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…
Hard to argue with that last sentence.
I vote for Uncle Frank as worst. If Wilson sexually assaulted Lady Liberty then Roosevelt kept her chained up in the his basement for 12 years.
Wilson was dog doo (Andrew Johnson was probably the most racist though, no?).
But he can’t be blamed for the 16th amendment for example as many seem to do, it passed Congress overwhelming long before he was President, and was supported by Taft and TR as well, sadly.
I like it. But that sounds like one choice, I would see no reason there would need to be 2 parties that agreed on policy. Ireland has that, it's silly.
If not for the race issue the Bourbons and GOP conservatives might have teamed and GOP and rat socialists likewise.
The biggy back then was trade, I guess I'd be a bourbon on that. Though who knows BACK IN THE DAY I might have been in favor of tariffs. Back in the day businessmen supported protectionism.
When thing I don't get is Bourbon foreign policy, how'd the dems go from manifest destiny to non-interventionist? That was a true "switch". The Whigs had been more dovish, opposing the Mexican War.
The States do not have representation in the Congress - you haven’t said why you support removing the check and balance set up by the Founders.
Um, I’m pretty sure I EXTENSIVELY said why I don’t think we should go back to having small numbers of politicians elect US Senators.
Article V was the one the wisest parts of the constitution.
Without the 12th amendment Mike Pence (305) would be President and Donald Trump (304) Vice President. Change is not always bad.
Repeal the 23rd, not the 17th.
BTW “The States” have 535 Representatives and Senators in Congress.
The US Senate is elected directly by the people of their respective states - they represent the people of their states.
Senators were the representatives of the States in out Constitution - representing the State legislatures.
What you have now are 2 extra super-representatives - and the State has no representation.
It seems to me that both of you would rather have politicians decide who to represent your state in the U.S. Senate rather than decide for yourselves. How cute. Do you similarly depend on politicians to tell you how to worship God or how to raise your family? Personally, I believe that citizens have the unalienable right to elect their representatives in government, but if you all want to delegate your sovereignty to politicians you are free to continue to communicate your meekness and subservience by advocating for the abrogation of your right to vote for your state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate.
Ping
I think one reason the Whigs weren’t hot on the Mexican War and getting Texas was because it was adding Democrat territory.
Most states are gerrymandered to elect a particular party member. It is actually quite hard to rid yourself of one who votes poorly. Although I'm in a Republican state, the district I'm in is heavily Democrat. Unless said member retires, there's no way to get rid of them, and they're merely replaced by someone as bad, and often worse. Same goes for my State Senator, as I'm in a Black Voting Rights Act-mandated seat. I also similarly have no say for Congressmember, which is Democrat and has been since U.S. Grant won his 2nd term in 1872. U.S. Senator is the only office I can have influence over because I am outvoted on all the other contests. It would be unthinkable to give up that right to my corrupt, ultraleftist state legislator and incoming State Senator, neither of which represents me whatsoever.
As soon as Senators realized they were under no legal obligation to resign early from their seats if they refused to follow state legislators instructions or if an opposite party won the majority, Senators ceased to be representatives of their states. That happened quite early in the 19th century. It’s why the experiment was a failure.
If you were to reimplement it today, you’d never have another Conservative Senator elected again except by accident. Their goal would be to loot the treasury for their respective states.
I think Ireland is a rather unique circumstance, there are two squishy right-of-center parties that agree on 90% of the issues but hate each others guts and refuse to work together or form any kind of government together because they are still butt hurt over something that happening during Irish Independence or whatever, and as a result they split the conservative vote and the leftists are able to form a government.
What fieldmarshaldj is talking about is something more akin to modern day Poland, where the two "major" parties in the country (the Law and Justice Party and the Civic Platform Party) are both conservative. They agree on 80%-90% of the issues, the main difference is the Law and Justice Party is anti-EU and Civic Platform Party is pro-EU. Voters basically get to choose between having a conservative government or having an even more conservative government (the more conservative, anti-EU party is currently in power) Left-wing parties exist in Poland as an alternative (the Democratic Left Alliance is an example) but they are minor third parties that win only a handful of seats at the local level. It's a win-win scenario for us.
I agree that would be pretty refreshing if the RATS were NEVER taken over by the William Jennings Bryan wing of the party and we had a Polish-style government from the 20th century onward. Just imagine no 1913 progressive era, no FDR court-packing scheme, no Earl Warren Supreme Court, and no "Great Society". If both parties were basically conservative, I imagine disgruntled lefties in this country would have done what they did in 1924 and formed a permanent left-wing third party in the U.S. (probably named the "Progressive Party) to oppose the Republicans and the Democrats in every election, but they wouldn't able to do much harm if they were like the Liberal Democrats in the UK and didn't have the ability to ever get in power. Most likely they'd try to push both of the "major" parties in the U.S. to the left.
>> Though who knows BACK IN THE DAY I might have been in favor of tariffs. Back in the day businessmen supported protectionism.When thing I don't get is Bourbon foreign policy, how'd the dems go from manifest destiny to non-interventionist? That was a true "switch". <<
The RATs are "non-interventionist" and "anti-war" on paper, but when they actually get in power in another story. Both Woodrow Wilson and FDR swore up and down that they'd keep us out of war, then got us into World War I and World War II, respectively. Bob Dole had a great line at a debate pointing out every major war of the 20th century was started by a Democrat. Even Obama continued AND EXPANDED every single Bush military effort and foreign policy initiative that he vehemently campaigned against and pledged to abolish.
On tariffs, however, that might indeed be a true example where "the two parties switched sides" from where they were in the 19th century. I've heard Pat Buchanan and others complain that back in the day, the Democrats were the ones pushing free trade and the GOP was the one promoting protectionism. Ironically in the late 19th century it was the ONLY major issue they fought over, since the whole civil war era stuff was old news and the Republicans couldn't get any more mileage out of "waving the bloody shirt" and reminding voters that the DemonRats were the party of slavery and treason. By the 1880s it was old news. That's one of the reasons I don't think both parties remaining right-of-center would have resulted in a situation like in Ireland where they squabble over something that happened a century ago.
So you are incapable of moving? Also, your General Assembly composition would send two Republican Senators regardless. And if you read further (Ignoring expanding voting “rights”), the reason why your are gerrymandered is because idiots who have no business voting put people in position to create a “power class”.
Why should I have to move ?
And I just told you I don’t want the legislature electing MY U.S. Senator. It didn’t work before the 17th, and it ain’t gonna magically work now.
BTW, I agree with gerrymandering to keep the parasites and loons corralled into the fewest number of districts so the non-nutter districts aren’t threatened. It’s why the Demonrats want “Independent” Redistricting Boards, which always manage to overdraw seats for the radical left.
Actually, the GOP Speaker of the House in TN didn’t gerrymander the districts here in Nashville nearly enough. Since she is also from here, she went easy on the Dems, allowing them to have more seats than they ought to have. Big mistake.
Since the E.C. is how we Constitutionally elect the President, the answer is self-evident.
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