Please Proceed, Senate Candidate Palin

[BenBurch]

The USA does not have modern transportation arrangements.

They've been close enough since the railroad era, IMHO.

 

[Ladewig]

The fact that states like AK, OK, WY, UT, MT, ND, SD, etc get as many Senators as states like NY, CA and MA is a huge part of the reason that the Senate is the pathetic group that it is. We need to reform the structure of the Senate so the plains states can't fill 1/3 of the Senate with mouth-breathing flat-earthers and Civil War re-enacters.

I think it would be more practical and useful to just redraw some state lines than rewrite parts of the Constitution. Put Rhode Island and Connecticut together. We need only one Dakota. Split California in two or three parts. Maybe add the Florida panhandle to Alabama. Put Vermont, New Hampshire and part of upstate New York together. Split Texas up.

ETA: of course, then the question becomes: what is the purpose of a state?

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Carpet-bagging Palin. I love it.

 

[Tricky]

The biggest question would be, when would she resign? After a year? A month? Before the inauguration? Before the election?

 

[Noztradamus]

Specifically, ignorant and/or demonstrably false views, which are more than plentiful among certain parts of the population.

Agreed, the 19th amendment was a big mistake.

 

[dudalb]

I disagree that we need to alter the Constitutionally defined structure of Congress.

The House is meant to be more or less proportionate with the population. By and large it is sensitive to popular trends and majority opinion. The Senate is supposed to be somewhat less responsive to popular whims (the tyranny of the majority). This was intentional.

It was also to give somewhat more strength to state interests in the federal government. (Recognizing that we are a federal system--a federation of states--rather than one single sovereign state.)

It's also why Senators serve 6 year terms and Representatives only 2 year terms.

It's also why the Senate has a few responsibilities (notably "advise and consent") that the House doesn't share.

But what it means, IMO, is that the parties ought have higher standards for their Senate nominees than their House nominees.

ETA: Also, surely you recognize there are more (and more extreme) mouth-breathing flat-earthers and Civil War re-enacters in the House than in the Senate. Can you imagine a Michele Bachman in the Senate?

The whole idea is that the Senate gives some power to the smaller (in population ) states so that they are not steamrollered and exploited by the larger population states,which would happen in a purely population based system.
Frankly, I am strongly opposed to any change in the basic Constitutional structure if it is going to automatically favor one political faction.

 

[dudalb]

I think it would be more practical and useful to just redraw some state lines than rewrite parts of the Constitution. Put Rhode Island and Connecticut together. We need only one Dakota. Split California in two or three parts. Maybe add the Florida panhandle to Alabama. Put Vermont, New Hampshire and part of upstate New York together. Split Texas up.

ETA: of course, then the question becomes: what is the purpose of a state?

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Carpet-bagging Palin. I love it.

The problem is that States do have some soveriegnty under the Constitution,and are not supposed to be just administrative conviences for the Federal Government, which is what you suggest would make them.
Which would, of course, vastly increase the power of the Federal Government.
But that will happen when hell freezes over,so it's an acadmic debate.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now, the number of small states is so high, and their populations so low (and so uneducated), that they wield a disproportionate amount of influence in determining the makeup of the Senate, and we all suffer for it.

But again, the Senate was not supposed to be proportionate to population, so how could Senators from states with low populations have "disproportionate" influence?

For the Senate, they have authority in direct proportion to the number of states. Again, that was the intention.

And it wasn't based on the assumption that we wouldn't admit more states to the Union (see Article IV) or if we did those states would be roughly equally populous as existing states. In fact, the framers probably had a good idea that any new states would have substantially lower populations, yet they still anticipated admitting new states to the Union.

You seem to be arguing that the Senate should be more like the House, but in fact, I think we get more loony people (and more severely loony) elected to the House than to the Senate.

I don't understand the rationale for your proposal.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The whole idea is that the Senate gives some power to the smaller (in population ) states so that they are not steamrollered and exploited by the larger population states,which would happen in a purely population based system.
Frankly, I am strongly opposed to any change in the basic Constitutional structure if it is going to automatically favor one political faction.

Yep. That's pretty much what I said. "It [the structure of the Senate] was also to give somewhat more strength to state interests in the federal government. (Recognizing that we are a federal system--a federation of states--rather than one single sovereign state.)"

Also note that the framers anticipated adding states to the Union and they knew that such states (on the western frontier of the nation) would be substantially less populous. So I too see no good argument for changing the structure of Congress.

 

[maxpower1227]

But again, the Senate was not supposed to be proportionate to population, so how could Senators from states with low populations have "disproportionate" influence?

For the Senate, they have authority in direct proportion to the number of states. Again, that was the intention.

And it wasn't based on the assumption that we wouldn't admit more states to the Union (see Article IV) or if we did those states would be roughly equally populous as existing states. In fact, the framers probably had a good idea that any new states would have substantially lower populations, yet they still anticipated admitting new states to the Union.

You seem to be arguing that the Senate should be more like the House, but in fact, I think we get more loony people (and more severely loony) elected to the House than to the Senate.

I don't understand the rationale for your proposal.

The House is so full of loons because many of them only have to win a majority of a particular district, usually gerrymandered in their favor. Senators now at least have to win a statewide election, which weeds out many of the crazies. Unfortunately, there are many entire states which are just large enough to have a single district, and over a dozen that have between 1 and 4. This means that even a statewide election can go to a complete loon if they only have to convince a small population to vote for them. I'm not suggesting to make the Senate more like the House, because that would involve moving to local elections. If anything, I would like to see something like a proportional representation system used in other nations. Hold a nationwide vote on the Senate, and assign seats based on the proportion of the vote gained by each party. The Senators can still be chosen so as to have two from each state.