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Wyoming Area: 253,335 km2
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United Kingdom area: 244,376 km2
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Wyoming population: 576,851 (2020)
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Glasgow urban area population: 632,350 (2020)
Disproportionate representation can be kind of a bummer for the under represented folks. Get rid of the senate and remove the cap on the house!
Sadly that will never happen (peacefully) because the smaller states would never vote to reduce their own power. That’s not even considering it would require a constitutional amendment, which is notoriously hard to pass.
it would require a constitutional amendment
Senate, yes. House, no.
The House used to regularly increase in size and has only been at 435 seats since 1911 and capped at that size since 1929. This is changeable through normal law making.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-house-got-stuck-at-435-seats/
The Senate was the solution, the house is meant to be population based but they ran out of space in the chamber and capped it instead of just building a bigger room so now Wyoming is massively overrepresented.
Take a look at https://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/FedRep.phtml?sort=Elec#table
California has 678,945 residents per elected representative versus Wyoming’s 284,150, meaning that Wyoming’s residents have an almost 3x voice. Wyoming is the most represented state by population ratio and California is last.
As others have said, that’s what the senate was for, while the House should have a static ratio across all states with the count increasing by total national population.
Because they’re a territory and not a state.
Whenever it comes up, they reject becoming a state - it’s not a beneficial change for them (I don’t blame them).
It helps that many of them don’t pay federal income tax (though they do pay other taxes)
My problem is that my vote has far less weight than someone in that state. Wasn’t that implied?
Square miles of farmland shouldn’t have votes, people should.
It doesn’t. That’s just a soundbite. You’re not voting against a wyoming resident. Your vote has the sane power as your neighbours
Your vote has the sane power as your neighbours
Not if I live near a state boundary.
Your vote for president has zero power outside of your state. Your vote informs your state’s electoral representative as to who to vote for.
States elect a president as the leader of the executive branch, a federal role, which affects relationships between a federation of states. Federal government’s role is supposed to be limited to managing the relationships between states.
It’s not a popular vote. Never has been, and would be inappropriate to make it so. Basic civics.
There’s way too much attention paid to the office of president, when there are ~500 other federal politicians who are ignored by doing so.
I know how the system works. I’m not disputing it. I’m saying the status quo is bad, not that it’s false.
It’s not a popular vote. Never has been, and would be inappropriate to make it so. Basic civics.
Pointing out it’s “basic civics” that that’s how it works currently, and using that to sneak in the huge claim that it’s also “basic civics” that a popular vote “would be inappropriate”. If that was intentional, it was clever.
The house of representatives is unjust in its uneven, disproportionate, and meager representation. Is that what you wanted to hear?
