
In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states - ss2003
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/12/in-about-20-years-half-the-population-will-live-in-eight-states/
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DoreenMichele
_The House and the Senate will be weighted to two largely different Americas._

So, in some sense, the system works?

The whole point of having two different federal bodies based on different
criteria is to try to ensure that minority populations or different
demographic details of different states don't leave any population utterly
without representation and a voice. The intent is that they will be forced to
hash out their differences rather than just straight up letting one group run
rough shod over everyone else completely unchecked.

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dannypgh
The only entities that are guaranteed representation are states. It's not
obvious that statehood maps to any other demographic attribute over time.

It made sense the ensure states felt they had some guaranteed level of
representation in order to get the states to agree to enter, or remain in, the
union. But now that it's established precedent that states cannot leave the
Union (at least without Congress) it's not clear to me that it's important to
guarantee individual states anything.

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DoreenMichele
I'm trying to comply with HN guidelines and not be snarky here, but, to my
ears, that sounds an awful lot like "Now that the states are the bitches of
the federal government, they don't need a voice at all." And that doesn't
remotely sound like a democratic system to me. It sounds pretty tyrannical.

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scarface74
Knowing the history and the current makeup of the south outside of large
metropolitan areas like Atlanta, “states rights” should frighten anyone who is
any type of minority.

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nickthemagicman
The nice thing about states rights is that there were actually states to fight
it. Think if slavery had been sanctioned on a federal level?

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malcolmgreaves
It was sanctioned at the federal level for nearly 100 years.

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nickthemagicman
It was never ever sanctioned. It just wasn't not sanctioned.

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maire
This is just a tiny nit - but slavery was actually sanctioned at the federal
level through the Fugitive Slave Law. This was one of the events that led to
the Civil War - since the northern states suddenly had to enforce southern
slave laws. Northern states who did not oppose slavery (as long as it was
below the mason dixon line) and could coexist with the south suddenly opposed
slavery since they were being forced to enforce southern laws.

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hackeraccount
It should be noted that this effects the House as well as the Senate.

Federalism is ingrained in the US Constitution. The degree to which power has
flowed to DC is something that's happened despite the Constitution not because
of it. There's a line in the Constitution that says everything that's not
explicitly granted to the Federal government is in the hands of the State
governments. Think about that.

Can anyone name anything that a State government can do that the Federal
government can't? I'm not saying things that it doesn't do but things that it
cannot do.

As long as that's the case having an undemocratic Senate - and that's what it
is - is trouble. It will in the long run end up weakening the Senate as an
institution. To the degree the US system is a federated one you can make an
argument for the Senate but as things become more centralized the arguments
for the Executive and the House - indeed for changing the House into a
genuinely proportionally elected body become more and more plausible.

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rz2k
My guesses offhand would be marriage licenses, birth and death certificates.
States register real estate and collect property taxes, and you need a state
to allow you to incorporate a business.

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hackeraccount
Clearly the federal government asserts a fair amount of control over marriage
- See DOMA or Obergefell but beyond that, do you think congress couldn't pass
a law creating a national marriage license? Or say a minimum marriage age?

I wouldn't argue that the Federal government doesn't delegate a lot of things
to the States - see Medicaid - but that's not the same thing as the States
doing something only because they can do it.

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megaman22
We really need to step back and take a hard look at what the federal
government is constitutionally allowed to stick their fingers in and what they
do. One way or another, that discrepancy ought to get ironed out

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_bxg1
I've never understood why the number of congressmen per state wasn't purely
based on population. Why does land get voting rights?

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DanAndersen
(I assume you're referring to the Senate and not the House, which does do
somewhat population-based apportionment)

The two-assembly structure exists because it was a compromise to not give the
densely-populated states all the power in the new Republic. _Crucially_ , this
sort of compromise was important because it helped the less-populated states
get on board with the whole "federal government" concept without fearing that
power over their own affairs would be continually swamped by places like New
York. "Land" gets voting rights because those who were in charge of that land
(the state legislators) wanted it in order to sign onto the project.

This is why I find the modern media complaints trying to do away with such
structures very troubling. It may be more vestigial at this point, but the
setup was supposed to emphasize a collection of states rather than mere
administrative subdivisions of a faraway government. Frankly, if there would
be any change to the state-based system for senators, it should come with a
free ability for smaller states to secede as a group; because it would be
_going back on the deal_.

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aclimatt
Correct. However one of the key differences is that when the Republic was
established, per the Constitution, States' Rights were a primary aspect of
legislation. The federal government had very little power and very few laws
compared to today. Most laws existed on a state-by-state basis. The USA of the
late 1700s was really more like the EU than it is today.

And that's why New Hampshire needed senators. New Hampshire needed to ensure
that it could still get the things it needed from the federal government
(presumably money in most cases) to make New Hampshire a good place to live.
That's why land has voting rights -- New Hampshire (using it as an example for
all less-populated rural states) used to be a lot more sovereign.

Now things have changed. New Hampshire isn't just ensuring that it gets the
resources it needs. Because most laws in the US are now enacted on a federal
level, New Hampshire is deciding implicitly how /other/ states behave. And
this is the problem, and is clearly against the intent of the Constitution
("any power not explicitly granted to the federal government will be left to
the states").

So, the bicameral legislature as designed made sense. But in its current
context, it's fundamentally broken. If we want to return it back to its
original intent, then it's time to get back to a period of States' Rights.

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ende
“most laws in the US are now enacted on a federal level”

That’s simply not factually true.

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hackeraccount
Factually false but effectively true? I understand what's trying to be gotten
at with the statement but it's not exactly laws per se. It's more a power
dynamic but quantifying that is a bit tricky.

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ende
Here’s a thought: in a Federal Republic, perhaps most issues that are heavily
affected by population imbalances shouldn’t fall under the scope of Federal
legislation.

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exegete
I think the complaint about the Senate having a different makeup than the
House begs the question - why even have two houses in Congress? The original
Constitution had State governments choose their Senators and the House was the
"People's". The 17th Amendment changed that, so now we have the People
choosing two different houses of Congress based on two different ways of
dividing up the population, which leads to these complaints.

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growtofill
"half of the _US_ population" would be more accurate title.

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anothergoogler
"half of the _US_ _human_ population" would be an even more accurate title.

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growtofill
I would imply “human” when “states” are mentioned. My issue is I was expecting
an article about world’s population (not much interested in US domestical
problems).

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JaceLightning
Time to break up California and Texas into multiple states.

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nickthemagicman
Or even better combine some states. Loiusiana, Alabama, and Mississippi could
be one state.

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Apocryphon
How is it that only three of the states are named?

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pseudalopex
There are diagrams. I guess nobody thought about accessibility.

50%: California, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Texas

20%: Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia,
Washington

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RickJWagner
This is why states' rights are important.

America is not a homogeneous nation, nor should we be. Residents of Wyoming
should not live in the same environment residents of New York do.

Through diversity comes greatness. The wisdom of the founders is amazing.

