Modeling themselves after the US Congress, itself modeled after the British Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords).
I personally believe bicameral legislatures - allowing houses to deadlock on a bill - are a terrible idea. Either unicameral (used by one US State, Nebraska) or tricameral legislatures, with 2 out of 3 houses needing to approve a bill for it to pass, make much more sense.
I think some state legislatures actually predated to federal one. I know some states had constitutions before the US did, but I don't know if they included the legislature structure.
Why only one house or three? What exactly would that fix? Sure you eliminate most deadlock, but how does that representation? Also, is deadlock really a bad thing in all scenarios?
That only begins to make sense if it's actually modeled on the US Congress, with proportional representation in one chamber and specific representation of subdivisions in the other, but to have two chambers both with proportional representation, as California has, makes no sense.
Using the USA congress it was viewed a compromise between having reps for the people aka "democracy" and the Senate preventing the tragedy of the commons with a more "stable", less influenced by the populace groups of reps who would be more intellectual and conservative. They would represent the states at large (population not being a metric) rather than districts in the states more of a "republic" idea. That's why you'll hear the USA called a Democratic Republic and why idiots who say "we're a republic and not a democracy!" are almost completely wrong.
It makes plenty sense. It was meant for the Senate to tame the more erratic decisions of the House of Representatives. However, since the GOP has become what is essentially a fascist party with a Mango Messiah, no amount of balance is currently possible.
