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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
No that wasn't what I was trying to state. What I was trying to state was that the disparity grows larger as the states with more populations have "more" representatives to vote with.
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Huh? I mean, if you have representation by population in a house, a block consisting of the majority of the population can get a majority in that house.
Adding more members has the advantage that it makes accurate representation by population a bit easier, due to quantization problems with unpopulated states.
As it stands, citizens in some states are first class, while citizens of other states aren't, simply because they have far more power to elect federal representatives -- even in the house, which is supposed to be "representation by population" based.
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With 50,000 as the number you have 9 states that if voting as a bloc will create a majority. It didn't change much either from the current system. Those same 9 can still vote as blocs and still dictate what the other 41 states will live with. While I don't know of the votes actually being solid unanimous votes, I will look to see just how often something like this does happen.
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Sure. But now you have just labeled half the population of the nation and implied that "sure, they are a majority, but they don't deserve to be a majority!"
I'm well aware that there is an evil belief that citizens who can claim a more unique label should have more power per person. I'm sorry -- I consider the citizens of the Bronx to be just as important as the citizens of Wyoming, and the citizen in the Bronx's vote should matter just as much.
Sure, you can label the citizens of the Bronx, of LA, of Florida using fewer labels, and then pull out a big pile of labels to label all of the low-population states, and claim there is unfairness -- but the proper response to that is "California should split into 20 states". What makes California not worthy of being 20 different states, other than an accident of history?
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While I may be "better" represented, I don't think that my voice gets better heard when 9 states can dictate what the other 41 have to live with.
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And I don't think that a system that grants people who happen to live in low-population states 3 to 5 times as much say as people who happen to live in high-population states in the representation by population house.
Those 9 states? Don't they have more human beings in them than the other 41 states combined? So, why the hell shouldn't they have a majority in the representation by population assembly?
The only alternative is that you believe that the representation by population assembly should treat people from more populated states as second class citizens.
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Originally Posted by JEQuidam
OK, that's hypothetical, but I agree that the transition to a truly representative House should not be implemented too rapidly. The important thing is that this be implemented, without equivocation, according to a firm schedule which is not subject to subsequent political shenanigans.
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So are you serious, or just blowing smoke?
Because neither congress nor the senate can pass a law that binds a future congress or senate. The only way to have a rule that cannot be overruled by the assembly is via constitutional amendment.
And honestly, the cost of a constitutional amendment are pretty damn high.