40 Senators

[Heyman, Steve]

If I'm reading the table right, then that 12 percent is the total population of the smallest 20 states.  So then a majority of the population of those states is more like 6 percent.  If that majority were all to vote for the same party, and elect 40 Senators (which as Steve Jamar notes isn't realistic), then Senators elected by only 6 percent of the population could block any legislation in Congress -- an even more dramatic statistic.

Steve

Steven J. Heyman
Professor of Law
Chicago-Kent College of Law
565 W. Adams Street
Chicago, IL 60661
(312) 906-5228
sheyman at kentlaw.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Steven Jamar
Sent: Wed 2/18/2009 5:12 PM
To: CONLAWPROFS professors
Subject: [POSSIBLE SPAM]  40 Senators
 


12% of the population of the United States can stop any legislation  
from going forward in Congress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population

Even assuming wikipedia's numbers are off, they are probably close  
enough for this calculation.

Of course not all of those states are represented by just one party,  
which makes the stat less meaningful in practice, but it is still a  
bit hard to consider the Senate a representative democratic body with  
that sort of population distortion.


At the other end, 40% of the people live in 6 states -- or have a  
combined 12 senators -- and so are dramatically under represented.

The bargain made  in the original constitution for state power  
checking federal power by the vehicle of the Senate seems more than a  
bit off target today.  And, the provision about the Senate  
representation is functionally unamendable with effective unit veto  
provision.


Steve
-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                     vox:  202-806-8017
Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social  
Justice http://iipsj.org
Howard University School of Law           fax:  202-806-8567
http://iipsj.com/SDJ/


"The most precious things one gets in life are not those one gets for  
money."

Albert Einstein




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