QUORA *: ‘What do you think of the fact that California has 2 senators to represent 40 million citizens while 23 smaller states have 46 senators to represent 40 million citizens?’

QUORA *: ‘What do you think of the fact that California has 2 senators to represent 40 million citizens while 23 smaller states have 46 senators to represent 40 million citizens?’

I posted this answer:

That’s exactly the point. Equal state representation in the Senate is part of the checks and balances put in place by the Founders to prevent the concentration of tyrannical political power, as a means of protecting individual rights. The fact that California and a few other states are so large is precisely why smaller states need an effective counterbalancing influence in the federal legislature. That’s the Senate. Proportional popular presentation has its place also: That’s the House of Representatives, where large state delegations predominate. 

That’s the balance of power. In the federal legislature’s original design, the Senate is assembled by indirect democracy. The voters of each state elect representatives to send to their state legislatures, where they negotiate on behalf of their districts with representatives of other districts in their respective states on the selection of federal senators. The House of Representatives reflects the direct popular sentiments of the residents of the states, apart from their state governments, where legislators are sent directly to Washington. Thus each branch of the federal legislature owed its allegiance to different sources--the Senate to the state governments, the House directly to the voters, leaving each branch to check and balance the other.  In its original design, the Senate provides equal federal representation for each state government. The House of Representatives provides equal federal representation for each state population..  

Unfortunately, the 17th Amendment cut the state legislatures out of the process of selecting senators, weakening the ability of the Senate, and thus the states, to check and balance the power of the House. The effect was to shift power from the state governments to the federal government. Fortunately, it did not completely annihilate the relevance of the Senate: It left in place the basic structure of the Senate. Calls for proportional representation of the senate, which would be tantamount to abolishing the senate, would further marginalize the states in favor of increasing the centralized, less accountable power of the federal government.

Keep in mind that America is a representative republic, not a representative democracy. Put another way, the primary purpose of America is to secure individual liberty and rights. That requires checking the power of government. Given the representational nature of our republic, checking the power of government in large part means checking the power of dominant electoral factions to impose their will on minorities, including individuals. The dirty little secret of representative democracy is that an elected legislature can trample a person’s rights as easily as a dictator can. Checks and balances makes that harder to do.

The popular representational imbalance of the Senate may be an argument for breaking up the larger states. But it’s not an argument for altering or abolishing the Senate. Instead of talking about abolishing the Senate, we should be advocating for repeal for the 17th Amendment. Early Americans didn’t fight a risky, bloody revolutionary War of Independence, and go through the trouble of creating a whole new nation from scratch, in order to secure the right to vote. The electoral process was designed not to achieve some utopian, perfectly democratic representation among voters. It was designed to limit the power of democracy to trample individual liberty. Freedom is not the right to vote. Freedom is the right to live one’s life regardless of other people’s votes. 

Related Reading:

Federalist # 10, 47,  51, 63--James Madison

James Madison and the Dilemmas of Democracy--Myron Magnet for City journal

Even under free, popularly elected governments, man’s God-given rights remain off-limits to state interference. Yes, the “will of the majority” ultimately rules, “but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority,” and such a trespass on fundamental rights is as illegitimate as the arbitrary will of an absolute monarch. Any rulers who “overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people”—even popularly elected rulers carrying out the will of the majority—“exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants,” differing from “the Inquisition . . . only in degree.” A democratic tyranny may seem a contradiction in terms, but it can be all too real.

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

 The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty by Timothy Sandefur