The Powers That Be
He's got the beet sugar.
Not to just keep flogging a dead horse endlessly, but it does strike me as worth noting that when you read a puff piece in The New York Times about the Gang of Six bipartisan dealmakers in the Senate that vast power is being wielded by people who, in a democratic system of government, would have almost no power. We’re talking, after all, about Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Collectively those six states contain about 2.74 percent of the population, less than New Jersey, or about one fifth the population of California. The six largest states, by contrast, contain about 40 percent of Americans.
The largest metropolitan area contained in whole or in part within any of those six states is the Albuquerque MSA, population 846,000, the 59th largest in the United States—smaller than New Haven or Fresno or Richmond. And of course if you got together a group of Senators from large states that contain big cities—California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois—those senators would still represent plenty of farmers and rural communities. Indeed, California is the most important farm state in America. But when you get the inverse group together you wind up completely excluding the interests of residents of large metropolitan areas—not just city dwellers, but the vast number of Americans who live in the suburbs of large cities—even though such places contain a majority of the country’s population and economic activity.
78 Responses to “The Powers That Be”
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July 28th, 2009 at 10:48 am
See the following: http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/07/27/three-republican-senators-are-worth-more-than-76-of-the-country/
This is a crucial article–who are they to rule for the rest of us???
July 28th, 2009 at 10:50 am
No one is going to go for abolishing the Senate. People understand that the purpose of regional representation is to prevent regionalism.
Calling for the abolition of the filibuster is fine and good, since that isn’t in the Constitution and wasn’t even used very often for most of our history. Calling for the abolition of the Senate (or the transformation of the Senate into a population-based representative body) is just beating your head against a wall.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Not to mention the fact that in a democracy you would only need a majority vote, not a supermajority, so the votes of any of these six Senators should be inconsequential in getting legislation passed.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
FWIW, I’m not too concerned about Baucus driving this bill to the ground, or watering it down — assuming he eventually reports something out — like Cohn says “getting a bill out of Finance, any bill, will move things along”.
In fact, in negotiating with the HELP committee, I’d think that Kennedy has turf on his side (at least with the public option), if nothing else.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Elections of small-staters to the US Senate are the one area of Affirmative Action where explicit quotas are completely legal.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Hey, power is a matter of application.
Most prison inmates have a hard time getting a job when they get out, for example.
But some inmates are making a shitload of money working as Prison Consultants for people like Bernie Madoff:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_prison_brokers
(Is Richard Hack still around ? I have a proposition for him. )
Similarly, if you are a Senator from a low-population state like Nebraska, you can point out to plutocrat donors that its a lot easier/cheaper to con a few rubes out in the sticks than to have to spend tons of money buy TV ads in expensive Urban areas on the East or West Coast. Since the Republicans and Blue Dogs are whores for the rich, that’s why you see them focusing on rural backwaters that are short on population and even shorter on intelligence.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Noah: I think a marginally more realistic (which is to say, still pretty utopian) idea is to greatly weaken the Senate so that the House of Representatives can pass legislation without the Senate if they have a supermajority or are willing to wait a set amount of time and vote again or something. Lots of other countries have their upper houses set up like that, and that way you’d be able to keep the advantages of a “sober second thought” without having the sober second thought being able to kill thoroughly popular bills dead.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:03 am
You sound like the Rt wingers bitching about Leahy, from tiny Vt, being chair of the Ag committee.
The real focus is on why the MSM gives the gang of 6 any credence.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am
I agree with the thrust of the post, but even more democratic systems do sometimes have king-makers with a relatively small portion of the popular vote. The problem is more that the system is biased towards such an outcome rather than having it sometimes arise because of the vagaries of party politics.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am
The real focus is on why the MSM gives the gang of 6 any credence.
Because the fewer Americans there are in your state, the more typically American it is.
When you finally get to ‘the real America’, it’s empty.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:09 am
There has been a lot of talk here about the unfairness/undue influence of small states. If I recall correctly, there was a recent post about doing away with the Senate. Get used to it. You might as well complain that there is too much hydrogen in the air or that the sun rises in the East. Since more than 1/3 of the states are “small” there will never be a constitutional amendment to do away with the senate. How about working to get the rules changed to abolish filibusters? That is doable and would actually accomplish something.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:14 am
flog away
you can flog away
stay all day
if you want to
July 28th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Not to just keep flogging a dead horse endlessly,
Please to keep up with the flogging of the dead horses; less because we’re going to be getting rid of the Senate anytime too soon, but because these people are claiming to be widely representative. And they are widely representative – of insurance/finance lobbyists.
max
['Beat down.']
July 28th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Small correction — It’s Olympia Snowe from Maine, not Susan Collins.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I would like to endlessly flog a few dead horses on the Finance Committee. Come to think of it, I would like to horse whip the whole goddamn Senate.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:26 am
As other posters above implied, I see no problem with combatting the notion that this group is somehow representative of a microcosm of the nation.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am
This is an unfortunate truth, though more (as has been pointed out by others) due to the excessive power wielded by small states. Which leads me to the next bit…
No, people understand that they like having power and aren’t too keen on giving it up, no matter how undemocratic it may be. Human nature.
And your stated reason doesn’t just not address the real issue, it doesn’t even make sense. Regional representation prevents regionalism? If anything, the Senate promotes regionalism. If it weren’t for the Senate, you could say bye-bye to agricultural subsidies, obstruction on Yucca Mountain, etc. Representation should be population based alone–why should Wyomingans have more power in one branch of the legislature, a branch wholly equal in overall power with the truly representational House, simply by virtue of their geographic location, than Californians? Also, to have intense regionalism of any significance (in other words, significant enough to pose a problem), you first need to have a large enough population in that region to embrace regionalist beliefs.
The Senate is a relic of a very different United States of America and we’d all be a lot better governed if it were treated as such.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:31 am
California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois—those senators would still represent plenty of farmers and rural communities.
If every citizen of those states (I’m from NY, #3 in asshole politicians after IL & Cali!) who did not live in LA, SF, NYC, CHI, BigD, Houston, or Miami died of starvation, ebola or perhaps just despair. Schumer, Boxer, et. al., would not shed one tear.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Another consideration is the representatives of those large and diverse states that you mention – there may be a large # of people, no one is really represented. There is an enclave of social conservatives in N. Florida and social liberals in S. Florida. I know it’s similar in other large states. WHO exactly does Bill Nelson represent when he represents Florida? By this setup it would seem that he would as a rule have to be two – faced and waffle on a vast array of issues. The answer I think lies not in abolishing the Senate, but refining how the House works and allocating more power towards that body.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:40 am
So Matt, have you always wanked furiously away on the subject of how much the U.S. system of government sucks? Or is this a recent affectation? I ask because your wankery on this subject seems to have increased in frequency, leading me to wonder if you’re not trying to nail some hot chick who hates the Senate or someting.
Mike
July 28th, 2009 at 11:45 am
No, people understand that they like having power and aren’t too keen on giving it up, no matter how undemocratic it may be. Human nature.
Well, you don’t see people from California or New York or Texas clamoring for the reform or abolition of the Senate. People are generally satisfied with the system of government set out in the Constitution, and it’s worked for a long time so people trust it.
My guess is that the average American takes a dim view of calls for major revamps of our governmental institutions, suspecting (rightly) that the real motivation behind such calls is the desire to shift the short-term political landscape toward one or another set of preferred policies.
The filibuster, though, must go.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I suspect the situation is more complicated than a few corrupt Senators from low population states subverting the will of the people.
Most Members of Congress are highly constrained by the needs of their constituents –including the economic well being of their major donors. If a majority are on the same sheet of music, the federal government can really, really fuck a city, an industry or even a state in retaliation.
When the major donors of the Democratic Party say shit, Senators Ben Nelson and Max Baucus squat and start making grunting noises. The fact they are not making grunting noises tells us that the people who really run the Democratic Party don’t want their taxes raised to pay for healthcare for the unwashed rabble.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:49 am
hey matt,
you forgot one really important point…
those guys represent populations that are also overwhelmingly white.
sure, there’s a smattering of hispanic and black voters in a couple of those states, but i’d bet that the non-white populations of those states, combined, is somewhere near 4 to 5 percent.
which is exactly the way they – the folks who run things – like it.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Re Noah at 21: “My guess is that the average American takes a dim view of calls for major revamps of our governmental institutions, suspecting (rightly) that the real motivation behind such calls is the desire to shift the short-term political landscape toward one or another set of preferred policies.”
————-
My guess is that the average American is as ignorant of the political philosophy behind the Constitution as he was 220 years ago when he was conned into accepting it by Federalist whores for the rich.
Even though Polybius, Aristotle, and Karl Marx have since been translated into English. Television is a wonderful tool for creating a nation of morons.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I think this is flawed logic. I live in NM and I have been fighting tooth and nail for a “robust” public option.
You are implying that because states have small populations they (or their representatives) don’t have as much of a vested interest in healthcare reform, in effect saying taht their smaller populations don’t matter as much as large urban areas. Our entire government is set up to give equal representation to all states, regardless of their populations, as I’m sure you’re aware.
There are plenty of representatives of states with small populations that are fighting hard for healthcare reform. Bingaman in the HELP committee was charged by Teddy Kennedy with preparing the coverage portion of the HELP bill… he is strongly in favor of the public option.
But on the finance committee, the real issue is big pharma and health insurance companies who own Baucus and Conrad.
So the issue is congressional payola, not the size of the states.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Here’s something interesting. There are more un- and underinsured people in the country than there are people in the states represented by these senators. If the entire population of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, Iowa and New Mexico was uninsured, I’ll bet we wouldn’t be seeing this obstruction from the large state senators.
And on the flipside, if the entire states of California, Texas and New York were uninsured, I think the media would be a lot harder on small-state senators holding up the process.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:56 am
By the way, if you wanted the Senate to include representatives of minority interest groups, why not do it the rational way and go with some sort of proportional representation scheme, ala Israel or the Netherlands? Farmers or whomever could then band together and elect as many Senators as their numbers would warrant.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Cable Television is an even more ingenious invention: Not only does it lie to the People, it makes them Pay for the privilege.
I don’t think even the Emperor Tiberius managed to pull that off.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
[...] points out that the Gang of Six negotiating the Senate Finance version of health reform all represent very [...]
July 28th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
If you resent the out-sized power wielded by the residents of Wyoming you could always try moving there. . .
July 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
My guess is that the average American is as ignorant of the political philosophy behind the Constitution as he was 220 years ago when he was conned into accepting it by Federalist whores for the rich.
Even though Polybius, Aristotle, and Karl Marx have since been translated into English. Television is a wonderful tool for creating a nation of morons.
Just out of curiosity, have you ever looked in a mirror and said, with a straight face, “I believe that most people in my country are morons, but that I myself am not.”??
It really puts a new perspective on things.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
The most common rebuttals to Matt’s point are typified by comments #2 and #18:
“No one is going to go for abolishing the Senate. People understand that the purpose of regional representation is to prevent regionalism.”
“If every citizen of (the most populous) states… who did not live in LA, SF, NYC, CHI, BigD, Houston, or Miami died of starvation, ebola or perhaps just despair. Schumer, Boxer, et. al., would not shed one tear.”
Or, essentially, that each region must be represented, and that voters from rural states need to be over-represented in the Senate because their voices are drowned out in states with major cities.
Of course, NEITHER of these goals is served by the current design of the United States Senate. It over-represents New England, the Inland South, and the Mountain West at the expense of the West Coast and Mid-Atlantic region. And it deprives rural voters in California (and urban voters in Louisville, for that matter) of equal representation. These people are all represented, roughly equally, in the House. There are serious issues with gerrymandering, of course, but House districts are not nearly as gerrymandered as state boundaries… where decisions made by Eighteenth Century surveyors carry more weight than anything even remotely resembling democratic principles or the public interest.
If abolishing the Senate is unrealistic, abolishing the rights of the states and redrawing the Senate districts into 50 regions of roughly equal population would be utterly impossible. And yet this is how many modern democracies apportion their Upper Houses. This would do a better job of fulfilling nearly all of the needs that the Senate’s defenders claim they want to be addressed.
The role of the Senate is not to protect under-represented voters. It is to preserve the power of entrenched interests. Period. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a damn fool.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I echo much of Don Williams’s #24 response to this, though I would argue that it wasn’t so much malevolent “conning” of the people as that 220 years ago we viewed ourselves as much more of a collection of states rather than one nation–as Shelby Foote put it, “the United States are” vs. “the United States is”
But really, the problem is that people don’t even consider revising our system of government as a possibility. We’re taught in grade school (if it even penetrates) “the Founding Fathers created a three branch system of government, with X, Y, and Z here, the Amendment system here, etc.” While we generally don’t go so far as to teach children that our system is inherently superior to all others, the constant emphasis and general deification (again, not explicit, perhaps not even originally intended, but now very strong) of our Founders–we even capitalize the word!–instills everyone with a reflexive belief that our government, as generally structured in the 1790s, is the absolute optimal form of human political arrangement.
Travelling abroad does much to shake this view, assuming an open mind, or even just learning in detail about other types of democracy, but the vast majority of the public isn’t really interested in doing that, and as the most powerful country in the world by far, we can afford the luxury of ignorance in a way that, say, Germany or the U.K. can’t.
Even assuming a perfect education system, I see the lack of “populous-stater” enthusiasm or visible thought on this as the natural outgrowth of having no chance at all of changing it. Why agitate for or even mention a governmental reform that by its very nature would garner enough automatic nays to kill it instantly? There’s a good reason we highlight peaceful transfer of power from the minority to the majority (South Africa, USSR) as extraordinary events.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Similarly, if you are a Senator from a low-population state like Nebraska, you can point out to plutocrat donors that its a lot easier/cheaper to con a few rubes out in the sticks than to have to spend tons of money buy TV ads in expensive Urban areas on the East or West Coast.
True, maybe, but unfair. Unfair to Vermont, at least. This guy got outspent 10 to one in a Republican primary and still won by 10 points.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
But why? It comes down to arbitrarily giving a very few people in one area representation equal to that of a much larger amount of people in another area–per person, arbitrarily more power. It violates the “one man, one vote” ideal that forms the basis of the idea of democracy.
I’m pretty sure I agree with your larger point, which is that to make the Senate fair you’d have to make it into a collection of nationwide House seats, which really serves no purpose not already taken care of by the current House. Just wanted to properly emphasize how ridiculous the idea of representation by land rather than by people is.
Again, we were more like the modern day UN (separate nations) than the US (separate provinces) at our creation, hence the use of representation by land, but we’re nothing like that now–we didn’t even directly elect Senators before, and returning that power to the state legislatures might be a good stopgap measure, though I haven’t really thought it through.
And I’m not recommending the primacy of federal over state government here, either. I think the state system is a wonderful mechanism for increasing efficiency and self rule. However, where the national government is concerned, the current system only increases federal interference in state matters.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
The House isn’t exactly democratic either. Wyoming citizens still get 3x the representation as a typical California citizen in that body. And at 435, each congressman represents 700,000 people on average.
The problem is this whole idea of geographic representation to begin with. Why do we have national politicians who set policy and law for the whole nation, yet are only accountable to one locality? What’s good for Iowa corn farms or Detroit auto makers might not be good for the nation, yet by the peculiar rules of our electoral system governing bodies these places wield tremendous power over the rest of us. How is this defensible at all?
A truly democratic government would be big enough to do its job and mirror the ideological spectrum of the country as a whole. Ideology is the thing that matters, not geography.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Lafollette:
The role of the Senate is not to protect under-represented voters. It is to preserve the power of entrenched interests. Period. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a damn fool.
That may be the functional role, but the purpose of creating the Senate was probably to prevent regionalism. Since the economy in those days was linked to farming, less-populous regions, finding their interests stymied in Congress, might be tempted to secede (and hey, it actually happened once!). The Senate was a way of giving political power to land, not just people, because land had military power.
Peter:
While we generally don’t go so far as to teach children that our system is inherently superior to all others, the constant emphasis and general deification (again, not explicit, perhaps not even originally intended, but now very strong) of our Founders–we even capitalize the word!–instills everyone with a reflexive belief that our government, as generally structured in the 1790s, is the absolute optimal form of human political arrangement.
I don’t think the 1790s was the absolute apex of political science. But I am also a pragmatist, and I recognize the huge costs of performing a fundamental overhaul of a country’s political institutions. And I take an attitude of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” – as I suspect most people take in most matters.
The Senate, in my opinion, is broken only because of the filibuster – something that, conveniently, isn’t in the Constitution and is a rather recent phenomenon, and hence is less costly to change. But changing the electoral nature of the Senate itself would cause huge upheaval and uncertainty, for only minor policy gains.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
frankie d Says:
July 28th, 2009 at 11:49 am
hey matt,
you forgot one really important point…
those guys represent populations that are also overwhelmingly white.
sure, there’s a smattering of hispanic and black voters in a couple of those states, but i’d bet that the non-white populations of those states, combined, is somewhere near 4 to 5 percent.
which is exactly the way they – the folks who run things – like it.
=============================================================
Interesting question, so I looked at the numbers here
http://www.censusscope.org/index.html
It’s 2000 census, but I would imagine the Hispanic populations in the western states have gone up.
Total populations New Mexico, North Dakota, Maine, Wyoming, Iowa in thousands – 7,154
Total Hispanic, Native American & Black populations of those states in thousands – 1,157
Non-white 16%
You lose the bet. New Mexico population is 51% Hispanic or Native American which throws you off. No one who’s ever been there could think of New Mexico as a lily white state.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I wasn’t including you in the people who reflexively assume our government is superior to all others. The fact that you’re here discussing this with me tended to rule out that possibility.
I also understand the chaos that such a change would involve, in the impossible event that it actually passed without a bloody revolution. Yet while it may not seem broken (we have a functioning, fairly democratic government with some of the strongest protections for civil liberties in the world*), imagine how our country might look with representation based solely on population rather than also geography. Money and therefore people would be funnelled almost entirely to large population centers** and would generally be allocated more in line with actual population figures. I’d have to go back and comb through Senatorial history to examine just how many votes from less populous states were bought through pork or other concessions, but I’m willing to bet that money could have been allocated in a much more geographically efficient manner–so I think we could do much, much better than what we have now. It all depends where your standards are.
Again, though, I realize how unrealistic and potentially chaotic such reforms could be, but so were many needed reforms throughout history. At the very least, it bears serious consideration.
*marijuana and gay marriage are issues, but our free speech protections and 2nd Amendment rights would be considered insane in Europe, so we’re up there, for better or worse in those categories
**whether by federal income tax or, with further reforms, a much smaller federal government allowing for states to step in and pick up more of the burden in exchange for more of the revenue, but that’s another issue
July 28th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
For what it’s worth, the drug cartels down in Brazil are setting up clinics to take care of their own.
And some of the Mexican drug cartels are beginning to develop a Robin Hood approach to gaining support.
It’s only a matter of time before the cartels, which are not stupid, put two and two together and start providing alternative healthcare.
And I, for one, would like to see what answer smarty-pants Bill Kristol and FOX News would have to that one.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
If abolishing the Senate is unrealistic, then having a functioning democracy is also unrealistic.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
That may be the functional role, but the purpose of creating the Senate was probably to prevent regionalism. Since the economy in those days was linked to farming, less-populous regions, finding their interests stymied in Congress, might be tempted to secede (and hey, it actually happened once!). The Senate was a way of giving political power to land, not just people, because land had military power.
Yes, thus promoting regionalism, not preventing it, as Peter already pointed out at 11:30. You seem to have a bizarre and idiosyncratic definition of the word “regionalism.”
Actually, I think I’ve figured out what you’re trying to say, but you’re really not making it easy. Given inherent regionalism in 18th-century American and Western European society – landownership as political and economic power, settlement along clannish and ethnic patterns – it sounds logical to incorporate some of that regionalism into the political system, or else people strong by regionalistic measures but weak by other measures would have an incentive to abandon or overthrow that system.
Bring regionalism into the political structure in the form of Senators, and it’s not something people have to worry about in the form of armies, so yes, the Senate may have prevented – reduced, at least – regionalism.
Even if you’re right, though, regionalism is no longer inherent in society, or not nearly as much. People can move more easily, the economy is far less agrarian, etc. But the Senate is still there. So, today, it promotes regionalism. Is that what you were trying to say?
July 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Probably something about the commies and the cartels banding together to fight us, the conclusion being an exhortation to scale up the War on Drugs. Ugh.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
@ campesino,
it was just a guess, of course.
but you left out montana.
what does that do to the numbers?
July 28th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
A good lens to look at this through, not the lens but a lens, is that the government designed by the constitution was designed by and for asset holders. The system is peculiarly non democratic.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
It’s all theoretical. There’s simply no way to get from here to there. A constitutional convention would just make matters worse.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
You guys should copy us up north on this. We view our senate (did you even know we have one? They aren’t even elected!) a bit like an appendix. Small, useless and not worth thinking about unless it acts up.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
frankie d Says:
July 28th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
@ campesino,
it was just a guess, of course.
but you left out montana.
what does that do to the numbers?
=============================================================
Oops! Drops it down to 15%. Fair number of Indians in MT (6%) and 2% Hispanic, but does bring it down a point.
It’s my understanding that the Hispanic population is booming in Iowa taking jobs in meatpacking and other agri processing type businesses. Of course that’s on a pretty small base
July 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
my point was simple and still holds.
the senators represent areas of the country that are not representative of the country at all and that the folks in power like it that way, in order to facilitate their exercise of power.
if they did not like it like that, they would change the rules.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Since the economy in those days was linked to farming, less-populous regions, finding their interests stymied in Congress, might be tempted to secede.
A crucial premise of this hypothesis, assuming I understand it correctly, is factually incorrect. At the time, many, many more people lived in rural areas than urban areas–it was 95% rural to 5% urban in the 1790 Census. Accordingly, rural citizens could expect to easily outnumber and outvote urban citizens in picking their representatives in the House at the time the Senate was designed.
and hey, it actually happened once!
In the 1860 Census, the nation was still 80% rural. So the Civil War was rural people disagreeing among themselves, not a rural minority trying to throw off their urban overlords.
It actually wasn’t until between the 1910 and 1920 Censuses that the nation finally tipped from more rural to more urban. Again, that is long after the Senate was designed, so any theory about the Senate being designed to protect rural interests is really anachronistic.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
[...] a long-running theme at his blog, Matt Yglesias laments that Senators from small states wield so much power. The latest fuel is a NYT feature on [...]
July 28th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Congressman Aedanus Burke , in his “Reflections on the Late, Remarkable Revolution in Government” (done circa 1790) , argued that the Constitutional Convention was a SECOND American Revolution –intended by wealthy interests to overthrow the First.
One of Aedanus Burke’s biggest mistakes was to let Alexander Hamilton cowardly crawdad out of Burke’s challenge to a duel. If Burke had blown Hamiton’s head circa 1790 the country would have been far better off today.
On the other hand, that would have deprived Aaron Burr of the opportunity to deliberately gut-shoot Hamilton in 1803 –ensuring that Hamilton suffered in agony for a day or so before expiring. So maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on Aedanus. Mistakes were made.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
You guys should copy us up north on this.
True, true.
Canada’s a decent example of how to deal with small or sparsely-populated provinces and preserve their autonomy and historical boundaries, without them having disproportionate influence on federal politics. It’s not just that the Canadian Upper House is weaker, but that the seats are divided regionally: PEI is over-represented, but that’s about the only big distortion.
You could very easily imagine the US Senate apportioned by region, with at least one senator for each state. (Of course, it’ll never happen.)
I am also a pragmatist, and I recognize the huge costs of performing a fundamental overhaul of a country’s political institutions.
Pro: time gives you the ability to work around the quirks.
Con: that ability to work around the quirks also shields you from the fundamental flaws.
To pick up on what Peter said, for all the reading aloud of the Declaration you get every July, there’s a common perception not just that “governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes”, but that radical revision of government in the US is the stuff of history.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Not to just keep flogging a dead horse endlessly
========================================================
Yup, way past time to send him to the glue factory
July 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I think its interesting… That when the shoe is on the other foot, there is so much backlash. This why we live in the greatest country on the planet. We have checks and balances. These senators represent their constituents in their states. Health Care reform is necessary, but not in the current manner proposed by the president. Health care is a privilege, not a right. Where does it stop? Shouldn’t all Americans also have the right to air conditioning when its 90+ degrees or is that also a privilege?
July 28th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
The Senate made sense as a political compromise 220 years ago, but not any more. No need to be radical, though — a simple change of just a few Senate rules can make the institution much more “citizen friendly.” Of course, that means that certain senators/states/regions must give up some power. Oh well, so much for Senatorial reform.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Shouldn’t all Americans also have the right to air conditioning when its 90+ degrees or is that also a privilege?
Oh, that clichéd theme (it’s usually iPhones that get invoked these days) makes me wish that the right to make really fucking stupid comments that stack up meaningless slogans was only a privilege. As it is, while AACKC gets to be a fucktard, others can’t get affordable healthcare, and that makes the US somewhat less of a nation than it ought to be.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I’m going to be cynical here at the risk of disappointing some people’s hopes. The Senate is clubby. When a Committe chair and five other Committee members act in concert, they are not lone rangers. They are doing the dirty work that gives political cover to the rest of the Senate who don’t want to take a stand on a controversial issue. This enables the others to say, “it was those guys’ fault, don’t blame me, I’m on your side, please contribute to my re-election campaign and next session we’ll get it through.” You see this all the time on the Hill – someone introduces a bill and it just dies in committee so no one has to take a position on it. Then everyone can play their silence different ways to different constituencies – I was for it but never got a chance to vote, or I was against it but I can’t say that publicly, etc. It’s not just on progressive positions. They did this all the time in the 90s on “bankruptcy reform” – every year, it would fall just a little short and then the financial industry would be asked for more campaign contributions.
This is how political parties raise money.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
LaFolette Progressive says:
but House districts are not nearly as gerrymandered as state boundaries…
You have got to be kidding. Have you studied any House boundary maps? Take a look at the 4th Illinois district (click on the map for a real good look), which I live near and drive through often. It was specifically created to ensure that a member of a particular ethnic group was elected to Congress (i.e., to rig an election), and if you can find a State that’s anywhere near as gerrymandered as that I’ll give you a cigar.
As far as 6 people having what you consider a disproportionate influence on legislation; the only reason they have such is because the country is almost evenly divided on the subject. If there was a strong majority pro or con they’d have no influence. But because it’s evenly divided they do, just like a small minority party has influence all out of proportion in a Parliamentary system when the two major parties are almost equal in size.
And in noting that, understand that you should give up your pipe dream that setting up a purely democratic system of representation would keep a small number of people with a special interest from having undue influence in a legislative issue. Just ask the Israelis, for starters. I’m sure a little research will show others.
So; the country is almost evenly divided on a topic of great import – and expense. The ability of a small number of people to hold things up until a consensus develops isn’t a bug, it’s a feature, and a highly desirable one. In these times of television and Internet and experts in manipulating public opinion the passing passions of the electorage need even more tempering than they did in the times of the founders of this country. Remember, in 2 or 4 years it could be your ox that’s being gored.
We don’t live in a democracy, folks. We live in a democratic Federal republic, where the States have sovereignty. Good thing, too. A pure democracy would be a very bad thing. If you want to get rid of State sovereignty, consider that the one of the first things that you’d lose is gay “marriage” and other such things. Rights or privileges for various groups would never get off the ground if they had to pass nationwide or not at all. Consider that State sovereighty also means that the other 49 States benefit from seeing the mistakes that Massachusetts made with it’s health plan, so should an expansion of our national health plan system pass it at least will avoid that. Or should – with Nancy Pelosi in charge it might be worse.
Oh, and if you want to talk about an individual having disproportionate power, how about Speaker Pelosi? She was elected to her House seat by, what, about 1% of the people that elected those 6? And that constituency is hardly reflective of the country at large. Additionally, she was elected to her position as Speaker by fewer people than are in my office building? If you want to eliminate disproportionate power in the hands of a few representatives, let’s start with the most egregious cases first.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Here’s that map
July 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
No, your point doesn’t hold and your comment was blatantly ignorant.
Here are the US Census Bureau 2008 estimated populations of those six states and compared to the US (”WNH” is “White Non-Hispanic):
US: 304,059,724 WNH: 200,679,418 66.0%
Iowa: 3,002,555 WNH: 2,720,315 90.6%
NM: 1,984,356 WNH: 839,383 42.3%
Maine: 1,316,456 WNH: 1,257,215 95.5%
Montana: 967,440 WNH: 853,282 88.2%
ND: 641,481 WNH: 576,691 89.9%
Wyoming: 532,668 WNH: 465,019 87.3%
------------------------------------------------
TOTAL: 8,444,956 WNH: 6,711,905 79.5%
Taken as a group, it’s true that these states are somewhat less diverse than the US as a whole.
However, New Mexico is far more diverse than the US as a whole, having only 42% of its population as white and non-Hispanic. Given that it accounts for about one-quarter of the population of these six states, it makes no sense to ignore that it contradicts your thesis.
July 28th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
pseudonymous in nc- sounds like redneck in nc has no brains nor imagination, that one must use obscene language to draw attention to one’s self… One must first define affordable healthcare? If you don’t have affordable healthcare, why not get a job that provides one. We live in a country that offers the opportunity to get an education for free, up until highschool, a right for everyone. But, let’s not look at oneself for blame, let’s blame everyone else. The largest problem we have in this country is accountability. Instead of doing something to move forward, we can continue to place the blame on someone/something else. And then think society owes us something.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Let say the senate was divided 50/50 and was based on proportional representation. Three senators (3%) would have the same clout as the six (2.74%) “powers that be.” Not a big change in the system.
I think some of us like the filibuster simply because it means extreme legislation from the left or the right is often DOA. I am confident there are a number of those advocating the end of the filibuster who would have cringed in fear if it had not existed a few years ago.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Right now I would love to see the entire congress go away.
Any group of common sensical citizens could do the job better,faster,cheaper, and a hell of a lot more honestly.
Along with the political farce of the GOP, add some blue dogs
from small states, and what’ve you got??
NOTHING.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
california’s population is 36,756,666 and wyoming’s population is 532,668. That is: California has 70 times more people than Wyoming. Why do they have equal representation in the Senate. THIS IS UNDEMOCRATIC!!!!
July 28th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
The misrepresentation of the Senate is fantastic.
In early America, the Population Ratio of Largest/Smallest Colony was Virginia/Rhode Island = 10.2
Now, the population Ratio of California/Wyoming = 73.5
24 states have population ratios more extreme than Virginia/Rhode Island in 1780.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
The problem in the Senate is the “technical” filibuster. All opponents of a bill have to do is threaten a filibuster and everything grinds to a halt. If they were still required to engage in “extended debate”, meaning a senator would have to speak on the floor continuously, doing such things as reading from the NY City phone book. They would have to sleep in their offices to be available to keep the actual filibuster going. You would see the TV shots of cots being wheeled into the Senate office building. CNN and MSNBC would have a crawl at the bottom of the screen showing how long the filibuster had been going on. First of all, many of these guys can’t stay awake after 9 PM. How are they each going to talk for 2-3 hours at a time? But mostly, what kind of PR is it for a senator to be shown on TV clogging up the system? Imagine the ads by MoveOn- ” Little Sally is waiting for medical treatment for her life threatening disease, but her insurance company is denying her the money she needs. And what is her senator, Chuck Grassley, doing about it? ( cut to video of Grassley reading the classifieds from the Des Moines Register). It wouldn’t take long for a successful cloture vote if this image was broadcast across the country. You might not get the legislation you want, but at least we would get a vote!
July 28th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias has his knee breeches and silk stockings in a twist because ZOMG “vast power is being wielded by people who, in a democratic system of government, would have almost no power. We’re talking, after all, about Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Collectively those six states contain about 2.74 percent of the population, less than New Jersey, or about one fifth the population of California.” (Via The Daily Beast.) Funny, I don’t hear too many pundits all that upset when Senators from those same states (or others equally unpopulated) are rewriting or blocking legislation of which they disapprove. [...]
July 28th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
[...] Shared Matthew Yglesias » The Powers That Be [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 1:27 am
[...] with a more skeptical constitution might note that the Gang of Six represent less than 3% of the US population — a rather slender thread of popular support for whatever solution these striving solons [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 1:39 am
your absolutely correct ,could agree more I consider my self a moderate independent so why are blue dog dems setting the agenda for the mojority?
July 29th, 2009 at 3:47 am
[...] Given the history, I think it may make more sense to get something in place, and then work to improve it over the next 20 years. Single-payer, even if it’s a good idea for the U.S., isn’t something that has any shot of getting through Congress. Elections matter, and progressives and liberals — a much smaller group than “Democrats” — simply don’t have enough elected representatives to get our preferred policy passed, and might not even if our Democracy was better designed. (As it is, the way the Senate in particular is designed leads to extremely undemocratic results.) [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Orin Hatch, Senator from Utah w/ a total population of 2,736,424 of whom only 1,890,869 are of voting age, sits on and more importantly, used to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee. That someone who represents so few can have such strong influence on Supreme Court Justice nominations, strikes me as unbalanced.
July 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias: Not to just keep flogging a dead horse endlessly, but it does strike me as worth noting that when you read a puff piece in The New York Times about the Gang of Six bipartisan dealmakers in the Senate that vast power is being wielded by people who, in a democratic system of government, would have almost no power. We’re talking, after all, about Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Collectively those six states contain about 2.74 percent of the population, less than New Jersey, or about one fifth the population of California. The six largest states, by contrast, contain about 40 percent of Americans. [...]
July 30th, 2009 at 4:50 am
[...] of public opinion which has shifted consistently against the Democrats. We can correctly complain about the ridiculous veto power that lies with the self-appointed ‘centrist’ Senators but [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 5:07 am
[...] The Powers That Be – Matt Yglesias [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
[...] of the Committee, completely excluded from the talks, have complained along with several prominent bloggers about these back door discussions. Eventually, Baucus let reporters in for several minutes before [...]
August 1st, 2009 at 8:53 pm
[...] and well for health care reform. Please pitch in if you can. It’s so frustrating watching the Max Baucus coalition try and dictate health care reform for America. Not to just keep flogging a dead horse endlessly, but it does strike me as worth noting that when [...]