9 States have 18 Senators and Half the US Population

[FBaggins]

390. Hey... I hope that interview went well!

Best of luck!

I would, though, like to re-frame the question in more human (and less mathematical) terms: why should Wyoming's 500,000 citizens have exactly as much say-so on Supreme Court appointments as California's 18,000,000 citizens?

That's an excellent question... and (believe it or not), much easier to answer.

Each state has it's own state supreme court... and their rulings can be overturned by the USSC. Each state has a chief executive who can take actions that might or might not be constitutional. Each state has its own legislature that can pass laws that might be unconstitutional. States often end up in court opposing one another. In each case, it is the state that comes before the court as a single entity, not as a number of citizens.

If VT has a decades-long border dispute with NY, should NY have more than a dozen times the influence on picking the judges who will hear the dispute? CA 14 times the representation of NV in a water dispute?

There are times when we exercise our power as individuals and there are times when we exercise them collectively as states. This is clearly a case where it is the state as a body that is represented. I submit that this is likely why the House isn't even involved in judicial consent.

There are still lots of cases where similar rules apply. I'm head of a small HOA (~60 homes/lots). Each property gets a single vote. It doesn't matter how nice the home is (or if there is even a home on the lot). It doesn't matter than one home has a lone widow living there and next door is a family of seven (or even a unoccupied home next door). Each gets one because it's the ownership rights of the property that are being represented, not the individuals who live in the community.