Very interesting article.
in the past, the parts of the country granted outsize power by the Constitution — less populated states, which tend to be more rural — voted in broadly similar ways as large states and urban areas.
This similarity meant that the small-state bonus in the Senate and Electoral College had only a limited effect on national results. Both Democrats and Republicans benefited, and suffered, from the Constitution’s undemocratic features.
In recent decades, Americans have increasingly sorted themselves along ideological lines. Liberals have flocked to large metropolitan areas, which are heavily concentrated in big states like California, while residents of smaller cities and more rural areas have become more conservative.
This combination — the Constitution’s structure and the country’s geographic sorting — has created a disconnect between public opinion and election outcomes.
Geographic sorting has helped cause a growing disconnect between public opinion and election results, and this disconnect has shaped the Supreme Court, as well
The court’s membership at any given time is dictated by the outcomes of presidential and Senate elections over the previous few decades. And if elections reflected popular opinion, Democratic appointees would dominate the court. Yet the court is now dominated by a conservative, six-member majority
There are multiple reasons (including Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s decision not to retire in 2014 when a Democratic president and Senate could have replaced her). But the increasingly undemocratic natures of both the Electoral College and Senate play crucial roles.
Mr. Trump was able to appoint three justices despite losing the popular vote. Similarly, if Senate seats were based on population, none of Mr. Trump’s nominees — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — would likely have been confirmed, said Michael J. Klarman, a law professor at Harvard.
Senate Republicans also would not have been able to block Mr. Obama from filling a court seat during his final year in office.
Even Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation relied on the Senate’s structure: The 52 senators who voted to confirm him represented a minority of Americans
The current court’s approach has magnified the disconnect between public opinion and government policy, because Republican-appointed justices have overruled Congress on some major issues
The list includes bills on voting rights and campaign finance that earlier Congresses passed along bipartisan lines. This term, the court issued rulings on abortion, climate policy and gun laws that seemed to be inconsistent with majority opinion, based on polls
This is bullshit. 100 Senators serve about 20 billionaires
Hell yeah!! Hit it on the head, so when’s dinner?
It is by design from the start. You have the executive branch that represents the wealthy. You have the judicial branch that represents the wealthy. You have the the legislative branch of which the Senate directly represents the wealthy and Congress represents the people but are bought off by the wealthy.
The only time the people get what they want is when their wants and desires align with the wealthy. This is has been empirically verified.
Yeah, the Senate is a bad idea. If the US was a collection of little sovereign states mostly independent maybe it would make sense. But it’s not.
Get rid of the Senate. Add more seats to the house.
Get rid of lifetime appointments of supreme court justices. Pull them up from lower courts to hear cases, then send them back.
If the US was a collection of little sovereign states mostly independent maybe it would make sense.
That was the original intended structure, under the Articles of Confederation. The Senate was a compromise to appease low-pop agrarian slave territories and keep them from breaking off into fully independent countries - the fate that befell the Caribbean and much of Latin America.
As a trade-off, it was a savvy play. But the US Civil War should have illustrated the need for its abolition.
Very interesting article.
Whoever controls the US Senate can shape the US Supreme Court.
But the US Senate allows Wyoming or South Dakota to wield identical political power to New York or California when it comes to approving Supreme Court nominees.
This explains why several high-profile court rulings — such as overturning Roe v. Wade — have sharply conflicted with public opinion.
________
In the past, the parts of the country granted outsize power by the Constitution — less populated states, which tend to be more rural — voted in broadly similar ways as large states and urban areas.
This similarity meant that the small-state bonus in the Senate and Electoral College had only a limited effect on national results. Both Democrats and Republicans benefited, and suffered, from the Constitution’s undemocratic features.
In recent decades, Americans have increasingly sorted themselves along ideological lines. Liberals have flocked to large metropolitan areas, which are heavily concentrated in big states like California, while residents of smaller cities and more rural areas have become more conservative.
This combination — the Constitution’s structure and the country’s geographic sorting — has created a disconnect between public opinion and election outcomes. This disconnect has shaped the Supreme Court, as well.
The court’s membership at any given time is dictated by the outcomes of presidential and Senate elections. If elections reflected popular opinion, Democratic appointees would dominate the court. Yet the court is now dominated by a conservative, six-member majority.
Mr. Trump was able to appoint 3 justices despite losing the popular vote. Similarly, if Senate seats were based on population, none of Mr. Trump’s nominees — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — would likely have been confirmed.
Senate Republicans also would not have been able to block Mr. Obama from filling a court seat during his final year in office.
Even Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation relied on the Senate’s structure: The 52 senators who voted to confirm him represented a minority of Americans
The current court’s approach has magnified the disconnect between public opinion and government policy, because Republican-appointed justices have overruled Congress on major issues
The list includes bills on voting rights and campaign finance. This term, the court issued rulings on abortion, climate policy and gun laws that seemed to be inconsistent with majority opinion, based on polls
When there is a split, the Vice President breaks the tie.
But more generally, that’s an intended design feature. The Senate (power is a function of the number of states) is where the states are represented, the House of Representatives (power is a function of number of people) where the people are.
Switzerland is another federation that has a bicameral structure with a legislative house that represents the states.
Australia’s a federation that has has both legislative houses allocated based on number of states.
Australia’s a federation that has has both legislative houses allocated based on number of states.
Huh ? How do you work that out ? The electorates are sized to be equal and the number of electorates in each state changes when the demographics shift. The only qualifier is that out of the 150 seats each state is guaranteed minimum 5 to ensure they don’t end up with zero representation - there are 6 states, so 30 out of the 120 are locked out. Reallocation is done regularly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_territories_of_Australia#States
The territories aren’t states (by definition) and get treated differently (there is a strong argument nowadays for state-hood but it has not progressed).
“The requirements for territory seats are set via legislation, which currently requires that the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory have at least one member each”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_House_of_Representatives
“One vote, one value legislation requires all electorates within each state to have approximately the same number of voters. In 2022 there was an average of just over 117,000 electors per seat. However, the baseline quota for the number of voters in an electorate is determined by the number of voters in the state in which that electorate is found. The electorates of the smallest states and territories tend to have more variation from the mean in terms of numbers of electors. Each state is guaranteed a minimum of five seats in the Constitution, which has the effect of granting Tasmania more seats than they would otherwise be entitled to due to their population size.[4] Federal electorates have their boundaries redrawn or redistributed whenever a state or territory has its number of seats adjusted, if electorates are not generally matched by population size or if seven years have passed since the most recent redistribution.[5]”
TIL the Northern Territory doesn’t have the same status as the other big divisions on the continent.
The interior desert I understand being sparsely populated, and I’ve recently learned about the Nullarbor and why people don’t live on the south central coast, but I still don’t quite get why almost nobody lives on the tropical northern coast even though it’s closest to high-population areas like Indonesia and has rivers and beaches and stuff.