Should the senate be changed?

[cris01us]

It's great to read through everyone's posts.  It reminds me of reading the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, only with a bit of a modern twist, and of course quite a few partisan twists as well.  It's good to know there are intelligent and articulate people out there, on all sides, who are talking about these things, even if there is no change in site.  Keep up the great work.

[cris01us]

This isn’t a partisan thing: I just want my vote to count the same as someone in Wyoming and California. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask out of a democracy.

The point of the Senate is for equal representation regardless of population. The point of the House is for proportional representation.

[cris01us]

The ability to allow states to come together in blocks, in order to have their interest represented was the point.  I think of it in terms of protection for the minority interests, whatever that might be in the given time period.  "Small states" in essence, can band together under a common interest with much more force and capability than they could under a strictly proportional system.  The minority can essentially stop/check the majority (the majority probably has control of the lower chamber), so then the two are forced to compromise or wait until the next election gives one party a majority in both chambers.  Our forefathers didn't exactly aim to make government as efficient or effective as possible for good reasons, mistrust or governmental power being chief among those reasons.  Is it frustrating? Sure.  Does it slow the pace of "progress" - probably.  Does it aim to make two sides compromise, or at least consider each other's positions - I would say it does.  I don't think the founders meant for government to be "the answer" in the way folks of late have framed government.

[cris01us]

I recognize the principle of having minority rights being represented as an original motivation behind the senate (though the minority was that of states rather than people of the states). I'll ignore for the purposes of this post that in reality other reasons were slavery and a holdover from the House of Lords.

Correct.  I should have made that explicit in my explanation.  I was aiming for brevity, and I just assume everyone on here is smarter than me and knows these details inherently.