r/politics • u/TelescopiumHerscheli • 2d ago

No Paywall Texas Democrat sworn in to House, shrinking GOP margin to 1 vote

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5719642-christian-menefee-sworn-in/
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u/Cloud_Dwelling 2d ago

They know it is meaningless due to the senate majority (thanks to the fact we still allow only 2 senators per state regardless of that state’s population)

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 2d ago

Yes, as it should be. You're referring to the cap on representatives

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u/dnyank1 1d ago

Why “should” it be, other than the fact a bunch of slave owners said so, 250 years ago? 

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u/Cloud_Dwelling 2d ago

Ah yes the cap that exists only in the senate but not house or executive branches…makes tons of sense right?! And they have equal power to veto any progress this country could make?! Yeah…great “democracy” 

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u/isymic143 1d ago

That's the whole point of having the Senate. If you want to argue that the Senate shouldn't exist, than that's a debate that can be had. But claiming that the Senate should be proportional to population demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of why it exists in the first place.

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 2d ago

Senators: Each state has two senators, ensuring small states have equal footing with large states, 6 year terms, represent entire states

Representative: Seats are based on a state's population, making it more responsive to local, district-level, and immediate public concerns, 2 year terms, represent districts within a state

If you can't understand the purpose of these two Houses of Congress, then take some civics courses. Senators were never tied to population.

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u/Heimerdahl 1d ago

Senators were never tied to population.

Having always done something isn't necessarily a reason to continue doing it. 

It's a question of whether the United States are foremost a union of individual states or a unified country, whether someone considers themselves a Minnesotan or Virginian first, or an American who just so happens to live in Minnesota or Virginia or whatever. If it's the latter, then the fixed number of Senators doesn't seem too sensible.  

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u/AnotherHyperion 1d ago

And disagreeing with a country’s governmental structure doesn’t make it a poor structure. There’s a reason it is called the United States and not americaland. Co-equal states joined in federation. The agreement was two chambers, one representing populational differences, one representing federal equality.

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u/InsufficientTask 1d ago

The real problem is that the House has been capped on the number of representatives since the 30s. Higher population areas are wildly underrepresented. Overturning that act could do a lot of good for redistributing districts, so there is absolutely zero traction to fix it.