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The undemocratic part was considered a feature, not a bug. As to unreasonable: It's a rare issue that unites the smaller states. From a national political pers
by twoodfin 13y ago
The undemocratic part was considered a feature, not a bug.
As to unreasonable: It's a rare issue that unites the smaller states. From a national political perspective, Vermont and Wyoming couldn't be much further apart. So I am not persuaded by arguments that assume there is a threat of a small-state Senate alliance against the overwhelming wishes of the rest of the country.
On the other hand, if you want to argue that overuse of the filibuster has put an inordinate amount of legislative power in the hands of the Senate majority leader and a dozen middle-of-the-road Senators, I agree. But the solution to that problem is to fix the filibuster, not destroy the Constitutional balance between states and the Federal government.
- dllthomas 13y agoUndemocratic is a feature and a bug. It shifts over firmly into "bug" territory when it gets too extreme. "From a national political perspective, Vermont and Wyoming couldn't be much further apart." Vermont and Wyoming are strongly united on a number of issues (guns immediately springs to mind). I'm not the least bit sure that Central California and Silicon Valley would be united on fewer. The notion that Vermont and New Hampshire should be separate; Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhodes Island should be separate; Maryland and Virginia should be separate; but Sacramento, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco all belong in the same state is laughable. "But the solution to that problem is to fix the filibuster, not destroy the Constitutional balance between states and the Federal government." Right, because when they wrote the Constitution, Jefferson and Madison and friends carefully laid out California's borders. When California entered the Union, its population was less than 1% of the total US population. Now it's well more than 10%. The borders that made sense when it was a state like Wyoming don't make sense anymore. It has population like the eastern seaboard, it has industry like the eastern seaboard, it should have borders more like the eastern seaboard.