Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

October 17, 2018

Complaints That the Senate Is Undemocratic Ring Hollow

In the wake of the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a lot of people are suddenly very mad that the Senate is “undemocratic.” I’m unmoved.

In the wake of the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a lot of people are suddenly very mad that the Senate is “undemocratic.” I’m unmoved.

The reason for my indifference is twofold. First, this alleged outrage fits a time-honored tradition of progressives declaring illegitimate everything that is inconvenient to their agenda. Second, this is mostly about California being a big baby.

Let’s start with the first point. Like other progressives, Woodrow Wilson started out arguing that Congress should be the center of power but switched lanes once the White House was in his sights. After the Republicans took back both branches, progressives argued that disinterested administrators and bureaucrats, immune to the demands of the public, should man the tiller of the state.

When FDR was elected — for life, as it would turn out — the presidency was supreme again. And when the Supreme Court stood in FDR’s way, he tried to pack it with cronies.

Later, the courts became the most useful path for progressive victories, and so their moral authority became inviolate. Now that the courts look less amenable to progressive lawfare, the Supreme Court is either illegitimate or disposable, while others say the real problem is the “undemocratic” nature of the Senate.

It’s all a bit reminiscent of the intellectual riot against the Electoral College in the wake of the 2016 election. For years, Democrats boasted of their Electoral College advantage. The vaunted “blue wall” consisted of 18 states where Democrats consistently won from 1992 to 2012, adding up to 242 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

The moment Donald Trump won, the Electoral College went from being a sign that history was on the Democrats’ side to not just undemocratic but outright racist. It was fine for Democrats to rely on a tool of white supremacy — but only when it worked for them.

Which brings me to my problem with California. First, let’s be clear: The Senate is democratic. Voters in each state elect their senators.

It’s just that it’s not as democratic as critics would like, because states with very small populations get the same number of senators as states with very big populations. (This arrangement is what made ratification of the Constitution possible in the first place.)

Thus the Washington Post’s Phillip Bump writes that Kavanaugh was confirmed with support “from senators representing only 44.2 percent of the country.”

And New York Times columnist David Leonhardt argues that the Senate boils down to “affirmative action for white people” because overwhelmingly white states have representation in the Senate equal to larger, more diverse states such as California. (California has far greater representation in the House, of course.)

“The results,” Leonhardt writes, “are pretty outrageous.” The average black American has “only 75 percent as much representation as the average white American.” The average Asian American: 72 percent. The average Latino American: 55 percent.

This is a ludicrous way to think about it.

First, these voters certainly don’t care that much, or they’d move to places like Wyoming or Rhode Island to maximize their electoral power. Normal people don’t think like that. If you start from the proposition that every hue and ethnicity be perfectly represented in Congress, we’d have to get rid of states and congressional districts too.

As political consultant Luke Thompson notes, most of these statistical games are a result of the fact that California is huge and hugely Democratic. Take its near 40 million people out of the equation, and the Senate becomes pretty representative. Most of the other big states are swing states.

The Senate was created to represent the interests of states as sovereign entities in our republican order. To argue that the Senate is structured unfairly is to argue that states are a relic with no inherent value.

If California thinks its California-ness is special and worth preserving, it should suck it up and take one for the team. And if liberals really want a more democratic Senate, they should call for California to be sliced up into three or four states.

© 2018 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.