Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Politics The following is an exercise in calculating proportions of senators per amount of citizens in the USA. I will be comparing the smallest and largest states in the years 1780 and 2010. My conclusion is that the system is out of balance and propose a possible redress.
According to the 1780 census the smallest state in the union was Maine with about 45.000 citizens. The largest state was Virginia with 538.000 citizens.[1] This computes to one senator for every 23.000 citizens in Maine and 269.000 citizens in Virginia. In proportionate terms, if you divide 269K by 23K which gives you 11.7, one could say that the largest state had its votes dis-proportioned by a factor of 12 compared with the smallest state.
Following the 2010 census the dis-proportion ratio has gone up to a whopping 67. The smallest state in the union was then Wyoming with about 563.000 citizens and the largest state was California with 37 million citizens citizens.[2] This computes to one senator for every 282.000 citizens in Wyoming and one senator for every 18.5 million citizens in California. In other words, citizens in Wyoming have 67 times more influence on the US Senate then Californians.
The increase of the ratio between 1780 and 2010 went from 12 to 67 and thus represents a 558% increase. I think this went too far and that an adjustment is in order.
But before discussing a possible change we have to remember that the law of having two senators per state in the senate was the outcome of a compromise between different plans.[3] James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were in favor of a bicameral legislature with proportional representation for both the Senate and the House. This was the Virginia Plan. William Paterson from New Jersey proposed one single chamber with one representative per state. This was the New Jersey Plan. The compromise was the Connecticut Plan and is the system of today with the difference that originally the senators were appointed by state legislatures which procedure changed with the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913 shifting that power of election to a popular vote.[4]
As the history of the US Constitution and the 17th amendment indicates, nothing is set in stone and reviving the Virginia Plan of proportional representation for the US Senate or a variation thereof seems most appropriate.
My proposal is then that every state gets at least one senator and that the senate increases with two seats to 102 senators, one for Washington D.C. and one for Puerto Rico.The remaining 50 seats will be divided proportionally. It is not easy to find a formula for this, but I came up with something like the following:
18 states with less than 2.7 million citizens get one senator.
22 states with a population between 2.7 and 8 million get 2 senators.
8 states with a population between 8 and 15 million get 3 senators
4 states with a population above 15 million get 4 senators
In a table:
| Population | States | Senators | Totals |
| < 2.7m | 18 | 1 | 18 |
| > 2.7m | 22 | 2 | 44 |
| > 8 | 8 | 3 | 24 |
| > 15m | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| 52 | 102 |
If one computes again the difference of representation between the smallest and largest state, the numbers would be as follow. The state of Wyoming, being the smallest, will have one senator for a population of 563.000. The state of California will have four senators for 37 million citizens, which calculates to one senator for every 7.4m citizens. Comparing again the two states by dividing 7.4m by 563K, the dis-proportion ratio has been brought down to 13, just above the number reigning in 1780.
Any political system adopting democratic procedures and striving for fairness should keep an eye on concrete numbers through a census and make adaptations when proportions are out of balance. As this is the case in the US Senate something will have to be adjusted.
[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States#Population_in_1790
[2]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Census#State_rankings
[3]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Senate
[4]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution