SENATE DEMS GET MORE VOTES THAN GOP LAST 3 ELECTIONS

[ZombieGak]

Before anyone states the obvious... that the senate represents states not people... I'm well aware of that. This is just another way of looking at the nature of our government... especially since the senate has the last word on Alito.

Any given senator is elected every 6 years. So to see how many votes each Party gets, one has to look at any 3 consecutive federal elections.

These numbers show that during the past 3 elections, the Dems have clearly won more votes for their candidates than the GOP has. Yet the GOP is in control... 55 to 44.

------------DEMS------------GOP-------OTHER
2000----20,470,371-----22,198,747---1,606,029
2002----36,788,222-----36,729,792---5,797,467
2004----43,605,968-----39,920,857---2,678,558

TOTAL--100,864,561----98,849,396----10,082,054

Sources:
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/senparty.htm
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2002/senparty.htm
10082054http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/federalelections2004.pd

[jsamuel]

1. wow, so the Dems have been getting more votes over Repubs every year, but

they have been losing seats every year... hmmm...

[ZombieGak]

9. this is what happens when

The US Senate is perhaps the most anti-democratic representative body on the planet. At its most extreme a citizen in Wyoming has a 68X times bigger vote than a citizen in California.

[LisaM]

2. Your numbers show the GOP getting more votes in 2000

22 million to 20 million.

[ZombieGak]

5. a lot depends on what senators are up for election

Sometimes more Dems are up... sometimes more GOP types are up. That's why I included all 3 elections which covers ALL the senators currently in DC.

[LisaM]

8. Oh, I see. I slightly misunderstood your premise

I thought you meant that they'd garnered more votes in each of the elections, not the sum total of the three elections.

[ZombieGak]

11. no I am talking about all three elections...

But given more GOP senators may have been up for re/election in 2000... and it being a presidential election year which always brings out some 15-20 more voters... the GOP in 2000 would get more votes.

But the overall vote total for those senators now in Washington show the Dems having gotten more votes than the GOP... yet because of the anti-democratic nature of the Senate the GOP rules 55-44.

[ZombieGak]

29. 2004 vote by party

This a total of ALL votes casts from page 8 http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/federalelections2004.pdf

DEMS = 155,888,881 48.28%
GOP = 157,988,608 48.93%
OTHERS = 9,037,081 2.80%

[Walt Starr]

3. That's because Senators represent states, not people.

The Senate as a body was created to be proportionally representative of the states, not proportionally representative of the people. The House is the body that is proportionally representative of the people.

Small states have more representation that big states because of this. It's far more pronounced in our modern era than it was when the nation was first begun.

[ZombieGak]

6. I think I already said...

that I'd hope no one bothered to post the obvious.

But we also have to admit... that states are imaginary beings... and in the end since 1913 citizens DIRECTLY elect their senators.

So the emperor really has no clothes unless we want to believe in them.

[Walt Starr]

15. Actually, States are no more imaginary beings than the United States

And yes, the seventeenth amendment affords the citizens of the several states to directly elect their Senators.

The thing is, the upper body of congress came into existence solely because it was The Great Compromise and without it, we'd have no constitution.

[ZombieGak]

17. we might not have a constitution.......

Without the Great Compromise we might not have had the CURRENT constitution but that doesn't mean that if the situation deteriorated we might not have gotten a more democratic one.

The term imaginary beings is taken directly out of Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention.

MR. WILSON: "Can we forget for whom we are forming a Government? Is it for men, or for the imaginary beings called States? Will our honest Constituents be satisfied with metaphysical distinctions?"

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/debates/630.htm

We've been so raised to understand WHY the Constitution is as it is.... that we never ask WHETHER it should be as it is.

[Walt Starr]

18. You cannot change the way it is

Because of the power of the minority of states.

Teh small states have the power in the Senate to block any method of altering how the Senate is chosen etc. The only peaceful means of change we have is the amendment process, and you can never meet the requirements of the amendment process to alter the way the Legislative Branch is composed without the consent of the minority whom will have to willingly relinquish power.

That's simply not going to happen.

The only means of changing it from there is not peaceful and is thus a road we cannot travel.

[ZombieGak]

23. so the constitution is both.....

Yes... there are some poison pills in the Constitution that no state can be deprived of suffrage in the Senate without its consent.

So the constitution is both flawed and reform-proof?

[Walt Starr]

30. It can be reformed, ... somewhat

but the particular flaw you point out cannnot be reformed.

And we are to a point where 38% of the country can alter the constitution if they so choose. Yes, the minority has seized control!

[LisaM]

13. But was it meant to be this disproportionate?

The Democratic Senators' states also foot many of the country's bills (we definitely get less back per dollar taxed) and we are rapidly losing a voice.

[Walt Starr]

14. Yes, it was. It was called "The Great Compromise"

and is teh only reason we ended up with the constitution we have.

[LisaM]

16. But I thought it was to encourage growth in smaller states

200 years later, it not only has occurred, many of those states have lost population (relatively.) I don't think this is how the framers envisioned it. Of course, they also wanted to grant more rights to property holders, but it's not really working at the moment.

[WI_DEM]

4. It's a good statistic, but the reason is that Dem Senators are in

mega states like NY, IL, MI, CA, NJ, ect while many GOP Senators are in small states--still, despite size, each state gets two Senators.

[ZombieGak]

7. Yup....

But remember... that your intent is to acknowledge moral legitimacy to Senate then you're also granting it to its decisions.

I don't believe the Senate is morally legitimate any more than the EC.

[kennetha]

10. The Senate is not very representative

If you start out with the smallest 25 states that have between them 50 senators and total up their populations I think, if I remember correctly, you get about 30 some million, roughly the population of California. So 30 million or so people spread over 25 states elect half of the Senate, while the 30 million or so citizens of California get to elect between them only 2 Senators.

When the Senate was first established I think the difference in size between the largest state and the smallest was something like a factor of 10. Now California is nearly 70 times the size of, say, Wyoming. So the Senate has gotten progressively less and less representative.

Some days I think we should just abolish Wyoming and other states with more land than people and make them federal territories again.

[ZombieGak]

12. there are no constitutional protections against...

There are no constitutional protections against demographic trends. Aside from the Senate... the 3/4 states now needed to pass any amendment can contain as little as 38% of the US population.

[Tsiyu]

19. Perhaps each large city should get to send two Senators as well

Treat cities as greater parts of States

[ZombieGak]

25. 75 STARS!!

Here's a good article: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1998/01/lind_DUP2.html

[kennetha]

21. True Enough!

That's probably why Thomas Jefferson thought that the constitution should probably be re-written every 50 years or so. He said that he could not imagine that a constitution written at a particular time and place would necessarily be adequate for the exegencies of circumstances of every time and place. Of course, you don't want it to be too easy to re-write the constitution (as in California where the thing is being constantly revised by ballot measures). But maybe its time to strike some new constitutional bargains for the 21st century and beyond. Problem is there isn't really away to do that without opening a whole pandora's box. Can you imagine, though, what heck would break loose if a new constitutional convention somehow was convened?

[ProfessorGAC]

20. The House Is A Deadheat As Well

In total, votes for Democrats in Congress are greater than those for repubs. Some mandate, huh?
The Professor

[ZombieGak]

24. in the House the GOP won more votes

According to page 11 at http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/federalelections2004.pdf
in 2004the vote broke down this way:

DEMS =53,254,474
GOP = 56,027,141
OTHER = 5,132,227

[KingFlorez]

22. This stresses the need for reform

The Senate leaves no chance for a member of a third party to be elected, because it goes state by state. There is absolutely no way of having proportionality. It's sort of hard to say how to fix it for the Senate though.

[ZombieGak]

28. the chances of reforming the Senate are

The chances of reforming the Senate are less likely than abolishing the EC. Yet if the US is ever to avoid minority government, the process has to start somewhere. This should be a matter of politics... not religion. I think that process starts by taking the Constitution off a pedestal and rationally discussing what works and what doesn't.

[SoCalDem]

26. Colorado "surprised" me last election

They elected a dem governor and a dem senator, and yet those same people who voted dem for those people, also voted for *²?? Sure they did:eyes:

[ZombieGak]

27. correct links to sources cited in first post

http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/senparty.htm
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2002/senparty.htm
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/federalelections2004.pdf

[ZombieGak]

31. JUST HOW INSIDIOUS IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT? IT GAVE US BUSH!!

According to Mother Jones:

In 1991, the Senate voted 52-48 to appoint Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. The senators opposing Thomas (including those from California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas) represented a majority of the American people—but found themselves in the minority in the Senate.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1998/01/lind_DUP2.html

Thomas was then free to be a crucial vote in Gore v Bush... and that let the antidemocratic Electoral Collage formula take over imposing Bush on a nation that REJECTED him. Bush was then free to abuse the powers of the presidency to push for a takeover of all 3 branches of government.

US and world history were changed for the worst and just who was responsible?

Clearly the world's only superpower is outside the control of its own population.