Does a state have interests, independent from the interests of its individual residents?
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
The concept of a state's interests often comes up in discussions about the Electoral College, the apportionment of the US Senate, etc., as the justification for why smaller states should be entitled to outsized representation. I.e., "without the Electoral College, the interests of small states would be ignored."
I've engaged in a probably excessive amount of discussion about this subject, but I can never get a square answer about what exactly a state's interest is. In my mind, states are simply organizations of people; the political entity has no mind of its own, so it cannot have interests of its own. When the state speaks, it is really just certain people within that state--the majority of voters, the most politically powerful people, etc.--using the state apparatus to speak on their behalf.
So the idea of boosting the representation of small state interests makes no sense to me as the alternative for equal representation of all individual interests, regardless of which state an individual may live in. If we had a national popular vote and no senate, all of the people who are now using their small state's representation as their voice would still be heard on an equal basis as people living in large states.
Am I missing something?
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
The concept of a state's interests often comes up in discussions about the Electoral College, the apportionment of the US Senate, etc., as the justification for why smaller states should be entitled to outsized representation. I.e., "without the Electoral College, the interests of small states would be ignored."
I've engaged in a probably excessive amount of discussion about this subject, but I can never get a square answer about what exactly a state's interest is. In my mind, states are simply organizations of people; the political entity has no mind of its own, so it cannot have interests of its own. When the state speaks, it is really just certain people within that state--the majority of voters, the most politically powerful people, etc.--using the state apparatus to speak on their behalf.
So the idea of boosting the representation of small state interests makes no sense to me as the alternative for equal representation of all individual interests, regardless of which state an individual may live in. If we had a national popular vote and no senate, all of the people who are now using their small state's representation as their voice would still be heard on an equal basis as people living in large states.
Am I missing something?
Does a state have interests, independent from the interests of its individual residents?
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
The concept of a state's interests often comes up in discussions about the Electoral College, the apportionment of the US Senate, etc., as the justification for why smaller states should be entitled to outsized representation. I.e., "without the Electoral College, the interests of small states would be ignored."
I've engaged in a probably excessive amount of discussion about this subject, but I can never get a square answer about what exactly a state's interest is. In my mind, states are simply organizations of people; the political entity has no mind of its own, so it cannot have interests of its own. When the state speaks, it is really just certain people within that state--the majority of voters, the most politically powerful people, etc.--using the state apparatus to speak on their behalf.
So the idea of boosting the representation of small state interests makes no sense to me as the alternative for equal representation of all individual interests, regardless of which state an individual may live in. If we had a national popular vote and no senate, all of the people who are now using their small state's representation as their voice would still be heard on an equal basis as people living in large states.
Am I missing something?
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