• admiralteal@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    That precise negotiation is how we got the civil war, as well as a number of other completely busted, antidemocratic US institutions like the Senate. Making compromises with slavers.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      10 months ago

      It’s all so bad. The House should have thousands of members to give states proportional representation, but instead Alabama votes count for more than California votes. In turn, this makes the electrical college unbalanced too in the same way. There’s a huge bias towards rural voting power.

      • nbafantest@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        10 months ago

        To be fair, California hasn’t built any new housing in 60 years.

        California could have 60-70 million people. Instead we are just handing 30 million voters over to Republican states.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          That, paradoxically, increases California’s proportional voting power. Popular vote doesn’t decide elections.

          • nbafantest@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            If California had 70million citizens, current district sizes are around 700k. So it would have about 100 districts. It would have about 1/5th of the total electoral college vote.

            It’s honestly insane that New York and Cali have purposefully handed over political power to republicans since the 60s.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              As I understand it, because every state still has to have at least 1 House member (and thus 1 electoral college vote). Without increasing the size of the House then all that can do is reduce the proportional power of each vote within California. The State itself becomes more powerful, sure, but the votes of citizens within California are worth less and less as the population grows. It’s a really bad system.

              • nbafantest@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                Each district is roughly 700k people. A few districts are bigger, a few are smaller.

                California could completely dominate the US House of Representatives and the electoral college.

                A state becomes more powerful by having more people.

                California has much much more power than Wyoming, even tho each voter in Wyoming might have a tiny bit more power than each voter in Cali.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  Yeah, but it’s not just Wyoming. It’s all the little flyover states all teaming up against big bad California, and using their disproportionate electoral power to do so - it’s the reason we’ve had multiple presidents that lost the electoral college, after all.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        And then people act like “real America” is like a suburb in Ohio or rural parts of Louisiana.

        There’s ~4 million people in Louisana. There’s ~8 million people in New York City alone. Cities are as or more “real” than the other parts.