52 repub senators represent only 18% of the population...who do .....

[ElsewheresDaughter]

they think they are to impose their evil agenda on the rest of America????


18% that's ALL they represent!

it makes me CRAZY!!!

[blm]

1. And that NYT jerk Kristof claims the religious right is underrepresented

when the FACT is that they are OVER-REPRESENTED in the Senate and the congress, in the administration and as part of the judiciary.

They have more networks of their own and get more broadcast time than any other part of American society.

[rzemanfl]

2. The Founding Fathers never expected big population centers

or that part of the country would go crazy and the Supreme Court would appoint an idiot as President or that people would vote via rigged computers.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

4. This was never a democracy. It was a modified oligarchy.

To get the Constitution ratified and atleast off the ground, concessions were made to the little states who feared big state domination.

The Senate is why this country does not have representative government and all the rhetoric about democracy is a lie.

The rhetoric actually PREVENTS the realization of democracy because everyone thinks it already exists.

The Founding Fathers (the richest white guys in the US at the time) hoped that eventually real representative democracy would happen.

It didn't. And the power of the robber barons and corporations has made it worse than ever.

Read Howard Zinn's 'People's History of the United States.'

[rzemanfl]

7. Well I certainly agree with your "worse than ever" analysis. n/t

[LostInAnomie]

3. Where did you get that stat. from?

That's crazy.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. Senator Jon Corizine today on CSpan, just population of NYC = 9 red states

[hughee99]

12. If he said this, he's mistaken...

I added up the population of just Texas, Ohio, Penn, GA, NC, SC, AL, VA, TN, MS, and MO (which all have 2 repuke senators) and their population is 94,473,007 compared to a US population of 293,655,404 which is over 32% already.

I got my population numbers from the link below, so unless this web page is wildly inaccurate, he was way off by a good bit. There's no doubt that the repukes in the Senate represent less than 1/2 of the total population, but it's much higher than 18%

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. " Texas, Ohio, Penn, GA, NC, SC, AL, VA, TN, MS, and MO" .......

the entire population of the staes you qouted are NOT all republicans! there are Democratas in those states that vote Democratic.....sorry, but, i don't believe that Senator Jon Corizine would make this kind of a statement of fact on CSpan if it wasn't true!

you made the mistake ...recrunch your numbers?

[hughee99]

22. If the quote is accurate, and Corzine is referring to Senate

representation, then he is wrong... "52 repub senators represent only 18% of the population"... Start with the fact that there are 55, not 52 repuke senator.

Like it or not, a senator's job is to represents ALL of the people in his state, not just those that voted for them. Look at the population of just the states that I mentioned, it it is much more than just 18% of the population. If you're talking about JUST the repukes in JUST the states that have 2 repuke senators, then you may be close to this number, since you would also have to consider that much more than 1/2 the population isn't represented at all, since they didn't vote.

Now I didn't see him make the statement, so I don't know if he's being quoted accurately and completely, but if you take his statement to mean that the senators of a state represent all the people in the state and the repuke senators only represent 18% of the population, because the states they represent only comprise 18% of the population, then he is wrong.

[davidinalameda]

5. that's the beauty of the Senate

but what I want to know is why you have 493,782 people in Wyoming and they have a member in the House when the average congressional district in California has a population of over 640,000

[hughee99]

9. It's a no-win right now...

Either you're going to have someone from Wyoming (Barbara Cubin in this case) who has an equal vote but fewer constituents OR the 493,782 people of Wyoming have no delegate in the House at all. This type of situation will always exist under the current system, although it would be less dramatic if they increased the number of representatives and thus decreased the number of constituents per district. In the future, if California continues to increase in population and Wyoming doesn't, you will end up with an even more dramatic discrepancy.

[davidinalameda]

10. I think they should do away with state based districts

and start carving up the country and make them all equal

[hughee99]

14. It's not a bad idea, but they will need to

make the election standards national in order to do this. It may also create issues with local vs. nation elections on the individual ballots, but all of this can be resolved.

[forgethell]

19. And a

constitutional amendment.

[davidinalameda]

23. the ballots wouldn't be a problem

my ballot has a space for state races; federal; local; state initiatives; etc

[forgethell]

18. Constitution requires

that every state have at least 1 representative.

[stray cat]

6. In practical terms they only represent the top 2% income bracket

They could care less about any of the rest of us - with the exception of Terry Schivo

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. Actually, this isn't really true.

Republicans represent 50.9% of the states' population (not including DC, who has absolutely no representation). Democrats represent 49.1%.

Here for population by state:
http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab01.txt

Here for US Senators by State:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

Then you assign each and every Senator their state's population. That's how I arrived at the figure.

[delete_bush]

13. Bogus information can drive one crazy...

first of all there are 55 repubs in the senate, not 52, and these 55 represent around 49% of the population, if you assume that in the states where representation is 1-D and 1-R they split the population.

Disclaimer: This according to my own calculations, but should be close.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

17. i don't believe Corizine would make a wrong statement like this on CSpan

and he knows (as do i) that there are 55 repub senators and 1 independant...but Chaffee represents RI which has a large pop and i don't know who the other two are....and not everyone in the red states are their "constituents" about half are democrats in many red states

[delete_bush]

20. Then perhaps you misunderstood what he said

Rhode Island does not have a large population, in fact with a little more than 1 million residents it is the 8th smallest state when ranked by population.

As for "not everyone in the red states are their 'constituents' about half are democrats in many red states" I don't get the relevance.

Your initial statement was that “52 repub senators represent only 18% of the population” and this is just not true. Out of the top 13 states in population with 2 repubs in the senate the total population is over 100 million alone. And a constituent is a resident of the state regardless of party affiliation.

[Goldmund]

15. Well, no.

If you don't vote, then you're voting for the status quo -- or, more simply, for whomever wins.

[ISUGRADIA]

21. Like others have said this makes no sense

probably it's 18% of the population in votes that got them elected since we have such poor voter turnout. But the problem is that Dems may only represent 15-20% of the population with their Senate vote.