I stumbled across an article the other day that made me stand up and take notice. It was an article supporting the idea of Senate apportionment (please read linked article before continuing). The basic premise is that government is supposed to be for the people. And there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it’s a poorly thought out concept. It was so… dumb, in my opinion that I had to create a new category for my blog… “Dumb Ideas”.If we’re going to do that… make the Senate a redundant version of the House… then we should just merge it with the House and have one legislature/chamber. What’s the point of having two of essentially the same thing?
No. Just… no. In fact, we should be going back to when states appointed Senators and re-establish proper balance of power. Two each was chosen for that reason and it worked. State appointment couldn’t be as easily manipulated by special interests, and eliminating state appointment virtually eliminated the ability of the states to defend themselves against Congress… which I believe is precisely why the 17th Amendment was passed, to increase control… but that’s the whole point of having two houses representing separate but equally-interested factions. It might seem counter-intuitive so some, but there was a method to the madness. One for the states, one for the people.
People keep trying to dick with the set-up of government. Congress wanted control, hence the 17th Amendment. Democrats think they can gain control now, hence this proposal, which is born out in the points about “fairness”, race, etc.
How government is selected should not be overly influenced by demographics. Especially for something like an entire state. Not only should a state be allowed to represent itself, geographical demographics should not be taken into account AT ALL. People live where they want to live, and the chips fall where they may… and the chips will move and shift over time, so do we continually change things based on who’s the strongest at the moment… which is what will happen… which will only serve to extend beyond what would be a normal and natural separation of representation.
The talk about democracy as a justification is claptrap. Noble-sounding, sure, an articulate person can make anything sound good, but still claptrap.