Comment by pear01
13 hours ago
Congress is the problem, but not in the way most describe.
Congress has abdicated its powers because as an institution it is broken. Several inland states with total state wide populations less than that of major metro areas on the coasts have the same amount of senators as every other state has - two. This means voters in a lot of states are over represented. Meanwhile, they say land doesn't vote, but in the United States Senate the cities and localities with the most people that drive much of our growth and dynamism are severely underrepresented. The upper and most important chamber of the Congress is thus undemocratic. Given it's an institution deeply susceptible to minority gridlock that depends on wide margins to do anything, well now more often than not it simply does nothing. An imperial presidency thus frankly becomes the only way the country can actually get most things done.
This two senators for every state arrangement was a compromise agreed to when constitutional ratification was in doubt, when the USA was a weak, newborn country of about 3 million people confined to the Eastern seaboard at a time in our history where our most pressing concern was being recolonized by European powers. The British burned down the White House in 1812 imagine what more they could have accomplished if the constitutional compromises that strengthened the union had not been agreed to.
This compromise has outlived its usefulness. No American today fears a Spanish armada or British regulars bearing torches. These difficult compromises at the heart of America already led to one civil war.
The best we can do is create a broad political movement that entertains as many incriminations as possible (probably around corruption/Epstein, which must make pains to avoid any distinction between say a Bill Clinton or a Donald Trump) so we can get past partisan bickering to get enough of mass movement to try to usher in a new age of constitutional amendment and reform.
If it doesn't happen this cycle of Obama Trump Biden Trump will continue until this country elects someone who makes Trump look like a saint. It can happen. Think of how Trump rehabilitated Bush. We already see the trend getting worse. And if it does, then the post WWII Germany style reset being mentioned here will then become inevitable.
How do you think this would play out? Changing the apportionment of the Senate, aside from being a political and legal nightmare, would also create monumental constitutional crisis.
First, the Connecticut Compromise is a democratic underpinning of the US. It was central to the formation of the nation, and any attempt to alter it would be a foundational structural change to the constitution to say the least.
I understand the concerns about one generation binding another without recourse. Legal scholars differ on whether Article V, which implements the compromise, can be amended or not.
But for the sake of argument, let's say it can. It would be an insurmountable task requiring the following:
1. A supermajority in both houses of Congress (67% in the Senate and 66% in the House) to propose the amendment.
2. Ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures (38 out of 50 states) or by conventions in three-fourths of the states.
3. Consent of the states that would lose their equal representation in the Senate.
4. Overcome any legal challenges that would likely arise at every step of the process.
The result would be a dramatic redefinition of federalism and democratic representation. This wouldn't be a cosmetic change, it would be a fundamental alteration to the structure of the government and constitution.
Very few things were deemed "unamendable" and entrenched in the constitution before, both explicitly and implicitly, but now it would all be up for grabs. Now nothing is irrevocable.
What's to stop future generations from altering other fundamental principles? While we may complain of being bound by the decisions of our ancestors, we would be opening up a Pandora's box of constitutional instability for future generations, binding them to the whims of a (slim?) majority of the current generation's political agenda.
I think that is the best case scenario. The worst, and I think a very possible scenario, is that states losing representation would claim that such a drastic and material change to the constitution upends the root of the bargain that led to the formation of the union, and would likely seek to secede. You may have achieved your goal of changing the apportionment of the Senate, but at the cost of the union itself. There are far easier and less risky ways to achieve political change.