Yesterday’s Senate Gun Control Vote Was Even More Undemocratic Than It Appeared
Yesterday the United States Senate voted by a 55-45 margin to require background checks before all commercial sales of guns. Because of the filibuster threat, however, the proposal failed, needing 60 votes to move forward.
That in itself is bad enough. That a measure supported by 90% of Americans and 55% of their elected officials could be torpedoed by the other 45% is a reflection of the dysfunction of the Senate in our era of the knee-jerk filibuster. But as it turns out, the full story is even worse.
Senate seats are, of course, allocated by geography, not population. The phrase “one man, one vote” had not yet been coined when the founders drew up the Constitution, and the Senate’s two-seats-per-state structure was intended as a drag on democratic pressures.
In the two centuries since, however, as the idea of democracy has become less controversial, the anti-democratic character of the Senate has become more pronounced. In the nation’s first census, Virginia, with 734,000 residents, had a population thirteen times the size of Delaware, with 55,000. Today California has a
That in itself is bad enough. That a measure supported by 90% of Americans and 55% of their elected officials could be torpedoed by the other 45% is a reflection of the dysfunction of the Senate in our era of the knee-jerk filibuster. But as it turns out, the full story is even worse.
Senate seats are, of course, allocated by geography, not population. The phrase “one man, one vote” had not yet been coined when the founders drew up the Constitution, and the Senate’s two-seats-per-state structure was intended as a drag on democratic pressures.
In the two centuries since, however, as the idea of democracy has become less controversial, the anti-democratic character of the Senate has become more pronounced. In the nation’s first census, Virginia, with 734,000 residents, had a population thirteen times the size of Delaware, with 55,000. Today California has a
