AH Challenge: Unicamaral (US) Federal Legislature

We've gotten to the "talking about the Constitution" part of my intro poli sci class lately...fear me :D

Anyways, with a POD no earlier than May 1787 (that is, directly before the Constitutional Convention met), have the US have a unicameral federal legislature by 2010. Bonus points if it's adopted right away.
 
Constitutional Convention delegates agree to stick to their mandate, and come up with some reforms to the Articles of Confederation. The Congress remains unicameral.
 
I've never really understood why the original Virginia plan had two proportionalized chambers. Having two the way our Constitution was put together made some kind of sense, but I can't see why the Virginians thought it a good idea.
I can't think of anything immediately that would yield a unicameral legislature and still please both large and small states. As Jello_Biafra said though, you could just end up with a reformed Articles, perhaps by allowing the debate to drag on long enough for them to just give up on a new constitution.
 
I've never really understood why the original Virginia plan had two proportionalized chambers. Having two the way our Constitution was put together made some kind of sense, but I can't see why the Virginians thought it a good idea.

One house served as the voice of the State legislatures, and the other as the voice of the people at large. same reason as we have 2 now. the reason both were proportional to population is because Virginia was a big State, and that way would give them a louder voice.
 
What you need is a Unicameral Body with several houses .
House of the people -- Elected on proportional basis
House of the States -- Ambassadors ?2? from the States - appointed by the State
House of the Presidents -- All ex Presidents and Vice Presidents
House of the Nations -- Ambassaadors from the various Native Nations inside the US.
 
What you need is a Unicameral Body with several houses .
House of the people -- Elected on proportional basis
House of the States -- Ambassadors ?2? from the States - appointed by the State
House of the Presidents -- All ex Presidents and Vice Presidents
House of the Nations -- Ambassaadors from the various Native Nations inside the US.
Isn't that just tetracameral then?
 
Isn't that just tetracameral then?

Depends on whether they vote as separate bodies. "Cohort" might be a better word than "house," though, for each contingent.

I'm less familiar with the French revolution than I ought to be - so corrections are welcome, if done gently - but I believe one of the early victories by the...uh, common people (hate to use that expression, but it fits the time) was the decision that nobility, clergy and "third estate" representatives to the Estates-General would be rolled into one big body rather than treated as three separate ones. Thus the third estate could control the whole thing (because any decisions could be made by this one body in which they were numerically dominant, rather than having to pass all three).

A modern example: the Senate in Belgium consists - at least as it's laid out in the constitution* - of 40 members elected by the public, another 21 delegated by the parliaments of the (Flemish, French and German) "communities," and another 10, the so-called co-opted Senators, designated by the other two classes once they're in place

*(I add that qualification "as it's laid out in the constitution" because I learned in following the 2007 Belgian election that the question of how many seats go to each party, for all three classes of Senators, is determined by the popular vote, in a proportional-representation system; this three-cohort system applies to determining which individuals within party X get its seats). So you've got three different classes of Senators, in the sense that there are three different ways of getting there, but it functions and votes as a single house.

Perhaps DuQuense has something like that in mind.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Why not just have representatives elected in different ways in one house? Senators and Representatives of districts arguing like idiots in one building would save money and time!

*cough cough* did I say idiots? Sorry.
 
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