We can't let the Founders' Electoral College, Senate tradeoffs distort democracy forever

[dalton99a]

3. Our Founding Fathers were men of property who feared popular democracy

A few obvious facts explain this: The Founders did not imagine political parties. In apportioning representation by population, they acceded to southern demands that slaves be counted as three-fifths of a person. Yet, like slaves, women did not vote.

That long-ago America had 13 states, not 50. Our Founding Fathers, many slave owners themselves, were men of property who feared popular democracy. They could not anticipate the vast and varied America we now inhabit; the evolution of our social philosophy; or the needs of a diverse society for a government responsive its people — all of which, one can reasonably imagine, many would have regarded with something akin to horror.

Which, of course, brings us to the Electoral College. If ever there was an institution rooted in the then, not the now, this is it.

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Yet there's another remnant of constitutional vote-swapping that makes the Electoral College look like a plebiscite: the U.S. Senate. In practice, the Senate upholds all the supposed virtues of the Electoral College, privileging small states and over-representing rural areas. Its very existence operates as a bulwark against urban dominance and, therefore, as a compelling argument against the supposed necessity of preserving the Electoral College.

What did America writ large get in return for this tradeoff? Not the disinterested body that our Founders fondly imagined, free from unruly political passions. Today's Senate is polarized between underrepresented blue states and overrepresented red states, allowing partisans from unpopulated states to help strangle popular legislation. It is, in short, a satrapy for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.