On Sun, 7 Oct 2018 15:32:54 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 10/7/2018 3:26 PM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 10/7/18 3:22 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:

On Sat, 6 Oct 2018 09:52:20 -0400, Keyser Soze wrote:



Speaking of "representative," on the way home from the airport
yesterday, my wife was commenting on the beauty of some few parts of
North and South Dakota and Wyoming, and also how desolate and flat and
ugly some parts of those states were, and on the general scarcity of
population, and thought it was weird for those lightly populated states
each to have two U.S. Senators.

So, I looked up population by state. She has a point in terms of "one
man or woman, one vote." That argument kind of works for the House, but
not the Senate.

North and South Dakota and Wyoming each has a population of less than a
million. Wyoming's is less than 600,000. Yet each of those states is
represented in the Senate with two U.S. Senators. So, each 500,000
persons or less is represented by a U.S. Senator. Same goes for
Vermont,
Alaska, Delaware. California also has two U.S. Senators, and a
population of 40 million.

Seems to me that to be more representationally fair, not that fairness
matters, states with less than a million people should only have one
U.S. Senator.


The answer to both you and your wife is because the Constitution calls
for two US Senators per state.Â* It says nothing about population of
those states in terms of number of Senators.

Think of it this way:Â* The country is called, "The United *States* of
America".Â* Each state is equal in rights regardless of population or
how backward you and other elitist would like to believe.


Yeah, we both understand the history. That doesn't make it fair to the
concept of one man/woman one vote, and it gives too much clout to the
empty states. But you Repubs love that. As for this being the "United"
states, no way, Jose.


It's not a "Republican" love or creation. It was written into the
Constitution long before there was even a Republican party. I am sure
at times when Dems are in control of the White House, House and Senate
they "love" it too.

One man/woman one vote certainly applies to how the House elections work.


The Senate originally was supposed to be an extension of the state
legislatures. In fact, until the 17th amendment the senators were not
even elected. The state legislature appointed them.

Section 3 (1). The Senate of the United States shall be composed of
two senators from each state, [chosen by the legislature thereof,] for
six years; and each senator shall have one vote.

It was not supposed to be a democratically elected seat at all, it was
supposed to be two representatives from the state legislature.
The house was the people's chamber and that is why they got the power
to tax, spend money, impeach officials and other things you really
wanted a consensus of the people for. The Senate was a check on that
power.
The Senate was the adult group in the room who ratified treaties,
tried the impeached and confirmed appointees.