Roe v Wade

[jimmyscoular]

Texas seems to be a bit of a shitshow lately, with Republicans in charge. I've always wondered though, when they say about States breaking away (seceding?) and they're the Nth biggest economy, how much of that would be lost as it'd move "over the border" back to the USA.

Though they really do need to do something about the senate, where a state like Wyoming has the same votes as somewhere like California.

The "United States" would then be a wholly different country. The popular democracy you call for in the Senate already exists in the House of Representatives. The equal representation of states in the Senate is a defining feature of the American constitutional structure without which the nation could never have been formed. The smaller states in those early days would never have tolerated sacrificing their autonomy to larger states, and so the federal republic would have died aborning.

Think the United Nations Security Council, where the United Kingdom, with its piddling 60 million population, gets the same veto rights as China, with a population 20 times as large. The United Nations could never have been formed if small-population states like the UK and France were not protected from the "democratic" power of behemoths like China.

[nomad blue]

The "United States" would then be a wholly different country. The popular democracy you call for in the Senate already exists in the House of Representatives. The equal representation of states in the Senate is a defining feature of the American constitutional structure without which the nation could never have been formed. The smaller states in those early days would never have tolerated sacrificing their autonomy to larger states, and so the federal republic would have died aborning.

Think the United Nations Security Council, where the United Kingdom, with its piddling 60 million population, gets the same veto rights as China, with a population 20 times as large. The United Nations could never have been formed if small-population states like the UK and France were not protected from the "democratic" power of behemoths like China.

I'm aware of the HoR, but doesn't legislation have to pass through both so, like now, laws can be blocked despite the senators representing a minority of the population? I'm guessing it wasn't as much of an issue not all that long ago before the Republicans went full on nutjob.

Yeah, UNSC is ridiculous, especially with the permanent members being able to veto anything (Russia blocking everything tp do with Ukraine is the most recent example).

[jimmyscoular]

Yes, legislation has to pass through both houses. That's the point. That's how small-population Republican states like Wyoming and Nebraska and Iowa and the Dakotas and Missouri and Kansas and Missouri and Alabama and Tennessee and Utah, and even large-population Republican states like Texas and Florida, defend their autonomy from massive-population Democratic states like New York and California.

It's also how small-population Democratic states like Maine and Vermont and Maryland, and even large-population Democratic states like California and New York, will defend their autonomy from the Republican wave that is expected to sweep across America during this November's mid-term election.

The confusion stems from imagining that the United States is a unitary nation. It is not. It is a federation of 50 almost-if-not-quite-completely-sovereign states with their own legislatures, their own laws, their own cultures and their own presidents (governors). The federal government does not like this, of course, and tries to coerce the states any which way it can. The Senate, with its equal representation, makes this impossible, or at least a lot more difficult.

The U.S. Senate is vastly more democratic than the UN Security Council. No state has veto power in the U.S. Senate. If 60 percent of the vote can be gathered, then anything can be passed, and, contingent upon any such legislation surviving constitutional scrutiny in the courts, everyone will have to fall in line no matter what.