It's actually interesting because in the US it's enshrined in the constitution with the way the senate is set up, so it's not even viewed as a problem.
In Japan the central government isn't supposed to work this way and it is as least viewed as a problem: the disparity in the power of votes is considered unconstitutional, but the supreme court isn't willing to actually invalidate election results (they made up a distinction between being "unconstitutional" and being in an "unconstitutional state" which is not at all supported by precedent (although it's a civil law country so technically there's no binding precedent) or the constitution), so the ruling LDP does the absolute bare minimum to act like they're trying to improve the situation so they can pretend their doing something while actually dragging their feet as much as possible.
Probably the main negative consequence of ensuring that all votes have equal power would be to make it easier for the central government to ignore the wishes of rural areas, but this depends on how the government is structured in other ways.
In Japan, prefectures are relatively weak. For example, Okinawa recently attempted to invalidate approval for filling in of land for the new US military base because residents of Okinawa want the base out, but there's basically zero chance that this will actually end up working because the central government considers the base essentially for national security.
It’s absolutely viewed as a problem in the US. For the most part, those who don’t think it’s a problem are those who benefit from it, and those who do are those who suffer from it.
Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states;
For those of us living in urban areas, we're simply vastly underrepresented in federal government, and quite a few of us don't like it.
So you want to reduce the representation from the "fly-over states" so that all elections and all federal government decisions are decided by California and New York?
That's not going to work very well, and would lead to the secession of about 90% of the states, and then you'd find out that your urban paradises depend absolutely on the rest of the country to exist.
The founding fathers set up a pretty good system, and they specifically did not set up a democracy for a whole bunch of relatively obvious reasons. Straight democracy doesn't work.
You should extend more generosity to the point GP makes. You can believe in adjusting the system so that representation is more equal without doing away with the protections for small states. For example, you can greatly increase the size of the House. It's the original first amendment! http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/its-ti...
> The house already adequately represents the people
By what standard?
> that's how it was designed.
That may have been the design goal, but it's debatable whether the original design met the goal, and key elements of the original design (the original representation ratio) were not fixed in the Constitution or preserved over time.
> Expanding the house doesn't change representation.
It changes both the equality of representation (reducing quantization artifacts) and the proximity of Representatives to the represented, both of which are key elements of representation.
The house doesn't represent the people in the sense that the party that got a significant majority of the votes has a significant minority of the seats because of gerrymandering.
It's an interesting argument, but the house isn't a monolith that represents the entire US as a bloc - it's a regional thing that represents individual regions, and actually the vast majority of those areas in the US do not belong to the minority party. Overall popular vote is not how we elect the house.
You can argue about gerrymandering all day long, both sides do it and have done it since the beginning.
Actually, according to the original plan, the House of Representatives should have grown so that each member represents a roughly equal number of constituents (excepting very small population states which still get one). At some point it was capped at 435 (I presume for space reasons) and the disparity of representation has increased since. So it seems that more power has been transferred to rural states than the founders had originally envisioned.
The rural states' power in federal government is largely imaginary. In many elections, they have gone overwhelmingly for the losing candidate. If you look at a county by county map of the last election and then realize that the winner of the election actually lost the popular vote even after taking something like 85% of the counties in the US and you can still make the argument that the population centers should have more representation it's really just a naked left wing power grab at that point -- and likely an argument made by someone who has never really lived in rural America and doesn't understand it.
Yes, you have more people in the population centers. They're generally a very homogenous group by political thought, and vote almost as a left wing bloc in most cases. You're simply arguing that the left should be more powerful than it is. Nobody cries about the electoral college until a Republican wins. Nobody cries about representation when the left is in power.
There are things that are wrong in the US political system, but the electoral college and the house representation aren't those things. They're the best of the bad solutions to keeping away from a tyranny.
That’s because out of the five times that the electoral college winner was not the popular winner, four times it was a Republican who won and the fifth time the Republicans didn’t exist yet (but the winner was the more conservative candidate).
And also, the majority of this country votes democrat in every election since 2000, but because of gerrymandering the house retains a Republican majority. If the house matched the breakdown of national popular votes for house reps, it would be significantly Democrat.
You're using a tiny fraction of history to discuss this, and even within that tiny fraction your numbers are incorrect as the the dems held the majority from 2007 to 2011 and only lost it in the backlash from the health care debacle.
Also the national popular vote is totally irrelevant to the house membership. It's not set up that way.
an absurd strawman. To you there's no way to increase representation from more populous states without letting decisions be dominated by CA and NY? Can we argue in good faith here?
Pretty sure the rest of the country depends on states like CA and NY as well. It is hardly a one-way street.
There are many objective criticisms of the system. Like election methods, for instance. I personally think it's ridiculous to suggest that our understanding of governance and political systems hasn't increased enough to substantially improve the US. It's been 300 years.
I would point to the amendment system as evidence that the founding fathers knew they hadn't made a perfect system. I would point to the fact that they explicitly warned against political parties to show that the system is not at all what they intended. And lastly I want to say that this deification of the founding fathers is a big part of the problem.
You need 2/3 of the states for a convention. But you need 3/4 of the states to ratify.
Thing is, though, Constitution is just a piece of paper, if enough people - or states - believe that it is. Small states need to understand that the power that they wield is theirs only because the large states agree to abide by this arrangement. If that power is abused too much, the deal might just be altered - and in any such alteration, the larger and more powerful states will call the shots.
But they won't, and that's the beauty of the way it was set up. Every state still gets two votes in the Senate, and you can't change that without an amendment.
The majority of the small states still have to sign off on "altering the deal" for it to pass.
The Constitution is far more than a piece of paper, it's the foundation of all law in the US.
You miss my point. If the small states keep abusing their power, eventually the large states are going to simply reject the Constitution - and there's no mechanism for the small states to force it on them. In the end, it's a consensus arrangement. It was adopted back in the day in the form that it originally had, because that was the only thing that all then-states could agree on. If it stops being a thing that enough states can agree on now, then it is just a piece of paper. It doesn't have any magical innate powers to enforce itself.
The large states can't "reject the Constitution". There aren't enough of them, and the mechanism to enforce it is the federal courts, who don't care how big a state is.
Access to the courts and their attendant enforcement mechanisms is not something restricted to the large states. Agreements were made, documents written and signed, and at least one bloody war fought to preserve that "just a piece of paper", and the result has been quite clear throughout the history of this nation.
Just as a point of fact, the 100 largest cities in the US only represent about 20% of the total population. So no it wouldn’t just be big cities deciding everything.
I think the math suggests that the rest of the country depends on the 'urban paradises' to fund it, at this point. Sure, less populous states grow food, but if they broke off, it seems likely they'd want to sell that excess food for something like market value, no?
Maybe. Or maybe they'd decide to sell all their food elsewhere and you'd have food riots in your urban paradises.
But the contention is evidently that we need to remove their representation in federal government because people don't understand how the federal government was set up.
> Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states;
It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population. IIRC, Senators were originally elected by state legislatures, which made that role clearer.
If the Senate is to be reorganized to be proportional to population, some other "anti-democratic" compromise will need to be implemented to prevent small states from becoming neglected backwaters. The current comprise means neither small nor large states can ram through legislation that neglects the other's interests.
But to be honest, the cleaner solution to the problem is more federalism: increase the power of state governments over their own state, and correspondingly decrease the scope of the federal government over areas that aren't truly national concerns. The sacrifice there is that many groups would have to abandon their dreams of national dominance and satisfy themselves with regional influence.
> It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population.
That doesn't remove the problen, it just clarifies that it is a fundamental design problem and not a problem with an implementation details.
> If the Senate is to be reorganized to be proportional to population
That's a bad solution.
A better solution is just to transfer it's quasi-executive powers to the House, and it's quasi-judicial powers either to the House or the Supreme Court (if the House, then some consideration may need to be done of how charging works for impeachment, but that's not an insurmountable problem), and perhaps reduce it's legislative powers as has been done with the similarly problematic British House of Lords.
Or (and this can be combined with the above) rearrange it so that both seats from a state are in the same class (elected simultaneously), and instead of FPTP mandate a two-seat, preference ballot, proportional method like STV for Senate elections.
Besides, you can't restructure the Senate to make it proportional to population (at least without unanimity among the states), as that is literally the one thing that an Amendment cannot do. (There used to be another, but that was time-limited.)
> The current comprise means neither small nor large states can ram through legislation that neglects the other's interests.
Small states are slightly overrepresented in the House, radically overrepresented in the Senate and in judging electoral votes, and overrepresented at a level between those two in the Electoral College.
There's no real compromise or two-sided balance there.
> Small states are slightly overrepresented in the House, radically overrepresented in the Senate and in judging electoral votes, and overrepresented at a level between those two in the Electoral College.
It's only over-representation if representation must only be proportional to population.
> There's no real compromise or two-sided balance there.
There is a compromise and a two-sided balance: in the House, big states are "radically over-represented" because of their large populations; in the Senate, small-state individuals are "radically over-represented" because they're divided into more states per capita. Big states/urban areas have the power to block in the House, small states have the power to block in the Senate. The balance is that both sides have enough concentrated power that they're forced to compromise and cooperate or nothing can get done.
Overrepresentation of select groups doesn't prevent tyranny of the majority, it makes it more likely (and tilts which majority is likely to enjoy it), and even makes tyranny of the minority possible.
Tyranny of the majority can only be prevented by establishing norms that limit what government can do even with support of majorities in representative institutions either as absolute norms or with some things requiring a higher bar than a one-time majority (bicameralism with both houses not being elected fully simultaneously does this, requiring concurrence between branches does this, supermajority requirements for certain actions does this, Constitutional limitations with amendments requiring supermajorities of states even after legislative passage do this.)
> Because tyranny of the minority is much better...
That comment is basically a repetition of your last one with no further explanation or elaboration. It's pretty clear that you have the opinion that political representation should only be proportional to population and that all other systems are bad. We can't have a discussion if you don't want to engage other ideas.
> Besides, you can't restructure the Senate to make it proportional to population (at least without unanimity among the states), as that is literally the one thing that an Amendment cannot do. (There used to be another, but that was time-limited.)
Though, if there was enough support, it could be done with two amendments. The first would be an amendment to Article V, removing the requirement of unanimous changes to the Senate composition. The second would actually change it.
The likelihood of that happening is effectively nil, but it is allowed by the rules set out in the Constitution.
The current compromise was established with a very different number of states, and a very different proportion of small states to large states. It made more sense then than it does now.
Curiously, Federalist papers even have an explicit warning to that effect. Although originally it was written about the structure of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation - where it was one-state-one-vote, and many matters required a supermajority. But you can easily see how it can apply to the Senate and EC:
"To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. ... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.
It is not difficult to discover, that a principle of this kind gives greater scope to foreign corruption, as well as to domestic faction, than that which permits the sense of the majority to decide; though the contrary of this has been presumed. The mistake has proceeded from not attending with due care to the mischiefs that may be occasioned by obstructing the progress of government at certain critical seasons. When the concurrence of a large number is required by the Constitution to the doing of any national act, we are apt to rest satisfied that all is safe, because nothing improper will be likely to be done, but we forget how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced, by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary, and of keeping affairs in the same unfavorable posture in which they may happen to stand at particular periods."
"It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration."
(Federalist #22)
In fact, the current situation is even worse than the Articles: today, if you take all states, rank them by population, and take the bottom 3/4 of them, that group has less people in it than the top 1/4. This, by the way, means that the Constitution can, in theory, be amended without having even a simple majority on the national level. How long do you think that state of affairs is sustainable, before the large states decide they've had enough?
I'm in a bigger state, I think we've basically had enough and if the subversion of democratic votes such is being attempted in Georgia right now happens, that might the thing that starts the bigger states to think about leaving. I know the current pres got elected by a situation that was unlikely, but the power majority the republicans have could keep going for a while. If it wasn't for China and Russia, the us could all go our own way right now, maybe into 3 or 4 countries.
We don't really have a solution for the people without much hope of a decent job, and hateful rhetoric like we see now won't get us anywhere. I don't feel ill will for the true believers, that somehow think dinosaurs walked the earth with people, but I would prefer we can live in separate countries and not hate each other.
In Japan the central government isn't supposed to work this way and it is as least viewed as a problem: the disparity in the power of votes is considered unconstitutional, but the supreme court isn't willing to actually invalidate election results (they made up a distinction between being "unconstitutional" and being in an "unconstitutional state" which is not at all supported by precedent (although it's a civil law country so technically there's no binding precedent) or the constitution), so the ruling LDP does the absolute bare minimum to act like they're trying to improve the situation so they can pretend their doing something while actually dragging their feet as much as possible.
Probably the main negative consequence of ensuring that all votes have equal power would be to make it easier for the central government to ignore the wishes of rural areas, but this depends on how the government is structured in other ways.
In Japan, prefectures are relatively weak. For example, Okinawa recently attempted to invalidate approval for filling in of land for the new US military base because residents of Okinawa want the base out, but there's basically zero chance that this will actually end up working because the central government considers the base essentially for national security.