How can we have democracy when half the population holds 20% of the Senate?

[DanTex]

81. Again, a bicameral legislature doesn't have to be grossly unequal.

We can have two legislatures which are both based on the principle of equal representation. You know, one citizen, one vote.

People from Wyoming absolutely have more of a voice than people in any other state. It's great that the senate balances out the house, but you still haven't explained why Wyoming gets the lucky lottery ticket that gives it's citizens 20 times more influence per capita in the senate than people in Fresno or Staten Island.

What do you have against Staten Island? There are the same number of people there as in Wyoming. Have you ever been there or talked to anyone from there? Why makes you so convinced that they don't deserve the same number of senators of their own as Wyoming? Just because of their physical location near the Atlantic Ocean, they should be denied equal representation? Really? Well how about people in El Paso, Texas? Or Peoria, Illinois?

Tell you what, here's a compromise. Wyoming gets to keep it's enormously oversized influence in government, but at the very least, they should have to pay the same amount in taxes, total as a state, as anyone else. If people in Wyoming want to continue to have 20X as much influence as people in Staten Island, they should also have to pay 20X as much in taxes per capita. Otherwise, what we have is taxation without representation -- people in Staten Island are paying the Federal Government to do what people in Wyoming want.