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THREAD: In Kavanaugh's wake, we've seen a lot of gnashing of teeth about the structural flaw in the Constitution that gives rural red states disproportionate influence in the Electoral College & U.S. Senate. Here's a fairly radical but possible idea for fixing the Senate. 1/9
I'll note at the outset that I'm just throwing this idea out; no details have been thought through other than what you're seeing here. It's also not a new idea.
Just wanted to illustrate that there *are* ways to address the seemingly intractable problem of the Senate. 2/9
Just wanted to illustrate that there *are* ways to address the seemingly intractable problem of the Senate. 2/9
The disproportionality problem in a nutshell: California had 39.5 million people in 2017, more than six times the national average, and 68 times Wyoming's population of 579k. Yet both states have equal influence in the U.S. Senate. 3/9
As this inequality runs across the country, we end up with a majority in the Senate that does not represent the majority of the American people. Currently, the 51 Senate Republicans are elected by only 44% of the U.S. population. 4/9
This problem is thought to be permanent, as any Constitutional fix would require the assent of many small, red states, who would never give up their influence. But what if, instead of changing the rules about how Senate seat are allocated, we changed the disproportionality? 5/9
If you can't fix the numerator, fix the denominator. If California broke itself into 6 states, that would be 12 seats in the U.S. Senate. How would this look after an election? California has 53 Congressional districts, with a partisan balance of 39 Dems to 14 Reps. 6/9
A back-of-the-napkin calculation that breaks California into 5 states of 9 congressional districts (and 1 of 8 districts), in numerical order (1-9, 10-18, etc.) to *very* roughly approximate contiguity, suggests that Democrats are distributed evenly enough across the state. 7/9
Each new state would have a majority of Democratic House members at the moment (6-3, 8-1, 5-4, 9-0, 6-3, 5-3). Even if actual line-drawing produced a reliably Republican new state, that would be 10 Democrats and 2 Republicans. 8/9
The current partisan balance in the Senate is 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats. If this plan were in place right now and Dems swept the new seats, the Senate's partisan balance would be 57 Democrats to 51 Republicans. 9/9
