Western Washington Lawmakers Want to Secede
Give the GOP two more senators, hey? Brilliant plan. The way the American senate is divided up is even more unfair than the electoral college system. Each state gets two senators. (same thing in Oz, except twelve senators to one state)
That means that California has a ration of 1 senator to 16,935,824 people, and Wyoming has a ration of 1 senator to 246,891 people. That's about 1:68 ratio. I understand the need for balance and why two houses are useful in a system of checks and balances. So perhaps it would be better to either divide up the current states into much smaller entities, or weld them together to form about 10 big states? (Props to zompist.com for that idea.)
posted by TheLoneAmigo @ 5:10 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
I know it's meant to represent the states. I just think the states should be more equal.
And the current divisions of the States make about as much sense as if I picked up a crayon and a ruler and drew lines all over the Midwest.
-The Lone Amigo
Well we do have a House of Representatives which mirrors each states population.
One of the main points in each state having two senators is that they are part of the Electoral College. That gives a state like Wyoming a little bit of a say in elections because they now count for 3 electoral votes instead of the 1 that they would get if it was only based on population.
That is exactly what decided the 2000 election, well that and Katharine Harris not counting black peoples votes in Florida.
I understand the concept of the idea but it has now backfired. It was set up so that people in the small rural states wouldn't be bullied by people in states like NY, CA, and IL, but what is now happening is the rural states with no population, low education, and fundamentalist bible values are bullying the people in states such as NY, CA, and IL that have different values than the bible thumpers in the fly over states.
The other problem with this is that states like CA, NY, IL and NJ actually pay more in Federal taxes than they get back in federal subsidies and all the "red states" with 3 and 4 electoral votes end up costing us, and get any where between 10-46% more in federal subsidies than they pay in.
In other words people in CA, NY, IL, and NJ are the only things that keep these rural states afloat, and these states could not survive without us, yet we still allow them to elect our leaders and make our laws.
Start Ranting
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