our enlightened constitution (was thought experiment)

[Sanford Levinson]

I can't help but wonder what Tim thinks of Reynolds v. Sims and, especially, Lucas v. 44th General Assembly.  If "protect[ing] regional interests" is an important value--and if one does that by giving people living in particular regions more heavily weighted votes than others--then why shouldn't states be able to have "upper houses" mimicing the US Senate?
 
sandy

________________________________

From: Mortimer Sellers [mailto:msellers at ubalt.edu]
Sent: Tue 2/28/2006 4:46 AM
To: Sanford Levinson; conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: our enlightened constitution (was thought experiment)



Sandy is right to say that the gerrymandered House of Representatives is a disgrace.  It would be very easy to generate an impartial method for drawing district boundaries and this ought to be done.  The current method of drawing boundaries corrupts the legislative process.

With regard to maintaining a Senate that protects regional interests: the point is not that farm states (for example) are more virtuous than primarily urban states, but that they deserve a measure of concern and respect that continental plebiscites or pure proportional representation would deny them.

I suspect that my disagreement with Sandy derives from my view that constitutions exist to secure and justice and the common good of all the citizens that they govern.  The framers of our Constitution rightly viewed democracy as a means to this end, not an end in itself.  That is why they wisely built so many checks and balances into the structure of the United States government.  Electing senators to represent the separate states serves a useful purpose in assuring that the interests of all Americans are taken into account by the federal government.

              Tim Sellers

        -----Original Message-----
        From: Sanford Levinson [mailto:SLevinson at law.utexas.edu]
        Sent: Mon 2/27/2006 2:12 PM
        To: Mortimer Sellers; conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
        Cc:
        Subject: RE: our enlightened constitution (was thought experiment)
       
       

        Tim Sellers writes:
        The geographical representation in the senate strikes me as a useful
        protection for the more rural states, offset and controlled as it is by
        the distribution of seats by population in the House of Representatives.
       
       
        But it is a fallacy to believe that the proportionally represented (and
        grievously gerrymandered) House "offsets" the Senate.  In a system with
        strong bicameralism, as ours is, the Senate can exercise its will far
        too much of the time to benefit small-population states.  And why do
        "rural states" deserve so much power.  Is Tim a Jeffersonian, who
        belives that people who live in cities are basically unvirtuous and need
        the leavening force of the virtuous farmers?
       
        sandy
       



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