r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 1d 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/LordChunggis 1d ago

I think the founding fathers would have framed the senate a little differently if they had thought a state like California was even a possibility.

My brother and I have heated arguments on the senate. He says the senate is functioning as intended, "protection of the minority," I call it tyranny of the minority when California and New York have the same Senate representation as South Dakota and Wyoming.

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u/Worthyness 1d ago

The senate is indeed working as intended. It's the House that is not. The Senate intentionally is meant to represent the state level. The House is meant to represent the populace. The problem is the House has been artificially capped since the early 20th century meaning that it hasn't been balanced or adjusted for the massive population growth the country has had. Therefore the minority now has more representation in the entire congress than it realistically should. The house needs to have the representation readjusted to match the higher population of the country. States like California should have significantly more representatives than Wyoming.

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u/LordChunggis 1d ago

I'm ashamed to say I had no idea the House was capped. That makes a lot of things make more sense. I've long questioned why the House is always a toss up when it should skew to the left based on State Pops.

Thank you very much for the info, I'll be amending my argument in future fights with my brother.

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u/Worthyness 1d ago

yup. Historically it was capped because they literally couldn't fit anymore people in the building and didn't have the technology to broadcast the discussions live with people, so it was a realistic limitation. But in the modern day we literally can broadcast and discuss in real time from anywhere, so there's no reason that the House should be capped.

And honestly this would give a lot of representation to republican counties too. If California had more districts, there would be more republican reps from there. sure it counters by having more blue reps from other states too (like Florida and Texas), but that's really the point of the House- it's supposed to represent the people.