Mickey Kaus, discussing the Washington Times‘s discussion of Michael Barone’s new political almanac, reminds us of some nice ironies.
The Republicans’ second-best friend [the first is “the inalterable malapportionment of the Senate”], Barone notes, is the Voting Rights Act, which effectively herds the heavily-liberal black Congressional vote into a few wildly pro-Dem ghe … er, districts.
If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the more Democrats that are elected the better off blacks are, then it is obviously true that herding “the heavily-liberal black Congressional vote into a few wildly pro-Dem ghe … er, districts” in order to elect more blacks actually works against the interests of blacks — of black voters, that is, not black office holders.
Let us not forget, as often noted here, that Republicans are guiltily complicit in this travesty of racial gerrymandering. They sold out the principle of colorblindness that many of them piously profess (at least when they don’t have to do anything about it) for partisan gain. They should be ashamed of themselves, if they’re capable of shame.
The Democrats, at least, can’t be accused of violating their principles, since they long ago abandoned the principle of non-discrimination in order to promote racial preferences. Too bad for them (or, in the alternative, they’re getting what they richly deserve — fewer Democrats in Congress), for if they had held on to the non-discriminatory principle and insisted that districts be drawn without regard to race, more Democrats would have been and would continue to be elected.
The “Malaportionment of the Senate” reminded me of something I was thinking about during the last election. Many people loudly condemn the electoral college, primarily because that system elected Bush in 2000, but also because it distorts the principle of “one man, one vote”.
However, the Senate does this on a much, much larger scale. Why haven’t seen any push to accordingly reform the Senate?
Technically, neither option is truly “inalterable”, as they could be changed by amendment. (Right?) However, practically it would be difficult to do so, as about 1/2 of all states disproportionately benefit from this system, and it take more than 1/2 to change it.
Actually, if you read the article of the constitution providing for amendments (the sixth, I believe), it explicitly says that no amendment may deprive any state of equal representation in the senate without its consent.
And, actually, only 16 states are larger than average. So even if it were alterable, if each state voted its interest, an amendment would be ratified by fewer than a third of the states, not nearly the three quarters needed.
Steven Jens,
I didn’t notice that before, but you’re right: in Article V,
no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Interesting. Obviously the framers were alert to the possibility of several states ganging up on another one and stripping it of its Senate representation by Constitutional amendment; obviously, too, they anticipated the case of a state actually wanting to leave, in which case it would lose its Senate seats with its consent. They seem to have thought of everything, as they needed to. I don’t think most Americans understand how separate and independent the States originally were, or how difficult it must have been to get them to agree on anything at all.
john, in my own experience, the people who complain about the Electoral College do also complain about the Senate, and on the same grounds. The mystery to me is that they never seem to be bothered by the similar makeup of the United Nations General Assembly.
I presume it would be **possible** to amend Article V by 2/3rds ratification, but it would require tremendous “selling” to the states that would have to act against their interests. Article V may indeed require “unanimous” ratification of a change in Senate structure of the type that you envision – but I’m not sure it reads that way in conjunction with the article on amendments. It may only prevent “internal Senate rules” or legislative acts from disenfranchising individual State Senators. Tough question legally if ever presented (unlikely).