Proportional Senate?

What if we had a proportional Senate?

It's an idea popular out here in California. In this scenario America would retain an upper and lower house, but both chambers would be based on population. While the House of Representatives would be chosen by individual districts, in our version the Senate would still, as now, be voted on by the whole state.

So Minnesota, the most consistently Democratic state of all (and the only one to have voted Dem in every Presidential election since 1976) would get something in proportion to their Electoral College votes.  Oklahoma, the most reliably Republican state, (the only one to have voted Rep in every Presidential election since 1968) would likewise get something in proportion to their votes.

Now we want this upper chamber Senate to be smaller than the House, so we can’t use the Electoral College numbers – otherwise the amount would be larger. I think too the smallest states should retain two votes. So if Wyoming gets 2 Senators for 500,000 people then California gets…156.

Perhaps only one Senator per 500,000? Still, that leaves us with 78. Because, you know, California is 78 times larger than Wyoming. Hell, San Francisco is larger than Wyoming.

The problem, then, may be that the House of Representatives is too disproportionate. Constitutionally the proportion originally was one Representative for every 30,000 people. If this proportion held true today there would be 10,387 Representatives. An act in 1929 capped the size of the House at 435 Representatives, with a little over 200,000 people per Representative at the time.  Now each Rep stands for an average of 700,000 people.

Again, Wyoming gets at least one Rep, so you’d have 1 rep = 500,000 people in the House of Representatives. Then you’d have 78 Representatives for California, and not Senators. The total number of Reps in this model would be (using typical rounding up and down rules):

Alabama – 10
Alaska – 1
Arizona – 14
Arkansas – 6
California – 78
Colorado – 11
Connecticut – 7
Delaware – 2
Florida – 41
Georgia – 21
Hawaii – 3
Idaho – 3
Illinois – 26
Indiana – 13
Iowa – 6
Kansas – 6
Kentucky – 9
Louisiana – 9
Maine – 3
Maryland – 12
Massachusetts – 14
Michigan – 20
Minnesota – 11
Mississippi – 6
Missouri – 12
Montana – 2
Nebraska – 4
Nevada – 6
New Hampshire – 3
New Jersey – 18
New Mexico – 4
New York – 39
North Carolina – 20
North Dakota – 2
Ohio – 23
Oklahoma – 8
Oregon – 8
Pennsylvania – 26
Rhode Island – 2
South Carolina – 10
South Dakota – 2
Tennessee – 13
Texas – 56
Utah – 6
Vermont – 1
Virginia – 17
Washington – 15
West Virginia – 4
Wisconsin – 12
Wyoming – 1

So instead of 435 Members of Congress, we would have 646 – all proportional by population as the founders had intended. But not as unwieldy as the original ten thousand. Slightly larger, and far more fair.

Returning, now, to the Senate. Each State would need at least 1 Senator, but if proportional then of course you get the same number as the House, of 646. Instead let’s say you get one senator per million – and still round up for the smaller states, each of which has over 500,000. Here you’d end up with the following:

Alabama – 5
Alaska – 1
Arizona – 7
Arkansas – 3
California – 39
Colorado – 6
Connecticut – 4
Delaware – 1
Florida – 21
Georgia – 10
Hawaii – 1
Idaho – 2
Illinois – 13
Indiana – 7
Iowa – 3
Kansas – 3
Kentucky – 4
Louisiana – 5
Maine – 1
Maryland – 6
Massachusetts – 7
Michigan – 10
Minnesota – 6
Mississippi – 3
Missouri – 6
Montana – 1
Nebraska – 2
Nevada – 3
New Hampshire – 1
New Jersey – 9
New Mexico – 2
New York – 20
North Carolina – 10
North Dakota – 1
Ohio – 12
Oklahoma –  4
Oregon – 4
Pennsylvania – 13
Rhode Island –  1
South Carolina – 5
South Dakota – 1
Tennessee – 7
Texas – 28
Utah – 3
Vermont – 1
Virginia – 8
Washington – 7
West Virginia – 2
Wisconsin –  6
Wyoming – 1

And as such the total number of Senators would sit 336. What would its political makeup be?

Using 2016 Presidential Election data, let’s presume that all of the Senators would be from the same party in a state. If this were the case (which it wouldn’t be, but I figure it would sort of even out to be overall) the Senate would look like this:

134 seats for Democrats and 202 for Republicans, or 39% Democratic-held. That said, 2016 was a real shellacking for Democrats. Trump picked up every swing state and then some. If you go with 2008 Election numbers the Senate may be 216 Democrats to 120 Republicans – 64% liberal held.

All in all, would a proportional Senate help Democrats and liberals? The answer is…eh? 2016 was a particularly disproportionate picture of allegiances, as long-time large democratic strongholds went for Trump. But Obama’s ascendency was also unusual (Indiana voted for him – the first time they elected a Democrat since 1964!). The truth is somewhere in between – but of course that would mean the Senate calculus would potentially shift drastically every two years. Our proportional House of Representatives, though, would in an outlier Trump year be 290 Democrats and 356 Republicans, or 44% Democrats.

The current House is 44% Democrats. So that tallies. And the current Senate is 48% Democrats. So although the idea of a proportional Senate to help liberals take control is appealing under the current system they actually have more seats proportionally, and somewhat more control.

Of course this whole post if moot anyway. As the Constitution states at the end of Article Five:

“…and that no state, without its consent [emphasis mine], shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate”

This is, in fact, the only section of the Constitution therefore which cannot be amended.

Oh well.