WI: Unicameral USA?

What if the United States congress, and those of the individual states, only had a single house of congress rather than a house of representives and a senate?
 
What if the United States congress, and those of the individual states, only had a single house of congress rather than a house of representives and a senate?

Never going to happen.

The otl constitution was a fine balance between the large states, which dominate the house due to population, and the small states that get a hearing in the senate.

Try to make everything rep by pop, and the small states refuse to ratify. Make everything leaning towards the small states, and the large ones refuse to join.

Try to make the same changes now, and the same dynamic happens.

No unicameral congress would be accepted by enough states to exist. If it were tried, the us would still be using the AoC or split up.
 
Individual states, now. Thats a different question. I imagine unicameral state assemblies COULD be the dominant form, but i dont think that would change much, and i dont know how to get there.
 
What if the United States congress, and those of the individual states, only had a single house of congress rather than a house of representives and a senate?

You end up with two different United States, one based in the north with equal representation for all states and another based in the south with representation determined by population.
 

Thande

Donor
Individual states, now. Thats a different question. I imagine unicameral state assemblies COULD be the dominant form, but i dont think that would change much, and i dont know how to get there.

Unicameral state assemblies as the norm would make a big difference, and probably an improvement, to the USA: for a start you would avoid the problem of pre-17th amendment Senate elections being deadlocked because the state house is controlled by a different party to the state senate.

As you say, a unicameral federal Congress is probably ASB because the big and small states would be unable to agree a compromise on how many seats could be allotted.
 
Unicameral state assemblies as the norm would make a big difference, and probably an improvement, to the USA: for a start you would avoid the problem of pre-17th amendment Senate elections being deadlocked because the state house is controlled by a different party to the state senate.

Good point.

Hmmm... how about eg Kentucky goes unicameral as an expression of backwoods individuality, one man one vote*, and it becomes the fashion for most of the new states carved from the territories to follow suit?

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* one white male, possibly property owning, man of course. Maybe protestant. What else could that phrase mean? :( sigh.
 
Not to mention, another reason why there were two houses in the federal government was that the HoR was supposed to represent the people's interest in the federal government and the Senate was supposed to represent the state's interest in the federal government (until the 17th amendment made it revert to representing the people's interest).
 
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