Today, April 8 2013, was a historic day for all Americans. On this day in 1913 the 17th amendment to the Constitution was passed which made it so that Senators were elected directly by the people they serve, as they are today. Before this date Senators were elected by the state legislature of their state, and it set a system where it didn't represent the people but the moneyed interests.
I am glad that the Senate is elected by the population albeit its problems with unproportional representation by the people which overrepresents Wyoming and underrepresents California by their population, and with only two senators elected in that way it will never be possible to get a serious third party voice into the Senate, and that with only two senators any vote for our two dominant parties between 25% and 74.9% means that the Senate of that state should proportionally be 1 Democrat and 1 Republican to represent such a large population equally, which if implemented would cause never ending deadlock. An imperfect institution by any measure based on these major problems.
But given the choice between a state legislature voting on senators or the people voting directly, this system is preferable.
Blog Every Day April Post number 8
No comments:
Post a Comment