Senators (1 Viewer)

[Optimus Prime]

Bringing this up to the the DC statehood thread and the real reason it isn't a state is that it would add 2 Democratic Senators

I know that Bill Maher has been banging this drum for years

Population of North & South Dakota combined (as of 2019) - 1,646,721

Population of California (2019) - 39.51 Million

Number of Senators for North & South Dakota - 4

Number of Senators for California - 2

This seems to be more than a little imbalanced wouldn't you say?

Should the number of Senators be tied to population (one senator per X number of people)?

Tied to party affiliation or votes?

11 million Californians voted for Biden, but 6 million voted for Trump which is more than he got in Texas

Keep it as it is?

I don't know the answer but this is a huge discrepancy - and I think it's nationwide

Seems that I read somewhere the number of people all the democratic Senators represented vs the Republicans and there was a sizeable difference

 

[MT15]

As I understand it, when the total was frozen every state had congressional districts that were about equal in population. Now we have extremes on both ends. A Rep from Rhode Island represents about 500,000 people, while a Rep from Montana oddly represents over 1,000,000. So arguably a person living in Wyoming or RI is better represented than a person living in DE, MT, OR or CO. I think they need to balance it out better again. I know it probably won’t happen, certainly in the current political climate.

 

[DaveXA]

As I understand it, when the total was frozen every state had congressional districts that were about equal in population. Now we have extremes on both ends. A Rep from Rhode Island represents about 500,000 people, while a Rep from Montana oddly represents over 1,000,000. So arguably a person loving in Wyoming or RI is better represented than a person living in DE, MT, OR or CO. I think they need to balance it out better again. I know it probably won’t happen, certainly in the current political climate.

That's a pretty fair sentiment. I'm with you there.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

As I understand it, when the total was frozen every state had congressional districts that were about equal in population. Now we have extremes on both ends. A Rep from Rhode Island represents about 500,000 people, while a Rep from Montana oddly represents over 1,000,000. So arguably a person living in Wyoming or RI is better represented than a person living in DE, MT, OR or CO. I think they need to balance it out better again. I know it probably won’t happen, certainly in the current political climate.

It should be tied to population for sure. If Wyoming's lone rep serves 580,000ish people, every state should have one rep per 580k people.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I agree with this. I see what the founders were trying to do.

But the problem is that the House is no longer representative of population because its number of members was frozen years ago. So where it used to be that every so many people had a representative, now that number is higher in some states and way lower in rural, less populated states.

So the House is also now skewed toward more rural and less populated states. They need to change that, imo, back to the way it used to be so that the House is truly representative again.

What if we increased the size of the House?

Given that most of us are pretty frustrated with Congress, this might sound crazy. But growing the House of Representatives is the key to unlocking our present paralysis and leaning into some serious democracy renovation.

I am using my Post column this year to explore why we are pulling apart as a people and how we can change that dynamic and come together. In January, I wrote about our desperate need to renovate our democracy. It has endured for more than two centuries, serving us well in some ways and very imperfectly in others. We are still completing a critical transition to broad power-sharing across communities and among citizens of all backgrounds. Our institutions weren’t originally built for this — and we have been cobbling on additions and extensions decade after decade.

Now, the pace of change has accelerated, and all of our deferred maintenance is catching up with us. We need a plan for functional institutions of self-government in 21st-century conditions. We all know it, but we’re stuck. There’s so much work to do. Where to begin?

I propose we start with the first branch of government — the branch of the federal government that was designed by the framers to be closest to we the people.

As originally conceived, the House was supposed to grow with every decennial census. James Madison even included in the Bill of Rights an amendment laying out a formula forcing the House to grow from 65 to 200 members, then allowing it to expand beyond that. (His proposal actually stands as an open-ended amendment still available for state ratification, but the math it uses wouldn’t work for the country’s 21st-century scale.)

George Washington spoke just once at the Constitutional Convention — and on its final day — to endorse an amendment lowering the ratio of constituents to members to 30,000. The expectation was that good, responsive representation required allowing representatives to meaningfully know their constituents, constituents to know and reach their representatives, and Congress to get its business done.

Today, House members represent roughly 762,000 people each. That number is on track to reach 1 million by mid-century.

The number has gotten so high because the 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act has as a de facto matter capped the size of the House. The bill set the decennial reapportionment of the House on autopilot. It assigned the Census Bureau the job of reporting a new 435-seat apportionment plan for the House to the president following each decennial census. The president in turn simply reports the new apportionment to Congress. Congress can change this number if it wants to, but it has not wanted to for nearly a century now.

As a result, we are the only Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development democracy that hasn’t continuously adjusted the size of its legislative assembly over the past century. It also gives us the highest representation ratio of any OECD country by a long measure. Both the German Bundestag and the British Parliament are larger than our House of Representatives, even though their populations are roughly one-quarter or one-fifth of ours..................

Why this one renovation above all others? Four reasons:

For starters, with today’s high ratio of residents to lawmakers, representatives are too removed from their constituents. Constituent services are strained. Smaller districts would mean better responsiveness, which would align with the principle of popular sovereignty.

Relatedly, Congress has a much larger budget to track and manage, and many more agencies to review, than it did a century ago. More House members would make for more effective legislative oversight of the executive branch. That aligns with the principle of republican safety.

Third, the smaller the district, the less expensive the campaign, and the less politicians will be dependent on donors, instead of the people, as the principle of due dependence requires.

Fourth, a bigger House with smaller districts would enhance equal protection and inclusivity. More seats would mean more shots; smaller districts would give candidates from minority groups and nontraditional backgrounds a more feasible path to electoral victory..........

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/28/danielle-allen-democracy-reform-congress-house-expansion/

 

[Optimus Prime]

It should be tied to population for sure. If Wyoming's lone rep serves 580,000ish people, every state should have one rep per 580k people.

comments from post article

The original text of the Constitution calls for one representative for every 30,000 people. If we were to stick to that ratio, we would have a House that exceeds 11,000 members. That's clearly not doable. However, to make some semblance of equality of representation, perhaps we need to use the smallest state at any given time to set the qualifier. Wyoming has the smallest population with roughly 582,000 people. If each district in the US represented 582,000, give or take, we would have to add roughly 130 more seats in the House. Doing so would go a very long way towards giving more balance to those areas where people actually live, which was the original intent of the Constitution.

I really like the Equal Voices Act's formula: in each census, the smallest state gets 1 representative, and that's the new ratio of voters to reps. That would give us 575 representatives, with Cali having 68. That's a small enough increase to be practical.

 

[Optimus Prime]

And you can bet dollars to donuts (where did that phrase come from?!?!) that the Electoral College was put in place precisely to stop men like Trump from becoming President. The Framers were elitists who didn't want some yokel occupying the office. The system they put into place isn't even working to produce the outcome they intended.

Dollars to doughnuts means something that is certain. The phrase dollars to doughnuts is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s and is still mostly seen in American English. The idea behind the shorthand phrase dollars to doughnuts is the sentiment that the speaker is so confident that he is right about something, he will put forth his dollars against the listener’s doughnuts in a wager, the dollars having much higher value than the doughnuts. The idiom dollars to doughnuts reached its peak in popularity in 1915 according to Google’s Ngram, its popularity has fallen off considerably since that time.

Dollars to doughnuts

Dollars to doughnuts means something that is certain. The phrase dollars to doughnuts is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s and is still mostly seen in American English. The idea behind the

grammarist.com

..........An array of wordsmiths trace “dollars to doughnuts” back to the 19th century. The first recorded usage was a newspaper article in Nevada in 1876. “Dollars to doughnuts” was used matter-of-factly and without definition, suggesting it was a common saying of the day.

Betting cash against something of relatively little value wound its way into other expressions, such as “dollars to buttons” and “dollars to cobwebs.” Chances are “doughnuts” took hold because of our avid appreciation for alliteration. Other examples include “dollars to dumplings” and “dollars to dimes.”.......

For What It's Worth: Dollars to Doughnuts | Landaas & Company

Money Talk post for Money Talk page, Landaas.com, Landaas & Company investments, Milwaukee, independent, objective, unbiased financial and wealth management.

www.landaas.com

 

[DaveXA]

Dollars to doughnuts means something that is certain. The phrase dollars to doughnuts is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s and is still mostly seen in American English. The idea behind the shorthand phrase dollars to doughnuts is the sentiment that the speaker is so confident that he is right about something, he will put forth his dollars against the listener’s doughnuts in a wager, the dollars having much higher value than the doughnuts. The idiom dollars to doughnuts reached its peak in popularity in 1915 according to Google’s Ngram, its popularity has fallen off considerably since that time.

Dollars to doughnuts

Dollars to doughnuts means something that is certain. The phrase dollars to doughnuts is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s and is still mostly seen in American English. The idea behind the

grammarist.com

..........An array of wordsmiths trace “dollars to doughnuts” back to the 19th century. The first recorded usage was a newspaper article in Nevada in 1876. “Dollars to doughnuts” was used matter-of-factly and without definition, suggesting it was a common saying of the day.

Betting cash against something of relatively little value wound its way into other expressions, such as “dollars to buttons” and “dollars to cobwebs.” Chances are “doughnuts” took hold because of our avid appreciation for alliteration. Other examples include “dollars to dumplings” and “dollars to dimes.”.......

For What It's Worth: Dollars to Doughnuts | Landaas & Company

Money Talk post for Money Talk page, Landaas.com, Landaas & Company investments, Milwaukee, independent, objective, unbiased financial and wealth management.

www.landaas.com

I still use "dollars to doughnuts" from time to time.

 

[samiam5211]

Dollars to doughnuts means something that is certain. The phrase dollars to doughnuts is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s and is still mostly seen in American English. The idea behind the shorthand phrase dollars to doughnuts is the sentiment that the speaker is so confident that he is right about something, he will put forth his dollars against the listener’s doughnuts in a wager, the dollars having much higher value than the doughnuts. The idiom dollars to doughnuts reached its peak in popularity in 1915 according to Google’s Ngram, its popularity has fallen off considerably since that time.

Dollars to doughnuts

Dollars to doughnuts means something that is certain. The phrase dollars to doughnuts is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s and is still mostly seen in American English. The idea behind the

grammarist.com

..........An array of wordsmiths trace “dollars to doughnuts” back to the 19th century. The first recorded usage was a newspaper article in Nevada in 1876. “Dollars to doughnuts” was used matter-of-factly and without definition, suggesting it was a common saying of the day.

Betting cash against something of relatively little value wound its way into other expressions, such as “dollars to buttons” and “dollars to cobwebs.” Chances are “doughnuts” took hold because of our avid appreciation for alliteration. Other examples include “dollars to dumplings” and “dollars to dimes.”.......

For What It's Worth: Dollars to Doughnuts | Landaas & Company

Money Talk post for Money Talk page, Landaas.com, Landaas & Company investments, Milwaukee, independent, objective, unbiased financial and wealth management.

www.landaas.com

Now millions of people trade dollars for donuts every day.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Taurus]

The caption sadly is a fail. I see it all the time with progressive messaging.

It should say "Rich, elitist landowners..."

 

[LA - L.A.]

The caption sadly is a fail. I see it all the time with progressive messaging.

It should say "Rich, elitist landowners..."

Spot on. The original intention was that only male landowners had the right to vote. I'm convinced that's what the "originalists" on the Supreme Court ultimately want to return to.

The Senate was always designed to give equal representation to each state as a check against tyranny by the majority. The House was designed to be proportionately representative as a check against tyranny by the minority.

That system was working pretty well until the Reapportionment Act of 1929 permanently froze the number of seats in the House. The House currently gives disproportionate representation and power to a minority of the population, and that's without the added inequity that gerrymandering creates.

The number of seats in the House needs to be unfrozen and every Congressional district across the country should have close to the same number of people.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Spot on. The original intention was that only male landowners had the right to vote. I'm convinced that's what the "originalists" on the Supreme Court ultimately want to return to.

The Senate was always designed to give equal representation to each state as a check against tyranny by the majority. The House was designed to be proportionately representative as a check against tyranny by the minority.

That system was working pretty well until the Reapportionment Act of 1929 permanently froze the number of seats in the House. The House currently gives disproportionate representation and power to a minority of the population, and that's without the added inequity that gerrymandering creates.

The number of seats in the House needs to be unfrozen and every Congressional district across the country should have close to the same number of people.

Yup. The state with the smallest population gets one House seat, and that population total is the baseline for what other states get. After that, we tackle gerrymandering.

 

[V Chip]

That system was working pretty well until the Reapportionment Act of 1929 permanently froze the number of seats in the House. The House currently gives disproportionate representation and power to a minority of the population, and that's without the added inequity that gerrymandering creates.

The number of seats in the House needs to be unfrozen and every Congressional district across the country should have close to the same number of people.

Yer got danged tootin'!!

 

[J-DONK]

Yup. The state with the smallest population gets one House seat, and that population total is the baseline for what other states get. After that, we tackle gerrymandering.

This change is called the Wyoming Rule.

Wyoming Rule - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If this passed, I would not put it past Republicans to start bussing in poor whites to pump up those population numbers.