That is the issue. Wyoming has as much say in the Senate as California. What does it do to deserve it? Why are its interests equally as important as California’s? Once you take out preserving the “peculiar institution”?
Edit to add: in 1790, the largest population state was 12.7x as populous as the smallest. In 2016, this ratio was 67x.
It’s a state in the federal union.
Every state has the same senatorial representation.
California has over 50 times the representation in the House that Wyoming has.
What does it do to deserve it?
(The answer, of course, is the same for both questions.)
Our unique form of government has numerous quirks, some more annoying than others. How the Senate represents states is a minor issue in such times as these.
That’s easy: has over 50x the citizens.
I’d place it third after 1) The EC, 2) Gerrymandered house districts and gamed census counts, as the largest issue that skews everything political in this country toward the minority.
Imagine a country where politicians competed on what was best for the majority rather than what was most effective at mobilizing their base voters. Oddly, the Senators from each state come closer to this model than the House members, because of gerrymandering, or the President, because of the EC.
Wrong answer.
Like Wyoming, California is a state in the federal union.
So, also like Wyoming, it has the Congressional representation (in both houses of Congress) that the Constitution mandates.
As somebody who’s been programming computers since the early '80s, I can say that DOS 1.0 was actually considered pretty good for its day. Anyone with a smart watch or Siri would be horrified at trying to use it today.
Time for an upgrade folks. Senate v2.0 - if nothing else we need it for the security patches… 
Can we assume you haven’t seen Manchin’s “Collinisms” this morning? You may be tagged a Democrat but if you’re from a tiny Red state, you will likely be acting more conservative than one from a much larger blue state and that’s the problem - the disproportionate representation for small states introduces an inherent bias. You can look for metrics of this, if you’d like to explore the idea further…
Man, that dude takes ForEx seriously.
This argument made more sense when Congress had an oversight role. /s
Except that the state creation process was deliberately hijacked and misused to introduce this bias, so it’s okay to call it out and criticize it. Do you support the notion that there was a compelling reason for two Dakotas, other than to warp the representation of political forces in the Senate, and thus hijack the model for political ends?
As I’ve posted elsewhere, the current structure was a pretty good v1.0 for the 1780s, but it’s long past its refresh date. We’re not getting security patches, it doesn’t support the far larger size of programs and is unable to solve today’s problems.
It’s broken and there’s no easy fix, but it’s still broken…
Again, that is not the issue at hand.
The Founders sought to balance the populist House with the more patrician Senate.
It’s worked pretty well until the modern GOP decided that nothing matters more than power, and it is their nihilism that is the problem—not the Senate itself.
Sorry, I’ve always agreed with pretty much everything you’ve posted but I fundamentally disagree with this assessment. Mitch McConnell has hijacked the Senate to fundamentally break our political processes and exposed the fundamental flaws in its structure.
The fundamental concept driving democratic government is what engineers call “feedback in the loop” - the ability of applying forces to counteract behaviours the majority don’t agree with. When used to control aircraft autopilots, screwing up the feedback loops can lead to “pilot-induced oscillation” that can destroy the plane, breaking the feedback loop in democracy can have the same effect.
Through the abuse of their power over the past couple of years the Senate has left the majority of the population with the belief that their votes don’t matter. Now, after the entire Republican side of the Senate refused to convict him of clear abuses of his office the so-called President has escalated this and is telling us he won’t leave, and not one Republican speaks up clearly to condemn this.
So, it’s time to accept that the hardware is broken and we need an upgrade. We can start with some work-around patches to get things running again, but I would caution against thinking that we can patch our way out of this. Rewriting the COBOL program won’t get us a functioning democracy again…
IT’s not the Senate that is broken.
IT is those who abuse it.
If I have a piece of workshop gear that’s not bolted to the floor, is with exposed wiring and without safety screens, we can complain when the apprentice hurts himself because he didn’t follow instructions, you still have to assign some liability to the poor design, not just the faulty operation…
Just read Manchin’s statement today on the possibility of expansion of the SCOTUS bench. That is what I mean.
Are you saying Manchin is in any way typical?
Given the circumstances of her nomination and who is nominating her, she obviously has no conscience or self respect. She is alway going to lack respect, but then that fits most republicans anyway.
Should? Yep, I totally agree. Despite decades of effort to destroy it, the wall we really need is the one between church and state.
Quite right. That is why I singled out the Catholics and then added “aided by Neil Gorsuch.”
The disproportionate representation in the Senate is exactly what enables travesties like Trump’s acquittal from the impeachment. There are times when the “tyranny of the majority” sounds a lot more like representation with efficacy.
Give me two examples of when Dems have stood their ground (without help from the GOP, e.g. McCain’s vote to save ACA) in face of such egregious behavior by the GOP.
I cannot recall any.