A Proposal to Balance U.S. Senatorial Elections
The Electoral Imbalance of Densely Populated Urban Centers
The Backstory
Some years ago, while living in a relatively rural area of one of the states that abut the District of Columbia, our U. S. senators supported a bill that had the potential to adversely affect rural constituents. As a concerned and affected citizen, I wrote to both senators to voice my objections. In return, from one I received a politely worded obfuscation that essentially dismissed my concerns–in other words, he blew me off.
It was not long after that when one of these senators came up for re-election, which he handily won through the electoral weight of the urban areas immediately adjacent to the District.
A Constitutional Conundrum
One of the concerns of the founders of the Constitution of the United States was the potential tyranny of the majority at the expense of the minority. At the founding of the republic, the total population in the southern states outnumbered that of the northern states, which contributed to some of the founders’ concerns over a government grounded totally in numerical representation, and to others’ concerns of a government determined solely by popular vote. The southern states had an advantage in numerical representation, while the northern states had an advantage in the number of eligible voters.
Although written nearly 100 years after the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, the founders intuitively knew and strove to minimize the affects of Lord Acton’s maxim, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Thus, we had a series of checks and balances written into our Constitution.
For example, the House of Representatives is an electorate based on a state’s population, whereas, originally, each state appointed two senators to the Senate. The relatively short 2-year term of the representatives was designed to keep them close to, and thereby representative of, those who elected them, as there was no mechanism for recall. The relatively long 6-year term a senator reflected the power of a state’s assembly to recall and appoint a new senator, if a senator failed to adequately represent said state’s interests.
A Progressive Change and its Consequence
§The progressive push of the early 1900s changed senatorial elections to popularity contests. One consequence of that change is that the relatively long 6-year term insulates senators from electoral ire when said senator fails to adequately represent the electorates interests. Note the change from a state’s interests ostensibly to the electorate’s interests, as well as the absence of mechanisms for recall. Most recently, we have seen senators deviate wildly from the interests of their constituency with little to no repercussions.
The exponential population growth in the U. S. over the last 120 years, and the commensurate increase in urban and sub-urban population densities, once again, forces an examination into balancing urban and rural voting blocs. At the heart of this issue is the presupposition that urban voting concerns are different from, and often diametrically opposed to, those of rural areas.
A Proposal for Balance in Elections of U. S. Senators
The Amendment XVII of the Constitution of the United States mandates that senators be “elected by the people.”
This author proposes that senatorial elections use the presidential election as an analog. Rather than tallying votes purely along a simple majority, require senatorial candidates to garner a majority of electoral districts or geographically-based votes.
For example, North Carolina has 100 counties. In order for a candidate to the U. S. Senate to win election in North Carolina, said candidate would have to win an electoral majority in 51 of the 100 counties. Ostensibly, such a mechanism would balance the concerns of rural and urban voting blocs.
Obviously, this is one example, only. Another may be to require a candidate to win a majority of a state’s electoral districts.
What do you think? I am interested in your comments.