Unrepresentative

Let’s begin with a story:

Your school is electing a Homecoming King & Queen. Your homeroom teacher says, “It’s time to vote for Homecoming King and Queen. Each of you gets to cast one ballot. Just remember, after you cast your ballot, it will count for about ¼ of a vote.”

“Whaaaah?” you protest.

“Silly student,” your homeroom teacher responds, “You don’t understand politics. The Senior class is split into four homerooms. This one has 100 students. The other three homerooms only have 25 students each. So to be fair, your ballot only counts ¼. Otherwise this homeroom would have too much say!”

Your teacher’s explanation is comforting. “Of course,” you say, “I am happy with my ¼ of a vote.”

This is an allegory for our electoral college. A voter in Texas has ¼ the Electoral College value as a voter in Wyoming. Neat, huh?

Wyoming: 178K votes = 1 electoral college vote

Texas: 715K votes = 1 electoral college vote

Within the boundaries of this nation, coincidences of land should not change the value of individuals. The value of a person does not change if they move from one part of the country to another. This conclusion is consistent with logic and my Christian principles. Most people believe this nation was founded on the concept that “All men are created equal”. It would be a better nation if that were closer to the truth.

I'm certainly not the first to make this argument, but it's bizarre to me that it receives scant national attention.

The House of Representatives is the most representative part of national government (if you ignore gerrymandering), with the Electoral College following behind. The Senate is a model of representation that exposes a stunning lack of foresight by our founding fathers.

Here’s another quick allegory:

You attend a local church. Some members have proposed the purchase of an expensive pipe organ. You don’t support the organ purchase. There’s already a functioning organ. You’d rather see funds go toward paying the bills, as the church budget is already stretched.

The congregational vote is approaching, and you stop by the church office to take a look at how the vote will proceed. You are shown a detailed map of the church’s attendees and where they live. There is an area of farmland and mountains to the north of the church that is sparsely populated. About one-fifth come from that large area. Most of the church’s families come from the smaller neighborhoods near the church.

You are surprised to find that the smaller number of homeowners north of the church are given 52% of the votes in your congregation, although they make up only 20% of the church’s congregation. They will clearly carry the vote to support the organ despite the fact that most church attendees don’t think it’s a wise purchase. You ask the office assistant why they receive extra votes.

“It’s because of the wisdom of our founding fathers,” he says, “They would not want the tyranny of a small section of land south of the church to dictate what the northern families want to do.”

“But there are so many more families in the southern area; I wish our votes were equally counted” you mention.

“You don’t understand history,” the assistant says. “Besides, people who live in the northern areas overwhelmingly support this voting arrangement.”

“Go figure,” you say.

This allegory contains a true fact about our Senate--20% of our nation’s population controls over 50% of the seats.

It’s also a fact that although there are about 3,100 counties in America, over half the nation's population resides in about 146 counties. But it’s an arbitrary fact. Counties were designed to apportion equal amounts of land, often regardless of whether the land in those counties could support a few people, a few thousand, or millions. None of our state governments apportion one vote per county to make up their state Senate. It wouldn’t make any sense.

Sense or nonsense, that’s exactly how the US Senate works, but with states instead of counties.

An example of the arbitrary nature of state populations is the Dakotas, where I grew up. Even when the Dakotas joined the union, there was little justification for two separate states. But one of the political parties of that day knew the area strongly favored them. They saw an opportunity to have additional Senate seats and Electoral College votes. When people within the Dakota Territory had a conflict over where the state capitol would be, the prevailing party’s Congressional delegation in Washington quickly supported splitting the Dakotas in two so they could increase their count of Senators. This had nothing to do with the founding fathers and even less to do with wisdom.

Today, the Dakotas together boast a population of about 1.5 million people. California has a population of about 38 million. What wisdom--what moral equation--justifies giving four Senate seats to the Dakotas and only two seats to California? If the people of the Dakotas really deserved that--if they were so much wiser than the people of California--perhaps the Dakotas would be an engine of progress, a hub of commerce, and a globally renowned force for moral good. Is anyone making that argument?

The Electoral College and the House of Representatives were set up to represent populations proportionately (at least, that was the original idea, if we want to glorify the founding fathers’ original intent).

The Senate was created to represent something crucial in political terms but arbitrary in human or moral terms: states. The founding fathers didn’t have to win a popular vote of the entire 13 colonies in order to form the Union--they had to convince each colony individually. So they designed their union to flatter the states.

We are so accustomed to the states that they seem natural. How could they be arbitrary? Well, look at a map. There’s no grand design there. Here are some specific examples:

Reflect on the nature of the West Coast compared to the East Coast. The West Coast has a population that is much more similar to the East Coast than to the sparsely populated Rocky Mountain states. Yet California’s geographic size is more similar to that of Montana or Nevada. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the geographic size of West Coast states mirrored the size of East Coast states?

The District of Columbia has a greater population than two US states (Vermont and Wyoming), but has zero representation in either the House or the Senate. Why? Because it’s not a state at all. The founding fathers completely failed to foresee population growth in the U.S. Capitol. If all the residents of Wyoming switched places with all the residents of D.C., I’m sure they’d have no problem with their loss of Congressional representation. They would just say, “Thank goodness the founding fathers were so wise.”

Wyoming is the least populous US state, with 582,000 residents. California is the most populous state, with 38,332,000 residents. Each state has two Senators. Senate representation from Wyoming to California is a ratio of 1:66. Wyoming residents have 66 times the Senate representation that Californians have. Sounds fair. Sounds like a government based on Christian principles. Where’s that Bible verse in which Christ says each child of God matters, except a little less so when they are in a heavily populated state?

Alaska is the largest state with 570,640 square miles of land. Rhode Island is the smallest state, with 1,033 square miles of land. Each state has two Senators. So state proportionality is not correlated with geography, either.

In America today, a national minority of votes can elect a President. A national minority of votes can elect a majority in the US Senate, and a national minority of votes can elect a majority in the House. We can only conclude that:

All men (people) are not created equal.

We are not a “one person, one vote” nation.

Was this system brought to us by Divine Providence? Should we trust that the current structure reflects the will of God? If we do, we are truly forsaking our founding fathers. The monarchies of their day claimed ordination by God explicitly. Our founding fathers answered that blasphemy with the claim that all men are created equal in the eyes of God. They staked their lives to that claim.

Where do you stand?

I’m reminded of a quote:

“History is the long sad story of people with power who refuse to give up that power.” --Unknown**

This is the current story of our representative government. Some people hold disproportionate power due to historical politics, geographic accidents, and luck.

They will almost certainly refuse to give up that power without a fight.

**I thought this was a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote, but as I cannot find confirmation of that, I have to leave it unattributed for the time being.