Why are US state legislatures bicameral?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Living in a system with really sharp bicameralism (24 seat upper house, and literally the third largest legislative body in the world for a lower house) I think the system works.

You stand a really good chance of personally knowing your state rep in NH. The ratio is something crazy like 1 legislator per roughly 3000 people. You get some crazies (Al Baldasaro being the most recent national embarrassment) but you also have people routinely spending less than $500 on their re-election, and quite a few citizen legislators.

The State Senate is really a group of professionals, and where 'real' politicians go. They determine a lot of the legislative agenda, and represent a decent sized number of people (roughly 50k).

Gridlock is a concern, but I think it's pretty strongly outweighed in this instance by a very pure form of representative democracy. I wouldn't want to give up either chamber.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Like most national upper houses, legacy and to provide more jobs for politicians.

Here's the solution: abolish upper houses and double the size of lower houses.

Why do you want to inflict 870 legislators on my state?