WEIGHTING THE SENATE TOWARD ONE PERSON ONE VOTE

A PROPOSAL TO WEIGHT U.S. SENATE VOTES BASED 

ON THE HOUSE’S  REPRESENTATION

Stepping away from my usual concentration on court cases:

The U.S. Senate is gerrymandered according to the compromise reached back in 1787.  It does not represent anything remotely like representation on the basis of one person one vote.

A modest proposal

In the original Article 1 Section 3, as incorporated without change into the 17^th Amendment (Senators elected by popular vote, not by state legislatures) is the sentence:

“(1) The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.” 

Replace it with  “(1) The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote that when cast in a floor vote shall be given a weight of one half of the number of seats then allocated to the Senator’s state in the House of Representatives.

The effect of the change would be that the weighted votes with all Senators voting  would equal in number the votes of all members of the House of Representatives. The 100 Senators could cast weighted votes totaling 435. (the present size of the House). 

  

This is somewhat analogous to the votes of a corporate Board of Directors each having one voice, but each casting votes only for the shares they own or represent.

Under this proposal, each State still has two Senators.   Each Senator has an equal right to debate, and to cast a vote.  In committees, each Senator’s vote would be equal.   Each Senator casts one unsplit vote.  But each Senator’s voting power in floor sessions when legislation is passed or defeated is based,  approximately, on the number of people they represent, as is appropriate in a democracy.  

Analysis

The spreadsheet below analyzes the current misrepresentation and the effect of the change.

The degree to which current Senate might not reflect majority rule, or any particularly rational system is profound:

-          51 or 52 Senators, could pass legislation or confirm appointments requiring a majority vote, while representing 19 percent of the population even if Senators representing 81 percent of the population were against it.  Equally, Senators representing 80 percent of the people might not command a majority in the Senate. 

-          60 Senators could overcome a filibuster while representing only 24 percent of the population as represented in the House.

-          A successful vote for conviction of impeachment could attain 67 Senators whose House representation is just 30 % of the people.

-          If the vote were otherwise evenly split, the 10 senators who could make the difference in overcoming a filibuster could represent as few as 1.4% of the people (as allocated to House seats) or as much as 67%. 

The partisan effect

Of course, the above is theoretical.  The partisan breakdown of the Senate does not fall into small state-large--state criteria.  At present there are 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and 2 Independents.  The independents generally vote with the Democrats and are treated as such in the attached spreadsheet.   There being 100 senators, these numbers are also the percentages.

If the current Senators votes were weighted as proposed, the Democrats’ and independents’ vote would “weigh” 230.5, and the Republicans 204.5.   (Total 435). That would reverse the 53% to 47% currently favoring the Republicans to a 53% weighted votes for the Democrats to 47% for the Republicans.  This tracks reasonably closely to the 2016 presidential vote when, excluding the almost 7% independents,  the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, received 51.11 % of the vote, and Republican, Donald Trump, received 48.89%.  

When needing 218 votes for a majority, Democrats could pass legislation and still enjoy an additional margin from the Senators from West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Big states, little states, and super-majorities.

If Senate rules continued to demand super-majorities then bi-partisanship would be necessary to pass anything, just as it is now.   

Examples  If a total of 60% of weighted votes (261) were needed, the Democrats would need the assent of as few as three of the four Republican Senators representing the populations of Texas and Florida, or as many as  all of the Republican Senators representing the  sparser populations of Utah, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Maine, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Alaska.  

Impeachment conviction would remain about as out of reach as it was in the 2019-2020 session.

  

Conversely, Republicans relying on the largest states, could gain a majority of weighted votes with the assistance of one California Senator,  or conversely need Democratic Senators from the smaller states starting with New Mexico.  Relying on the largest states to obtain 60% they would need the assistance of two California Senators, and one Democrat from any state larger than Nevada.   To rely on the smallest states, they’d need one Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, and the Democratic Senators from all states smaller than that. 

The Article V Issue

Aside from the obvious difficulties of getting ratification of this or any other amendment, Article V, of the Constitution, in describing the amendment process, stipulates that “…[N]o State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” 

Article V would, no doubt, be raised by opponents, however the proposal would probably be sufficient to overcome this bar.  Each state retains its two senators, and each has “one vote”.  Only floor votes, not votes in committees are affected.  Further, if a state did not consent to the weighting provision, rules could allow it the “equal suffrage” of one vote, while continuing to weigh the others so that legislation would reflect the results of electoral democracy.   

The effect of making some Senatorial elections more significant than others

Because the large-state Senators would wield more power in passing legislation, it is quite probable that more money and effort would flow to those contests.  On reflection, this is reasonable and desirable, certainly more so than having equal amounts used to overwhelm the votes in smaller states because they elect equally powerful senators.

The main effect would be to give to each American voter far greater equality in selecting the representatives who make decisions in the United States government.  

Peter Liederman