Representation in the Senate

David Atkins links to this post by Nate Cohn on the ridiculousness of Wyoming having 2 senators.

Yes, I’m aware that the Senate represents the states. I've even known this for a long time: I got to play Roger Sherman—one of the Connecticut delegates who proposed the “Connecticut Compromise”—in a mock constitutional convention in seventh grade. I'm also aware that the only remedy is another constitutional convention. But it is preposterous that Wyoming’s 570,000 people get two Senators:

• There are at least 100 counties with more people than Wyoming.

• Rhode Island’s largest county has more people than Wyoming.

• Fairfax County has twice as many people as Wyoming. There are more Romney voters in Fairfax County than voters in Wyoming, the second reddest state.

• There are almost as many Romney voters in wildly Democratic Brooklyn as there are in Wyoming.

• The student body of the University of Wyoming (13,992) would be the state’s seventh largest town.

My colleague Alec MacGillis has documented the serious political and policy implications of a deeply anti-democratic Senate, but Wyoming deserves special mention as the worst culprit. To take concerns from his piece, Wyoming has thehighest gun ownership rate and the highest level of carbon emissions per capita—the latter by a wide, wide margin. It is the least populous state: California has 66 times as many people, and an equal number of senators. And Wyoming, along with the other small states, is 90 percent white. The Senate reduces the representation of non-white voters, who are concentrated in the most populous states, by about one-third.

This is an issue on I have been harping on for a while.  The only thing Nate says that I really object to is this:

I'm also aware that the only remedy is another constitutional convention. 

This is not entirely accurate.  There are three remedies for dealing with the disproportionality issue.  The first is amending the constitution to provide for proportionality, something which I agree ain't gonna happen.  But the Constitution (Article IV, section 3) also provides for the admission of new states and the combination of states. And here there may be some wiggle room:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Here we see the two other methods of dealing with disproportionality.  First, combine the small states into big ones.  Second, split the big ones into smaller ones.

Now I agree that the first method, combining small states to make bigger ones, ain't gonna happen either. The main reason for that is I can't see any state voluntarily giving up its right to equal representation in the Senate.

But splitting up a big state?  Hmm.  Well, that would take a lot of intestinal fortitude on the part of its politicians, but I'm not really sure why it couldn't be done.  As near as I can tell, all the Constitution requires is that the legislature of the state involved approve and Congress approve.  And there doesn't seem to be any supermajority vote requirement at either level.

So, for example, if California decided it want to break itself up into 2 (or more) states, all the Constitution requires is that the California legislature and both houses of Congress approve it, in each case by the normal legislative process.

So get on it!