Posted on 10/07/2018 7:29:48 PM PDT by vannrox
“No taxation without representation!”
That was a popular phrase during the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War. Colonists thought it was unfair to be taxed and subjected to English rule without consent.
Today Washington DC hands down laws and taxes to every one of the 320 million people living in the United States.
And just like under English rule, we are not represented in the federal government.
Now I know what you’re thinking… we have the right to vote for our leaders.
Our votes send Representatives, Senators, and the President to Washington DC. And they represent our interests in government.
US Representatives are elected by the people, split up into districts.
They go to Washington DC and make up the House of Representatives; one half of Congress.
Congress is the entire legislative branch. They write and pass all the laws in the USA.
When America was brand new, each Representative came from a district of about 40,000 people.
But as the US population grew, the number of Reps in Congress was limited to just 435. That meant the number of citizens each member represented grew as well…
Today, Representatives are elected by districts averaging about 713,000 people.
That means our votes for US Representative are about 6% as potent as they were when America was founded.
(I’m going by total population and not by voting population to keep it simple. But the same lesson applies if you do the math based on voting population.)
Our representation in the House of Representatives has been diluted by a factor of 17.
The US Senate makes up the other half of Congress.
Senators are elected by the entire population of each state, with a simple majority-wins vote.
But it wasn’t supposed to be like that.
Until 1913, Senators were elected by each state legislature.
Every state has its own Congress, mirroring the US system. You vote for state Representatives and state Senators and they run the state government.
It was the folks running your state government that once elected US Senators to send to Washington DC. This gave state governments representation in Washington DC.
So the citizens controlled the US House of Representatives by directly voting for who would represent them from their district.
And state governments controlled the US Senate by the state legislatures voting for who would represent the state in the federal government.
Of course, the people still elected the state Senators and state Reps who then elected US Senators.
But in 1913, the 17th Amendment allowed popular vote in each state to elect US Senators. So it became a state-wide race, just like Governor.
Sounds like this gives the people more voice in the federal government… but it actually gave us way WAY less of a say.
Let’s use Louisiana as an example…
By population size, Lousiana is the median state. Half of the states have a larger population, and half the states have a smaller population. Lousiana is smack dab in the middle.
Louisiana has a total of 105 state Representatives. Each state Rep is elected by a district of about 45,000 people.
39 state Senators are elected by districts of about 120,000 people each.
The entire population of Louisiana is about 4.7 million.
So in a statewide race for US Senator, your vote is just one out of 4,700,000.
Your vote is 105 times more powerful in a state Representative race (1/45,000 vs. 1/4,700,000).
It counts 105x more than your vote for US Senator.
Your vote is 39 times as potent in a state Senate race (1/120,000 vs. 1/4,700,000).
It matters 39x more than your vote for US Senator.
But imagine if the state Reps still chose the US Senator…
He or she has 1 vote out of 105 total Reps.
And your state Senator’s vote accounts for 1 out of 39 total Senators.
Remember, your vote for state Rep and state Senate actually matter… in these small districts you have 105x and 39x more power than in a state-wide race.
So compared to the US Senate race, your vote has a MUCH higher probability of influencing 2 seats out of the 144 member legislature (39 Senators + 105 Reps).
If both your choices get elected, you have chosen 1.4% of the state legislators who will choose your US Senator.
But your vote for US Senate in the state-wide race gives you just .00002% say in who gets elected US Senator.
If both your choices for state Rep and state Senate get elected, you have 70,000 times more control over who gets elected US Senator.
But what if neither of your choices for state Rep and Senate gets elected?
It means you have 0% say in who gets elected US Senator…
Which is statistically equal to your .00002% say you have right now.
So the worst possible scenario in the old system is statistically the same as the only scenario in the current system.
You have a 100% chance of having no voice in the current system.
But when state legislators elected US Senators, you had a much better shot at having some voice in the decision. And when you got that voice, it counted for so much more.
1913 was a bad year…
You could say it was the beginning of a new United States of America… which hardly resembled the old structure.
It was the beginning of taxation without representation… The complete reversal of everything Americans fought for and achieved during the American Revolution.
It began the era of the American Empire. A centralized government, large enough to do whatever it wanted without restraint.
Too large for the people to control through representative democracy.
We still have a chance to be represented in state governments. But secession is a topic for another day…
Creation of the Federal Reserve was the worst thing this country has ever done.
Woodrow Willson. End of Story.
Can you elaborate please? i’m lost when one goes further back than FDR!!
Hear ye, hear ye.
Bookmark.
In our system of checks and balances, right now the States do not have representation in the Senate- why are you against the States having representation?
Bro, why would you PRIVATE MAIL me an a##hole response? :)
I think the whole board should know what a nasty arrogant a##hole you are :)
No it’s not your job to teach American History.
But like I said, it must be your job to be a d### :)
And you deserve a raise :)
The GOP would have a 64-36 majority.
By “the states” you seem to be mean the 7,383 state legislators. They DO get representation, they get 1 vote just like everyone else.
You clearly do not understand the role of the states in the Republic. Zot yourself for a silly post.
I recall Ted Cruz came out in favor of it a few years ago. That was ironic since the Texas Leg, led by RINO Speaker Joe Staruss and RINO Lt. Governor David Dewhurst would have with 100% certainty elected Dewhurst (hmmmmmmm funny how that works eh?) whilst GOP primary voters instead selected Cruz.
You could forget about any decent Senators being elected because RINOS and democrats would team up to elect RINOs in every GOP-controlled state. Talk about an “open primary”!!!!!!! Alaska RINOs have teamed with rats to control the State House there, can you say “Senator for Life Lisa Murkowski”?
Sick of talking about this stupid crap. It isn’t even ON THE TABLE AND NEVER WILL BE. Try campaigning on it, you’d get friggin laughed at. The previous method of election was crappy and not working with seats left vacant whenever legislatures were too closely divide and elites bickered behind CLOSED DOORS. That’s why the 17th was OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVED.
In 1877 Illinois democrats used the Senate election in an attempt to bribe Supreme Court Justice David Davis into making rat Sam Tilden President. They didn’t count on Davis having a shred of integrity so it blew up in their faces. This is the kind of crap we should pining for a return to?
GIVING MORE POWER TO A BUNCH OF POLITICIANS IS STUPID BECAUSE ****DUH****. It’s not rocket science. Stop pining for an idealized past that NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED and use your BRAIN people. You expect a bunch of politicians being given MORE power and the people they represent LESS will make things BETTER? That’s loony tunes. The problem with our country is not electoral process it’s the existence of socialist pigs and weak-willed sissy “conservatives” (guess what? State legislatures are full of both). The pigs in my state leg don’t speak for ME. The people of the states are “the states” and they don’t need a small handful of middlemen to elect the most powerful legislature in the world for them.
The Senate was different from the House in 3 ways,
1)Equal representation for all states, by far the most important difference. You have liberals now proposing DC and Puerto Rico Statehood to solve their “We’re not gonna win the Senate and that’s not ‘fair’” problem. We’re gonna propose a more elitist Senate while they’re doing that? That would play right into their hands.
2)Term Length
3)Method of election was a distant third, stop fixating on it.
Ridiculous nonsense.
If you’re looking for a failed “reform” to eliminate I’d suggest civil service “reform”. Back in the day Republican Presidents could hire Republicans to work at the post office and stuff, democrat Presidents hired democrats. Now they’re all democrats all the time, fair huh? I doubt we could succeed in bringing back the spoils system but at least it would HELP US if we did. Tilt at the windmill.
I agree with you.
The Tenth Amendment is IGNORED.
Throw in ending Birthright Citizenship and this country is on the path to a GREATNESS that isn’t even conceivable.
Accept only the best and brightest to be allowed in and there is no limit.
absolutely.
we have to keep in mind that the govt derives its power only by the consent of the governed.
will we ever see the like of jefferson, madison, and the adamses again ?
I’m glad someone does! ;)
@vannrox: Outstanding post!
@Impy: Excellent tag line!
1913 was the official dawn of the American brand of communism: Progressivism.
Wisconsin gets much of the foul credit for creating this destructive subversion of our Constitutional government.
As a resident of the Commonwealth of the turtle, I think we are Exhibit A of how the current career Senator system isn't working.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state. The US Congress is proof.
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