Maintaining six-year terms for Senator might be pretty tricky but would be possible. (If say Massachusetts lost a Senator to California there could be some system of allocating which seat, say one up in 2012, so in 2012 California would have a new seat to vote for.) Or we could always go to four year-terms for Senators, and even have staggered terms. And is a stable number of Senators so critical? For most of our history the numbers of Congressmen and Senators have changed continually, it is only since 1960 after Hawaii and Alaska were made states that the numbers have been "stable".

Literally abondoning the constitution? The constitution has been amended 27 times. Has it ever been abondoned thereby? You would still have two houses of Congress.

The people are represented by their senator and their representatives, who they vote for without benefit of the electoral college. One vote per person. These people in turn represent the interests of the state, proportionately by population in the House, and equally without respect to population by the Senate. The Senate and House must both pass resolutions, and the President sign it to become law. The Senate represents the States (State's rights), and the House represents the people (right of suffrage). It's a compromise, but one that I think is necessary.

The only office that does not have a one vote per person is the Presidency. That's what we're focusing on - for every other elected official, my vote counts as one vote. I think that needs to be changed.

That wouldn't work, there's no guarantee that the state gaining a senator and the state losing a senator would have seats up for election the same year. The only way to keep it stable is to have voting by the population nationally and pick the winners or constantly redefine the districts for each senator. The representation was stable throughout our history, your approach adds variables and chances for people to go unrepresented. To change senate representation is so basic it doesn't really qualify as just an amendment, it's abandoning the constitution, the very nature of the republic would be changed.

They wouldn't have to. Massachusetts loses a Senate seat, California gains one. Give California the Massachusetts seat which is up in 2012. Maybe now California has two or three Senators to vote for in 2012. It could be done by districts within the state. Or just set up new districts within a state after each census, essentially starting from scratch, with a mechanism for staggering the terms to fit with the remaining terms as best as possible. There would be some quirky results, and the numbers of Senators might vary slightly from election to election, but these are hardly huge problems.



If you think that equal representation between the states in the Senate is a principle basic to the nature of our republic and constitution, then I can't argue with you. Personally I don't see why this is such an important principle to defend.

I disagree, but my original post on this side issue was to agree with Desron. Everyone knows this is not going to become a live, to say nothing of a closely-fought, issue anytime soon, if ever.

It is kind of funny to read about representation by the population, as though most of them even really care about their constituents! The electoral college needs to be done away with. Had Gore won the electoral college and not the popular vote, you can bet the Republicans would have been calling for the demise of the system. Each person's vote should count and have as much value as the next in a democracy. Just because California, Florida, New York and Texas have the most amount of people doesn't mean they will all actually go out and vote. Right now people are of the mentality that their vote doesn't count, regardless of how many times they see a particular candidate in their state. For this election, the only people that counted were those in Ohio, in 2000, it was Florida. That shouldn't happen in a national election.

"In the larger sense, the states would no longer exist! Think about the implications of restructuring Congress. The framers at the Constitutional Convention saw this, That was the essence of "the big controversy.""


What the framers saw was the implication of structuring Congress only by population. The framers could easily see that this would result in the larger states ruling over any smaller states. Hence, the smaller states would be subservient. It is not a large leap in logic to see that smaller states would not be substainable.

The "big controversy" was how to avoid this fatal flaw. For the framers, any failure to balance the power of the larger to smaller states would have prevented ratification of the constitution, ie there never would have been states!

Are you saying that the people in Florida or Nevada or Wisconsin or Iowa didn't count?

Actually, some people in Florida counted twice! :D

How about the people in Nevada, Wisconsin, and Iowa?

But why should someone living in Woonsocket, RI have more representation than someone in Watertown, NY? Of course you are right about the necessary compromise in terms of the history. For that matter, it was necessary to compromise over allowing the slave trade to continue until at least 1808 to reconcile Northerners and Southerners. (That is white Northerners and Southerners.)

I think that we have an irreconciable difference over an issue that is pretty hypothetical anyway.

Well, I am from Minnesota, we are already of the mentality the people from Wisconsin and Iowa don't count, that is simply our upbringing, so maybe you should ask someone else about that. Nevada, though, hmmm, I do love Las Vegas!

This doesn't seem so "irreconciable", let's stay with it, not inject new data, be willing to give a little, and find common ground!

Did you laugh nervously. You attempt to run and find the subterfuge.

Yeah, but who is seriously proposing this right now? Maybe my children or grandchildren will see a serious fight about this, maybe not.

I believe in the equality of individual citizens in their communities. I think that political arrangements should be for those citizens. States, and for that matter, countries, are political arrangements that should serve those citizens primarily. States don't have value in and of themselves. That's why I believe what I said.

It's vital because of the concept of the PEOPLE running the country and the fact that states actually do have rights ( if you don't believe me reread the Bill of Rights and the Constitution). The fact of local attitudes being important to protect the defense of minority opinions is weakened by giving more power to the majority. With what you propose rural citizens would be vastly underrepresented.

This equality between states IS vital to the Constitution, it's absurd to argue otherwise since it was seen that way by all of the founding fathers. Be careful in wanting to give more to the majority, minority rights is a lynchpin to protection of all rights.

Arneoker-
I think that knowledge of the association between the two would help us to clear up many misunderstandings that we have about our government, how it should be run, and the principles it was founded on.

I agree completely with you that historians should be focusing more on the Native American influence in our country and mainstreaming into education. I can trace many problems we are having in this country right now to a fundamental misunderstanding of Native American influence on our system.

One of the early American Governments most fundamental mistakes was oppressing the Native American and moving them off of their tribal lands. Their were tribes willing to live with White Settlers, but they kept getting attacked. In the case of the Cherokees (my ancestors), they made a very powerful enemy - Andrew Jackson - who later forced them to relocate altogher, almost killing all of them. If Henry Clay, the man Andrew Jackson ran against for the Democratic nomination, would have been nominated, the Cherokee would not have suffered such a fate.

I think the Cherokee people are the most advanced (I am probably somewhat biased) Native Americans as far as how they integrated themselves into American Society after the Revolution. The Cherokee Nation was headed by mixed-blood wealthy family in the 1850's advancing them in education, politics, as well as rewriting their native tongue. This tongue later became the "code" that helped devastate the Japanese fleet in WWII as the US military used it to transmit messages, and the Japanese could not decipher it.

There really is a lot to be learned from Native American's, I personally would love to see American Society have a greater understanding and respect for their culture and people. I think the best teachers of this knowledge would be the Native Americans themselves.


Here is an excerpt and a link to General Information about the Cherokees if you are interested:

Many Cherokee became prosperous farmers with comfortable houses, beautiful cultivated fields, and large herds of livestock. Christian missionaries arrived by invitation, and Sequoia invented an alphabet that gave them a written language and overnight made most of the Cherokee literate. They published a newspaper, established a court system, and built schools. An inventory of Cherokee property in 1826 revealed: 1,560 black slaves. 22,000 cattle, 7,600 horses, 46,000 swine, 2,500 sheep, 762 looms, 2,488 spinning wheels, 172 wagons, 2,942 plows, 10 sawmills, 31 grist mills, 62 blacksmith shops, 8 cotton machines, 18 schools, and 18 ferries. Although the poor Cherokee still lived in simple log cabins, Chief John Ross had a $10,000 house designed by a Philadelphia architect. In fact, many Cherokee were more prosperous and 'civilized' than their increasingly envious white neighbors

http://www.tolatsga.org/Cherokee2.html

Wasn't that the Navajo language?

Yes, and my understanding is there wasn't even a way to write it at the time due to the tonality. If you listen to some Dineh (Navajo) speak you'll understand why it would be so difficult to make an alphabet for.

Interesting point about Deism. Their beliefs probably lead them to revere the Native's as they have components of Deism in their system of beliefs. Interestingly enough, Deism was principle in forming the Separation of Church and State as well as Freedom of Religion clauses in the 1st amendment of the Consitution. I wonder if this couldn't shed some light on the current situation we have with Evangelicals as well as other extreme religions influencing our government and why it is becoming such a problem.

I think there are traces of Deism left in more moderate religions, such as with non- opus dei Catholics out there. I find it to be a much more realistic and civilized system of beliefs to say the least.

I do agree that historians would be wise to teach Native American influence on our founding fathers. Would clear up a lot of current issues I think.

I thought I read it was one of the Cherokee languages that they used, am researching it right now.

Yes, but how much they revered Native Americans varied widely between them, as an example Franklin was near the extreme in reverence for the wisdom and traditions where Washington (not officially a Deist but heavily influenced by the movement) was near the extreme in being able to ignore it when it came to his own economic well being.

Yes again, they're lying about history to misrepresent the views of our founding fathers, in the case of their leadership I can rule out it being an honest misunderstanding. It's almost a reflection of the battle between the Deists and the leadership of the colonies that had been given official churches.

Yes yet again, and the traces are far truer than the "new age" attempts to revive the blend, the balance is now far more towards traditional Christianity but the methods of integration are much the same.

I think we have the current issues because people see an opportunity to swing the balance, the same happened in the 1820s , the early 20th century and the 1980s.

Here we go, found a quote:

The Army taps Hopi, Choctaw, Comanche, Kiowa, Winnebago, Seminole, Navajo and Cherokee Americans to use their languages as secret code in World War II. The Marines rely on Navajos to create and memorize a code based on the complex Navajo language.

I believe Franklin and Jefferson and a number of other founding fathers were active with the Masons, which is a quasi-religion. Check out the "eye" on the pyramid on our one dollar bills. There was a lot of controversy about the Freemasons in the early 1800's:
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardt...asmasons_1b.htm

http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/Masonry/Essays/jdcarter.html

Absolutely correct, and at least in North America the Deists had very strong influence among the Masons (in fact among all the more intellectual and prefessional groups).

Yes, we do. It is called Congress, a separate and equal branch of the government. The founders were correct in understanding that the executive branch with it’s single head could not represent the diversity of the population (don’t be fooled into thinking that the population was any less diverse 200 years ago) . People tend to forget the power of Congress, especially when it is composed of a majority of weak willed people on both the minority and majority side. But in the end, through the Congress and President, the will of the majority of the population is reflected in the actions of the government. It is the beauty of our system of government, everyone’s basic rights (including the minority’s) are protected by the Constitution, however, everyone does not have the “right” to have their vision for the direction of the country implemented. That is determined by the majority, as it should be. Once again, the beauty of our system allows the minority to make it’s case to the majority in an effort to change the direction. However, if they fail to make that case, nothing changes, nor should it. It is easy for the minority to point to the electoral college and say “that’s the problem”, when the problem is really the inability for the minority to sell people on their vision. Think about it, does the electoral college elect members of Congress? Nonetheless, abolishing the electoral college requires a constitutional amendment. This would require ratification by small (population) states who enjoy the advantage of the electoral college…not impossible, but highly unlikely. My personal preference is to eliminate the “winner takes all” provision. Even in this, it is the responsibility if the minority to make the case, if they cannot…..case closed?…..no, they are free to keep trying………. our system of government is truly remarkable.

Rural citizens would be underrepresented? How do you mean? Or are they special in some way?

Right now the truly weak minorities are the minorities (and I don't necessarily mean minority groups like Blacks or Latinos, but they could be included here) of the populous big states. I agree that minority rights must be protected, for that you have checks and balances, limited government, and the bill of rights. Overrepresenting people from the small states in the Senate and the Electoral College, so that minorities in the populous states are even weaker politically, does nothing for minority rights in general.

I agree that states rights is an important concept (when not pushed to extremes as it has been quite often) in keeping the central government from being too powerful in our federal system. Not because I worry about the states as such, the state are no more than political constructs, but because individual people need protections from tyranny. For that matter federal supremacy is an important balancing factor against states rights, because sometimes the feds need to rein in the states and keep them from trampling on minority rights.

Rural areas and smaller communities have far different concerns and priorities than major urban areas, they're already drowned out in several states. Senators need to rely on them to carry the vote in many less populous states, changing their ratio would leave them with virtually no representation as opposed to the balance that's been there for about 100 years. If you don't think it's a matter of protecting them in a way vital to their well being I'd suggest living in a rural area or small city (not part of a larger urban area) for a few years.

So what about other small groups of people with their own particular concerns, like traveling salesmen, long-distance truckdrivers, servicepeople, border control officers, etc.? They have no special representation.

I'm sympathetic to rural people, but no more or less sympathetic to them than other people. I just don't see why I should be or why I should want them to have special representation.

Yeah, next time we will have a tougher fight. Face it, Bush was almost as far as you can be from a strong candidate. He won (???) because he is a war President, and thats it. Next time the opposition will not have all the problems like Bush had, it will be a fresh candidate.

You keep using a false premise, they aren't even equally represented now, they're already underrepresented! Your construct is flawed, you can't see this issue just looking at state populations, you have to look at the breakdown within states. Any state that's around 40% rural the cities get the representation, the lowest population states tend to have higher percentages rural and small town, this moves representation back towards balanced when each state has 2 senators.

In my mind they're overrepresented because since they are in the small states whose representation is magnified in the Senate, in your mind they are underrepresented because you think that they deserve magnified representation because of the "special situation" of being rural. Let's look at in terms of individuals, I believe that each individual should be represented equally. You seem to believe that rural people need more representation than other people. I don't see a good reason to do that and not for any other group. You can't say that a voter in Wyoming doesn't have more representation in the Senate than one in California. You generally need a lot more Californians to vote for a Senator than Wyomingers (or whatever). So you can only think that a person in Wyoming is underrepesented because Wyoming is mostly rural and rural people deserve something others don't.

You don't deal with my point about the other small groups. Why don't they deserve special representation because of their unique situations and concerns?

No, you completely misrepresent my position and that offends me deeply. Reread what I stated until you can represent it honestly, difference of opinion doesn't give you the right to lie about my statements. You'll find that my argument is virtually identical to what the founding fathers used in defending the setup and for the same reasons and interests being defended.

Now I am angry! I am not lying about your position! If I misunderstood you then show me the error in my representation of your opinion. (By the way, just because I put things differently than you does not mean that I am misrepresenting you.) If you cannot do that then perhaps you don't have that much of an argument after all. And the founding fathers were quite capable of making mistakes and their actions are open to criticism. Even if your view is closer to them than mine is, that does not mean that you are right.

The electoral college need tweeking, yes. Abolition no. IRV or Approval Voting or Condercet or one of the other voting systems are a definite need. Essentially we need to get rid of the all or nothing aspects of both the electoral college and the current plurality voting system.

JamBoi

In the previous election, there were those who wanted a re-vote in Ohio in the hopes the results would be different and Kerry would thus be declared the winner. But he would then have won a majority of the Electoral College vote but still have come up short in the popular vote as it would be highly unlikely that a re-vote in Ohio would have made up the 3 million popular vote margin.