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[-] miak@lemmy.world 91 points 10 months ago

I may be misremembering, but I believe the way things were originally designed was that the Senate was supposed to represent the states, not the people. The house represented the people. That's why the Senate has equal representation (because the states were meant to have equal say), and the house proportionate to population.

[-] MumboJumbo@lemmy.world 52 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That is correct. The state legislatures generally (if not always) picked the senators, but due to huge state corruption, it was almost always political qui pro quo, and some states even going full terms without selecting sla sentaor. This led to the 17th amendment (which you'll here rednecks and/or white supremacists asposing, because states' rights.)

Edit to add: Wikipedia knows it better than I do.

[-] miak@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Appreciate the extra details and the link!

[-] invertedspear@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago

This is correct, and this part of the system works fine. What should have happened though is a population break point where a state has to break up if they exceed a certain population. CA should be at least 3 states. New York needs a split as well, probably a few others. There is no way a state can serve its population well when the population is measured in the tens of millions.

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[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 83 points 10 months ago

They came up with the best thing they could agree on at the time. They did not intend on it to become sacred, untouchable, and without the ability to change with the times, and sometimes we have changed it. Just not quite enough times.

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[-] Moah 70 points 10 months ago

It's a government by rich owners for rich owners and it's working as designed

[-] GladiusB@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

I mean, that's most governments

[-] dingdongmetacarples@lemmy.world 54 points 10 months ago

Don't forget, those senators translate to electoral college votes.

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 40 points 10 months ago

Them plus the house reps, which are artificially capped at a low number, again benefitting the low population states

[-] Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Diddnt they cap the amount of house of representatives?

[-] qyron@sopuli.xyz 32 points 10 months ago
[-] Jumi@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago

In Germany we have two votes, one for a local representative and one for a party. In itself it's a pretty decent system

[-] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yet, the local representatives in the pairlaments (Bundestag, Landtag) represent districts of approximately the same population number. Thus, in our first chamber, no vote has more value than another.

But in the Bundesrat, which comes closest to the US senate, states with higher population number do have more representatives than small states, which weakens the inequality of votes, yet still one vote from Bremen (population 700k, 3 representatives) has 13 times as much value as one from NRW (p. 18 mio, 6 rep.).

[-] Jumi@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

I'm not really happy with our democracy. It always feels like our say stops at the ballot box, we need more direct democracy.

[-] laranis@lemmy.zip 6 points 10 months ago

Eight years ago I would have agreed. But, I think we've demonstrated the short comings of putting authority for our most important policies in the hands of your average citizen.

I don't have a better answer, mind you. Hopefully someone way further right on the "average citizen" bell curve has better ideas.

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[-] turmoil@feddit.org 10 points 10 months ago

The German system is what the US would have been if they would have regularly updated their constitution.

[-] zqps@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It was largely modelled after the US, with bugfixes applied. It definitely has issues but isn't remotely as fucked as a partisan 2-party system.

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[-] beebarfbadger@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

But then the poor would run the country instead of a handful of unimaginably rich individuals! What kind of democracy would THAT be?

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[-] Dry_Monk@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

But look at the US popular vote. Even with different representation of the populace, this election would still have been fucked. We do need massive reform of the US voting structure, but this is not the biggest thing. Getting rid of first past the post in favor of at least ranked choice would make a much bigger difference.

That would open the door for a true left wing party to actually have a voice.

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[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

It is as it needed to be to get the states to sign on. But times have changed, and it needs to as well

[-] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 16 points 10 months ago

Can we get 25 million volunteers to move proportionally to red states for the next few years?

[-] yeahiknow3@lemmings.world 18 points 10 months ago

I moved to a red state. Absolutely awful. Don’t do it. Texas is an irremediable shit hole.

[-] McNasty@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago

West Virginia checking in

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[-] 5715@feddit.org 9 points 10 months ago

Half a million movers per month would both wreck California and rural states real quick.

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[-] theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 10 months ago

Representative democracy is unstable and corruptible by design and it can't be anything else.

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Blame Connecticut. It’s their fault. It would up benefiting the South, but it was Delaware and CT mad about larger states having more a say.

The South actually wanted proportional representation. They were growing faster and had more land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 months ago

It would be somewhat OK if the House was much more powerful relative to the Senate, similar to how the (unelected) Canadian Senate rarely if ever opposes the will of the House.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't even care so much about the Bicameral Compromise; but I do care that the electoral votes apply toward electing the President.

[-] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 10 points 10 months ago

The reapportionment act of 1929 is screwing us over in the electoral college. The House should have a LOT more representatives, which would make the it more fair.

But more representatives would make it more difficult for big businesses to bribe them, and nobody is going to vote to dilute their personal power, so changing that is a nonstarter.

[-] dnick@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

To be fair, it is the united ´states´, not the united ´people living on the continent´. It wouldn’t be any more fair if California was making the decisions for 20 other states, just because they happen to have a crap load of people. The federal government is kind of supposed to be making decisions and maintaining things between states, not all these decisions affecting the people so directly.

[-] ronalicious@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

to be fair? fuck that. the states represent people, just arguing 'states rights' is disingenuous at this point.

land shouldn't vote, but the way our government currently is functioning, regardless of what our slaveholding 'founding fathers' intended, is an absolute mess.

and I don't accept your argument in good faith.

edit. a word

[-] Hoohoo@fedia.io 8 points 10 months ago

Electorates per capita work better because they give the population of a country an equal amount of electable government. Positioning them as just Californians makes them a lower class citizen of the United States with lesser representation.

It also means that criminals will recognise the power of the Republican states and side with them for effect.

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[-] ABCDE@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

It wouldn’t be any more fair if California was making the decisions for 20 other states

U wot

[-] itslilith 7 points 10 months ago

No, it would be fair if California and the 20 other states had the same say. Laws should be by people, for people. Every person should have the same voting power and political representation. In a democracy, people vote, not land, or "states", or anything else. People.

[-] rezz@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Extremely low IQ meme considering this is the intended purpose of the senate.

[-] lugal@lemmy.ml 16 points 10 months ago

Disagreeing with the intention of some 1700s guys is extremely low IQ?

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[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

I always thought it'd be interesting if one senator were elected only by the most populous municipality in each state.

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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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