Last edited by MMC; 07-03-2020 at 07:09 AM.
History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.
~Alain de Benoist
Green Arrow (07-03-2020),Peter1469 (07-03-2020)
Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect. -- Woody Hayes
And I’ll just repeat what I said already. It’s an outdated concept that should be revised. Senate representation doesn’t have to be strictly proportional, but it should give greater weight to states that represent significantly greater portions of the US population and economy. If it were up to me, I’d add 75 senators and allocate them to the biggest states (e.g., 4 new senators to each of the 5 biggest states, 3 to the next 5, etc.). California and Texas combined have almost 20% of the US population and produce almost 25% of US GDP. Their residents should have more weight in the Senate that the residents of Wyoming and Vermont, which have about 0.4 percent of the US population and produce about 0.4 percent of GDP.
You may recall the thread on this topic a couple of months ago. I asked several members - you included, if I recall correctly - a number of times what "representing the state" (as opposed to "representing the people") would look like in the real world - how and why a Senator chosen by his state's legislature might, in theory, vote differently than one popularly elected.
After several pages of non-answers, D.G. finally stepped up and offered his example of an anti-abortion bill that had appeared before the Senate in which one of his state's Senators, Sherrod Brown, had voted against it. The point I believe he was attempting to make was that if Brown had been appointed by the Ohio state legislature he would have been more likely to follow that body's direction on that (and presumably every) vote, and to vote more in accordance with the views and wishes of the 132 individuals who make up the General Assembly - because he would have, in a very real sense, owed them his job. The presumption being, in this and all other cases, that the true interests of the state are better known and supported by 132 people than by nearly 12 million.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Green Arrow (07-03-2020)
If you read the history of how this scheme was actually carried out, there were allegations (and proven instances) of corruption and cronyism, with Senate seats being bought and sold, but even more instances of infighting and deadlocked votes. (One Indiana seat remained vacant for more than two years.) Over time, a number of state's legislatures - either concerned about the corrupt way the selection process was being conducted or concerned about being caught at it - voluntarily adopted the inclusion of a popular vote of the people in the process. By 1910, the legislators in 31 states (out of 46) had passed resolutions calling for a Constitutional Amendment to provide for the direct and popular election of Senators.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Green Arrow (07-03-2020)