting a fair number of senators) makes sense. Senate representation is a big problem for our country. Things have gotten to the po

by hristov 13y ago

Only his first point (about getting a fair number of senators) makes sense. Senate representation is a big problem for our country. Things have gotten to the point where many small states can flat out extort the US population as a whole. (Our terrible corn based ethanol legislation is an example of such extortion.) Unfortunately, I do not think splitting CA will get us more senators. I am pretty sure that additional states have to be approved on the federal level. And considering Washington, DC. still to this day does not have Senate representation, I really really doubt the federal government would allow California to have 10 more senators.

r00fus 13y ago
The small states aren't extorting the country, they simply act as the cheapest way to buy Senators for megacorps and rich interests, esp. now with Citizens United court ruling that money==speech. Why do you think Liz Cheney (with a relative toxic name-recognition but massive political pull and deep pockets) wants to compete against Enzi? Because it costs much less to nuke the state in advertising, and outright bribes than a big state like CA - and the senator of WY has just as much pull as the senator of CA or TX. There are only ~576k votes in all of WY and if she wins the Republican primary (even smaller than the electorate as a whole), she pretty much wins the race.
prewett 13y ago
The Senate representation is by design, so that large states cannot bully the small ones. Big states get more leverage in the House of Representatives and the smaller states are on equal footing with the larger states in the Senate. I think it is a good system. What would you have the small states do, anyway? The representatives are acting in the interest of their constituents, which is what they are supposed to do. How many corn-producing states are there? More than the 25 states needed for a majority in the Senate? Really? Even so, how did it get past the House? If the representatives of the populous extorted states can't see how the corn legislation is bad, maybe those other states need better representation. Maybe California even supported it, since they are all environmentally-conscious (even if not always well-informed). Or maybe it is not actually bad legislation: Wikipedia [1] seems to claim that ethanol in gasoline replaces a harmful chemical that was polluting groundwater, but that ethanol producers were having problems staying afloat in the Panic of 2008-9. The government was well-designed, please don't try to "fix" it. Instead, let's eliminate special interests buying harmful legislation, which is the real problem. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_Stat...

by hristov 13y ago

r00fus 13y ago

The small states aren't extorting the country, they simply act as the cheapest way to buy Senators for megacorps and rich interests, esp. now with Citizens United court ruling that money==speech. Why do you think Liz Cheney (with a relative toxic name-recognition but massive political pull and deep pockets) wants to compete against Enzi? Because it costs much less to nuke the state in advertising, and outright bribes than a big state like CA - and the senator of WY has just as much pull as the senator of CA or TX. There are only ~576k votes in all of WY and if she wins the Republican primary (even smaller than the electorate as a whole), she pretty much wins the race.

prewett 13y ago

The Senate representation is by design, so that large states cannot bully the small ones. Big states get more leverage in the House of Representatives and the smaller states are on equal footing with the larger states in the Senate. I think it is a good system. What would you have the small states do, anyway? The representatives are acting in the interest of their constituents, which is what they are supposed to do. How many corn-producing states are there? More than the 25 states needed for a majority in the Senate? Really? Even so, how did it get past the House? If the representatives of the populous extorted states can't see how the corn legislation is bad, maybe those other states need better representation. Maybe California even supported it, since they are all environmentally-conscious (even if not always well-informed). Or maybe it is not actually bad legislation: Wikipedia [1] seems to claim that ethanol in gasoline replaces a harmful chemical that was polluting groundwater, but that ethanol producers were having problems staying afloat in the Panic of 2008-9. The government was well-designed, please don't try to "fix" it. Instead, let's eliminate special interests buying harmful legislation, which is the real problem. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_Stat...