There is an article from Harpers, where Richard Rosenfeld argues that we should abolish the Senate. The argument has been made before but Mr. Rosenfeld does an excellent job of fleshing out the disproportionate power placed in the hands of those who live in sparsely populated states. This NY Times OP-Chart map shows each state re-sized in proportion to the relative influence of the individual voters who live there. The numbers indicate the total delegates to the Electoral College from each state, and how many eligible voters a single delegate from each state represents.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/02/opinion/20081102_OPCHART.html
3 comments:
I definitely would be wary of making such a radical change as abolishing the senate, just because of the implications of that. Americans are proud that their constitution has lasted so long, and feel secure and stable because of it. Bringing such a huge change, for the first time, would also abolish that purity, that stability. As far as I know, there has been only one change to the actual constitution - when the way senators were chosen was changed and a clause in the constitution was amended. Abolishing the senate would be much different than that though, it would mean the removal or revising of half an article, a pillar of the U.S. Government. It's possible future generations would look back and have lost faith in their government - just as the presidency has been less trusted since Nixon.
I think that there is something wrong where a state like Alaska with a population of 698,473 has the same representation in the senate as a state like Illinois with a population of 12,910,409 (About 18 times that of Alaska's). The Senate gives those in small states an unproportional inflated voice over those in larger states. The Senate's equal state representation system has thrown off the electoral college system as well, every state will recieve two more votes regardless of their population.
I think that states should be given 1,2, or 3 senators based on their population. Small states get 1, medium states get 2, and large states get 3. This way there is still state-wide elected members of congress and representation is given in proportion of population. Also having 3 senators as the maximum means that no state will ever have to elect 2 senators at the same time.
Also before I step off my virtual soap box, I think the electoral college system should be completely done away with. The will of the people should decide the president. The electoral college system has not only given the presidency to those that haven't recieved the majority of the votes, it completely takes away power from people from states that are not swing states. States like Illinois and Texas will go to their repective parties. The votes of Democrats in Texas won't count and the same with Republicans in Illinois. The candidates won't have to bother campaigning in the entire country, only the swing states because that's where the election will be decided.
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