Well if you believe Wyoming should just be steamrolled by California's desires 100% of the time, why shouldn't Wyoming secede from the union? In fact, why should any "small states" join the union in the first place if they are just going to be steamrolled by California and New York?
This is a red herring. All the states are only a few % away from net neutral when it comes to federal money in vs out. Pretty much any state could go it alone from a monetary perspective. Trade agreements would be the hard part.
Also, I think you're greatly mis-judging how a deal to the tune of "be 5% poorer but do 100% listening to what the people on the coasts have to say" sounds to e.g. the midwest. You say that like it's an obvious bad deal. I don't think all of them would agree with you on that though. They might just take you up on it given the option.
I'm unconvinced that I'd be any worse off if, say, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas left. Again, right now, I'd like them to take me up on it. Their citizens' voting power is so much greater than mine, it is infuriating.
Canada and EU don't seem to mind having tiny militaries and relying on the US protecting them. Small states can just be their own countries that pay some small % of GDP for USA to protect them with military.
Your state doesn't start counting mail in ballots until a week after election. Given the logistical challenge you ought to be simply mailing out ballots sooner and counting them as they come in. Every other state avoids duplication between mail and in person voting without waiting a week between polls and ballots.
Because if they leave, they'll have the pleasure of getting steamrolled by other countries, including the United States.
Fundamentally, you're making an argument against democracy, and in favor of giving people who live in small states greater influence than people who live in large states. A person who moves a few miles across the border from Colorado to Wyoming suddenly sees their vote count for 3 times as much in the Electoral College. It gets even crazier once you start considering how swing states play into this. Your vote makes no difference in most states. But there are a few states where your vote might count, for the sole reason that those states happen to be evenly balanced. It's a ridiculous, irrational system. It was the best that could be negotiated in 1787, but it doesn't make sense in 2020.
So would you say Canada (the entire country of which has a smaller population than California) regularly gets steamrolled by other countries, including USA?
And if not, then maybe all the small states need to do is band together into their own country, away from large state bullies
Sometimes it does. It certainly doesn't get the preferential treatment from the US that Wyoming gets. Would the US treat Wyoming better as a state or as a foreign country? Just as importantly, how much leverage would Wyoming have in dealing with foreign countries? How much leverage would it have in trade negotiations with the EU, or with the US, for that matter?
Your vote counts just as much as the other people in your state. You are voting for who your state thinks the president should be. You have never voted for the president directly.
I'm hopeful the popular vote interstate compact[0] will get adopted by enough states to make it so each person's vote counts equally.
What you suggested above is a way to weight citizen's vote's even less equally than they do now, which is what I was responding to. The situation we have now is bad too, imo, but better than each state having an equal vote, irrespective of population.
Popular vote destroys any shred of state sovereignty that remains. Why would states remain in the union if California and New York forever dictate the direction of the country? This is a dark path to tread.
Presumably because they'd want something that another union state provides, and/or benefits that comes with being a larger country rather than an small independent one.
A union can't really be "equal" between all states unless all states contribute and benefit equally, and you can't really expect millions of people who live in a prosperous and populous state to be willing to discount their own voices so that the voices of those who may contribute less count far more than theirs. I'm not sure a perfect system exists -- it's all a series of tradeoffs, and a popular vote system would have its own -- but saying that the 700k people living in Alaska should have the exact same influence as the 40 million people living in California doesn't make things any better.
Ultimately, a country is made up of people, not political entities.
> Popular vote destroys any shred of state sovereignty that remains.
No, it doesn't. It doesn't even remove unequal, state-based voting power, which is greatest in the Senate, not the Electoral College.
But direct popular election of the President doesn't impact state sovereignty, which is a matter of Constitutional limits on the federal government and guarantees to the states, which the states control changes to via the amendment process.
> Why would states remain in the union if California and New York forever dictate the direction of the country?
Why would states remain in the union if their citizens had only an equal voice?
Why do California and New York remain in the union when their citizens are denied an equal voice, and the states whose citizens are given a greater voice consistently drain their resources?
> Popular vote destroys any shred of state sovereignty that remains
Popular vote will only remove state sovereignty if the majority of people are aligned with that, at which point yeah, it should be done away with.
However, the reality is that people generally do agree that quite a few laws are state-level, not federal, and so even with a popular vote for federal laws, states would retain the sovereignty they have now.
Your reply there seems like a drastic overreaction. If we voted on our president via popular vote, we would have had a few different presidents in recent times, but I doubt any of them would have reduced state sovereignty significantly.
States are still free to set their own taxes, run their own police as they see fit, etc etc.
Basically, I don't think the popular vote would vote to repeal the 10th amendment, so it seems silly to say it would "destroy any shred of sovereignty". Especially since in this election, the outcome would have been identical.
I think a state ought to be free to vote its way out of the union along with out of any favorable trade agreement, mutual defense, educational opportunities for its citizens, freedom of immigration to the united states etc. It would immediately become poor and vulnerable but that is its citizens choice.
In 18th century theory. In 21st century practice it's incredibly influential.
Do we tax more for social security or cut benefits, do we extend medicare to 55 year olds or delay it until 70, can my daca friends get a job, can Icontinue to operate a company(Obamacare), not to mention war. It's far more influential than my city( or state government.(I live in Houston, this would probably be less true in states like New York or California which has have a larger government)
Another proxy for influence is money, and I contribute far more to the federal government than I pay in state and local taxes, which reflects the very large impact it has on our lives.
It’s not an 18th century versus 21st century thing. Switzerland manages to be a 21sr century country without equal representation at the federal level.
I live in Switzerland. There are a few key differences.
1. The scale of population difference between the most and least populous full cantons (that have equal representation in the Ständerat) is somewhat lower than CA versus WY, and they're geographically much (!) closer which I suspect at least allows for a bit more "intercantonal" exposure.
2. Even more importantly, in my opinion: the two houses in the bicameral system have essentially identical powers. There isn't a system of important executive or judicial appointments requiring only a Senate appointment (although the analogs here are blurry), so a majority of the national population's representatives must also sign off as well as a majority of cantons. Providing the Senate unique powers protect the tyranny of less-populous states without limiting the dependence on the federal government.
My point was just that you're right, in the 18th century when the founding fathers designed this system the federal government was weak and federal law had very little influence.
But in the 21st century the u.s. federal government has a much larger influence on people's lives.
When a government is closer to a defense pact like Nato it makes sense to have voting apportioned by regional power. But as that government starts to have a larger impact on your day to day life than it makes less sense.
If we started sending nato several trillion dollars a year it makes less sense for Bulgaria to have the same say in how that money is spent as we do.
And there isn't really any political appetite to roll back the federal government to a size where that type of representation made sense. Moving social security and Medicare from the federal to the state or city level would be a political non starter.
Why should a man in wyoming's opinion on what federal laws I should live under count 70x as much as mine?
Why should a minority of the country make a decision that impacts the majority of people?