r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 20h ago

California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs

https://www.newsweek.com/california-newsom-trade-trump-tariffs-2055414
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u/9793287233 North Carolina 19h ago

Also if the farmers in Wyoming are only about 12 people compared to thousands of "liberal techies in California" then YES we should prioritize the desires of the liberal techies

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u/JugdishSteinfeld 18h ago

Apparently there are 33,000 farm workers in Wyoming. California has over 400,000.

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u/not-my-other-alt 18h ago

Subway employs about 100,000 people.

If 'Wyoming farmers' are a constituency worth a Senate seat, then Subway sandwich makers should get three.

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u/Brawkoli 15h ago

Welcome to Costco, I love you.

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u/bschott007 North Dakota 14h ago edited 14h ago

The U.S. Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 3, mandates that the Senate be composed of two senators from each state. The Founding Fathers' intent behind this came from a compromise reached during the Constitutional Convention to address the concerns of both large and small states, ensuring that smaller states wouldn't be overshadowed by larger ones in the legislative process. Without a Senate, some of the states wouldn't have joined in the Revolution...and to be perfectly frank, just because we may live in a small state, doesn't mean we follow the same political views and we know without a doubt the large states would definately abuse the small states if they were allowed to. People in those large states would totally vote for only their own interests and never give a second thought to us living in the rural areas. Large states would dam up a river even if that would utterly destroy the farming of people living down stream in a smaller state and never give a second thought to it because "more people here, more power here. You should all pull yourselves up by the bootstraps and live in a city, not digging in the mud and playing with plants!"

Sure, we all should have equal representation, and that's what the HOUSE is for.

The Senate is supposed to be there to prevent the large states ruling over the small states and treating them like District 9's, which 1000% would happen. People living in these less populated states would become 2nd class citizens and all the rules and laws would be made by those in the large cities.

The issue you have is with the House of Representitives. The House has 438 members (435 are voting members). Under the 2020 census, House should actually have about 692 representatives.

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u/Dmienduerst 17h ago

To make a devil's advocate case on why the electoral college and Senate system exists and is positive. There is always going to be a give and take so the design of the government gives the will of the populous three different representatives to vote for. The techies in California in theory should have more representation in the house and have bigger weight in the presidential election due to them controlling a big chunk of electoral votes. The Senate exists so that the more populus states can't control the three major governing bodies through vote count alone. It gives a state like Wyoming a singular avenue where their voice and will has greater or equal to weight as California. If the Senate system was more populus in nature then Wyoming representatives would have to form coalitions to even bring any conversation of changes to the table. Now they can create a discussion in the Senate that can't easily be tabled by the will of the more populated states alone.

Devil's advocate argument over.

What has happened though is that the system hasn't been updated for modern times. The Senate system I still think mostly works though I do think the Senate having more natural powers vs the House is leaning into the idea that we let the Elites run the country. The updates I'm talking about are two main things. The all or nothing nature of the electoral college has always been a disaster and should do a better job of representing "THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE" and stop gamifying the presidential race. Red voters in California are just as disencetivized to care about voting as the blue voters are when it's a bunch of swing states deciding the election for the blue voters and the red voters never get represented in the electoral college.

The second major issue is the house having a cap of the number of people along with gerrymandering of states like Wisconsin has massively influenced the house majority. The power of the house is that the populus should have its will represented. Instead a state like Wisconsin which is basically as 50/50 as they come is sending 6 Republicans and 2 Democrats to the house. Do that enough times across the 50 states and either party could coop control from the populus.

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u/ActOdd8937 15h ago

*Populous--has a lot of people in it.

*Populace--the people in question.

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u/Dinkleberg2845 9h ago

"populus" is just the latin word for populace (a spelling which doesn't make any sense to begin with)

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u/viviolay 16h ago

Fr, I never understand why this was a gotcha for some. Like yes, I think the people of larger quantity‘s desires should matter more. Theoretically, that’s how voting should work.

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u/HenchmenResources 15h ago

That sounds great until you run into a situation where its 12 people educated about a subject against thousands of idiots that are somehow allowed to vote and you end up having a trade war against fucking penguins.

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u/PaulTheMerc 18h ago

Now make it race...

Ready for round 2?

Yeah. That's the problem.

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u/Krisosu 14h ago

That's how it's always been for race in any country since the beginning of time.

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u/1of3destinys 17h ago

The electoral college is DEI. 

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u/HorlicksAbuser 16h ago

At worst 1 farmer vote per 10 techie votes