The Next Thing to Fix

Way back in 1789, when thirteen former colonies, fairly similar in population, conceived a constitution, they could not foresee how the new nation would spread across the continent of North America. Nor how population patterns would emerge. The great mass of citizens settling along the coasts. The incredibly low population densities in the Midwest and Southwest. The polarization of the citizenry---the god-fearing conservative heartlanders and the secular liberal promiscuous residents along the two oceanic coasts.

So these great men devised a House of Representatives, which is structured to represent the citizens on a basis proportional to the population of the various states. I think I read somewhere that thanks to the 2010 census, CA may lose a couple of representatives and TX may gain them. And the Senate, conceived as a gentlemanly forum of debate, discussion, and leisurely reflection on issues, to be attended by two formidable lions from each state. Now this made sense back in 1789 when the new entities were similar in population and the driving need was to unify the disparate former colonies. But today??

Gail Collins, writing in today's New York Times, puts this error by our forefathers into perspective:

"There are 100 members of the Senate. But as Brown [Republican in the special election for Ted Kennedy's Seat] is currently reminding us, because of the filibuster rule, it takes only 41 to stop any bill from passing.

U.S. population: 307,006,550.

Population for the 20 least-populated states: 31,434,822.

That means that in the Senate, all it takes to stop legislation is one guy plus 40 senators representing 10.2 percent of the country.

People, think about what we went through to elect a new president — a year and a half of campaigning, three dozen debates, $1.6 billion in donations. Then the voters sent a clear, unmistakable message. Which can be totally ignored because of a parliamentary rule that allows the representatives of slightly more than 10 percent of the population to call the shots.

Why isn’t 90 percent of the country marching on the Capitol with teapots and funny hats, waving signs about the filibuster?"

So after we fix heath care---regardless of your opinion of the present package, it's a much needed start!!!-we need to fix this error by the founding fathers. After all, we changed their rules about counting slaves in the population (the 60% rule in the Constitution). We can change the structure of the Senate the same way. Let's get rolling!!!!!!!!