There is a lot of discussion right now about how Senators from small states hold too much power compared to the percent of population they represent. There's a lot of truth to this. Alex MacGillis of the Washington Post wrote in an analysis column in their Sunday Outlook section, and David Sirota and Nathan Newman have done good pieces on the topic as well. The simple facts are that the key gang of six negotiating health care in the Senate Finance Committee represent less than 3% of the nation's population; that the ten largest states are home to over half the country's population but represent only 20% of the Senate; the 21 smallest states together have less total population than California does.
It's good that people are raising these issues, and pointing out this unfairness. The plain fact of the matter, though, is that absent a constitutional convention suddenly being held, there is no changing this particular injustice. It would take 2/3 of the Senate, after all, to pass a constitutional amendment to restructure the Senate, and virtually all of the Senators from small states would vote against it. So we are stuck for now.
What we ought to be focused on instead are strategies that might work. Some folks I know are for ending the filibuster entirely, or at least cutting the vote needed for cloture from 60 to 55. This doesn't address the small state issue, but would at least bring us closer to majority rule. Being for more democracy rather than less, I would tend to favor such a thing despite the downside of all the damage Republicans would do when they had the majority. Senators themselves, though, like the additional power they get from only having to get 40 of their colleagues to agree with them instead of 50, and liberals tend to be scared of an unencumbered right wing in control of the government would tend to oppose such a thing, so I'm thinking that will be tough to win.
There is one thing that the progressive movement can start to do today, though, that can help change the dynamics in the Senate, and that is to invest in a small state/rural strategy.
I have felt for years that I am one of the few people in national Democratic politics who is both a strong progressive and a strong advocate for aggressively reaching out to people in rural and small state America. When I was on the 1992 Clinton campaign, and in the Clinton White House, I was liaison to both the broad progressive community and to farmer/rancher/small town groups. Ever since, I have strongly advocated both strong progressive positions and a vigorous small town/rural strategy even as (a) my mostly east and west coast and urban progressive friends were suspicious that outreach to rural folks would water down progressive politics, and (b) my friends from small states and rural areas were convinced big city liberals could never relate to them.
Having grown up in conservative Nebraska, with my in-laws family farmers in (very) rural and (very) Republican Missouri, I don't underestimate the challenges of a progressive small state strategy, but I would offer the following items from recent history as evidence:
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, there is a fascinating combination of libertarianism and populism in the small states of the west and Midwest, and while this combination can produce a negative politics at times, it can also produce people like Schweitzer, Harkin, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and the beloved progressive icon Paul Wellstone.
For too many years, progressive organizations and leaders have paid far too little attention to the small states and small towns of the Midwest and west. It is not as easy to organize there, pick up new direct mail or online members. And there are big cultural barriers between big city coastal progressives and rural/small state folks. The pay off for a long term strategy of organization and party building in small states is immense, though. We need to be investing in both national organizations that work on rural organizing such as RuralVotes, and great statewide groups like Forward Montana and ICAN. There is simply no other path to passing progressive legislation through the Senate without going through the small states.
Why should 5% of the population hold the rest of the country hostage in the health care debate? The power of such a small percentage of the population to control the health care and wallets of the rest of the nation. It's good that people are raising issues, and pointing out this unfairness.
senior Senators from 'tiny' rural states who only want
to bring in a few (million) $$$ from Big Healthcare?
By all rights, such a privilege belongs to Senators from
California or NY, if not Texas or Florida, where they really
need the money.
The problem with America right now is that we have BOTH operating independently and both growing quite well.
So far the corporate corruption has been successful in ensuring Americans of the Mob Rule are ignorant of issues and are led around like cattle.
We need to break the cattle stick and educate the herds. Then about 50 years from now when a few more beefarinos get smart it'll be too late. We'll be in a New World Order and your rights will disappear while large red state corporations demand that we participate in the New World Order. Then you'll be working for a guy named Hamed Mohammed Fazeel Nassir Rangon Bin Laden...........................because there wont be any jobs in America.
If we do not resolve the debt problem we will be owned by China and they will resolve our health care system by imposing theirs.
the point being that in 1790, the desires of a minority of 30% of the population could elect half of the senate. Now it is possible to have the senate (and by extension the nation) usurped by 50 senators elected by 17% of the population.
The senate, not the presidency, is the most powerful institution in the world. To think that it can be overrun by the same percentage of people who think Sarah Palin could be president, who get their news from fox, who think obama is an arab, who think the earth is 6,000 years old: that is the most frightening fact there is.
Populous states have tolerated the inflated influence of the ignoramia on myriad issues over many decades. To have 40 senators (who probably equate to 10% of the population) still capable of thwarting democracy is the tragedy of our age.
Your statement of "Populous states have tolerated the inflated influence of the ignoramia on myriad issues over many decades. To have 40 senators (who probably equate to 10% of the population) still capable of thwarting democracy is the tragedy of our age." shows why the small state fears are justified.
This is NOT a tragedy of our age. It is an example of the great wisdom and insight of the Constitution writers.
Your right, it is NOT the tragedy of our age. Jingoism is.
Right. That darn Constitution! You'd think the Founding Fathers actually wanted to make sure that smaller, less populus states also had some political clout. Thank GOD for the power of the Senate to reign in the nutcases that are running the House. Looks like Adams, Jefferson, Sherman, Franklin and the like had a pretty good crystal ball all those years ago.
Frankly, the founding fathers screwed up with the Senate. It was never envisioned that 41% of the upper chamber could dictate terms to the other 59%. They only threw this nugget to the small states (at that time), because they were in the middle of a revolt with the most powerful military the world have ever seen.
Madison envisioned the real power to be in the House: The most direct representation! Also interestingly, the place where conservatards will soon be extinct! If you wanna talk about nutcases, look into the mirror Mr. 38% minority man!
The small states feared their rights would be trampled so to prevent that the house and senate were devised.
Without that compromise there would never have been a Constitution or a United States.
Which the red states pay back with an attitude of hostility, that seems to be increasing every day.
But - really, there is nothing to be done about this in the short term.
In the longer term, we need to look to restoring a sense of national unity (and rationality) to the unhinged red staters, rather than looking for pay back.
Fairness is not often part of real life.
1. The US is not a democracy; it has a representative form of government. This is by construction not by luck.
2. The Senate represents the states.
3. The House represents the citizens proportionately.
4. The form was created as one of the bulwarks to protect against the "tyranny of the majority" (de Tocqueville and more generally JS Mill) and in the Federalist papers, as "the violence of the majority faction."
5. Only later was it used as a foil against the power (by the Republicans) against the south.
Lux needs a better educaton on American political philosophy; If he wants to live in a majority rule country, he should look no further than Mexico or Venezuela, and then move there. This all sounds like a campaing of sour grapes because Obama can't get his way.
1. Senators ARE congressmen;
2. The number of senators will never change unless we change the Constitution or admit another state to the union;
3. Illegal aliens are not counted towards the number of representatives we have;
4. Ugh, never mind.
Incorrect. The constitution only mentions people, not citizens, and while illegal aliens are not entitled to vote, they most certainly DO count when apportioning House seats. California has gained as many as SIX seats this way.
This also explains the Obama decision to remove the census from the portfolio of the Commerce Secretary. Rahm Emanuel wants to fingertip the process to ensure that as many seats go to Dems as possible. The entire situation is a national disgrace!
What, pray tell,do people in Montana or Wyoming need from New York or New Jersey?
oh, and you like that computer your using? it wasn't invented, designed or made or imported anywhere near Wyoming. Nor was much of anything resembling the modern world. Why is it that those who actually engage the world - the coasts, the ports, the industrial centers - are blue, while the bastions of poverty, poor education, and xenophobia are red as a rose?
Why is America being hijacked by a radical fringe minority?