State Senates Represent Counties

In PolChat, Eschaton asked why state senates existed. He said they could represent counties the way the US Senate represents states, but that would be "undemocratic."

So, how can we get it so state senates represent counties? Bonus points if the system is reworked to represent larger cities as well as the counties during the Progressive Era.
 
You'd have to get around the Supreme Court's one man-one vote ruling, which abolished representation by area (counties) and required representation by population. A number of states, especially in the South, were affected by it.

The U.S. Senate is immune because its structure is written into the Constitution. Personally, I'd like to see state senators picked on a county basis, since it would balance the power of urban areas over rural areas. I think it would take a Constitutional amendment to get it, though.
 
So, how can we get it so state senates represent counties?
It was this way for 200 years till the Supreme Court's one man-one vote ruling, which abolished representation by area (counties).
Given that the US Senate is in violation of this ruling - I wonder how whe will rework the US Senate.
 
There really isn't one case where this was decided, but it was trend under the Warren Court. Wesberry v. Sanders and Baker v. Carr are probably the most famous examples of this ruling in malapportionment cases. And the US Senate is protected because its structure is written into the Constitution.
 
Well, there were a series of cases that incorporated Equal Protection arguments into legislative districts but there is a specific one that dealt with state legislatures; Reynolds v. Sims.
 
I wonder what it would take for a US state to establish a PR system.

It has been used here & there at the state and local levels over the years. Perhaps a state / states could implement it for electing their legislators, governors, and federal Representatives and Senators.
 
Originally the US was (were?) a collection of sovereign states which voluntarily came together to form a federal government. When a government is formed by equal and independent entities, equal votes for each state might arguably make sense.

Most states, however, have primacy over their counties, which is to say states create the counties, rather than the other way around. Counties, for all the dogged loyalty and cultural cohesion they sometimes inspire, are simply convenient administrative divisions, much like cities, boroughs, towns or school districts rather than sovereign entities. Some states, especially in New England, either don't have counties or only use them for minor purposes, such as judicial divisions. Some states (AK, VA, MO) don't organize all of their land into counties or county equivalents, but rather include independent cities or simply unorganized wilderness, which receive services directly from the state. Other states allow minor civil divisions to sprawl across and thereby blur county lines, such as in Florida. Also, due to the vagaries of geography, uneven population distribution or outright gerrymandering some counties are hugely populated while others are virtually empty.

Bottom line: counties barely exist.

But, back to the challenge itself.

One way to achieve an equal number of seats for each county in the state senates, while fulfilling one man-one vote, would be to have one state senator per county each of whom wielded a number of votes equal to the population of the county they represent. So, in the Texas State Senate, for example, when the senator from Loving County voted on a bill he would have 67 votes to divide between yea and nay as he pleased, while the senator from Harris County (Houston) would wield 3.6 million votes to divide as he wished. This would guarantee that there was someone at the table for each county, while not allowing rotten borough empty counties to ride roughshod over the majority of the people. It would also allow Senators to cast a vote more nuanced than simple yea, nay or absent. (Yes, Loving County Texas really did have a population of only 67 people, according the 2000 census.)

POD-wise, I could picture this having developed as a compromise during the Progressive era to achieve one man-one vote while allowing rural bosses to retain their sinecures, or even in a set of ATL decisions by SCOTUS during the civil rights era.
 
This is very easy to have happen. For while the U.S, Constitution guarantees each state a republican form of government, there are no guidelines to how this is to be achieved.

Furthermore the Supreme Court ruled in Luther v. Borden (1849), a case regarding two rival state governments in Rhode Island, that the forming of a state government is a purely political question and not something that could be decided by the Court. So essentially Congress would have to make a law specifically defining what is meant by "a republican form of government", this new law would then have to pass Constitutional muster (the Constitutionality of the law can be challenged and therefore go to the Supreme Court) and then the states would have to adhere to this new Federal law. Most likely a Constitutional Amendment would be required to allow for this level of Federal intervention into the workings of state governments. I don't see this happening before 1900 and the Progressive Era.

Remember that all the states, except Nebraska I think, are bicameral. It is easy to imagine the lower state assembly being tied to county system. The state Senate could then be elected at large or by a different system. Or vice-versa could occur. Counties could easily function as both local government and as state house districts with no loss in the level of "democratic function" especially if a proper census is taken regularly and reapportionment occurs. While cumbersome it could be done.

Interestingly, following the 2000 election fiasco there was a minor movement to tie a state's presidential electors to the Congressional Districts of said state. This would eliminate the "winner takes all" electoral college system most states now have with only the two extra "senatorial" electors automatically going to the overall state wide winner.

Benjamin
 
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