PensivePenny wrote:willhud9 wrote:The problem I have with the above view is that the way the US government was intended was the people were to be directly represented ONLY by their district's representative. If you had a grievance with a law you would write your representative in the House. Senators were chosen by the House to represent the entirety of the state. That was changed but the role of senator is not to represent individuals but the collective state.
I wasn't aware of Senators ever being elected by representatives, but if their role is the same, it's of no consequence to my point. Are you refuting the argument that two senators per state had no other purpose than to shift the balance of power away from the states with greater population? If so, please explain.
Sorry my bad. State legislators, not representatives, were what elected Senators.
And it was meant to be a check against states with larger populations. Virginia was vastly larger in population than Rhode Island back in the 1800's and the state interests of Rhode Island varied vastly different than Virginia.
The same is true today. People point to the fact that Wyoming has more value in the Senate compared California just because of population differences, but California still vastly beats Wyoming in the House that it balances out any population imbalances.
And there still remains the fact that Senators are supposed to represent their state's overall interest.
Federalism is still a thing and it still is important to keep in mind that state's have certain authorities and privileges and are their own governments in a lot of ways.
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