Much attention has focused recently on the electoral successes of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
These have included the election of Zohran Mamdani to the mayoralty of New York City, the largest and most important municipality in the nation.
While I strongly disagree with almost everything this fringe group favors, one of its ideas is worth examining.
This concerns the United States Senate, which the DSA would abolish.
Since its inception in 1789, the United States Constitution has always mandated a bicameral Congress, the benefits of which are obvious. One house checks and balances the other, causing the legislative process to be slower and more deliberative, and less prone to error.
Also, members of the House of Representatives, elected for two years, are more sensitive to changing events. Senators, elected for six years, can afford to take a longer and more balanced view. Generally, this should ensure a more effective legislative synthesis.
If need be, furthermore, our bicameral Congress can act with appropriate decisiveness and dispatch. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, for example, was answered by an American declaration of war the very next day with only one dissenting vote.
The problem with the Senate, on which there is broad agreement, concerns its representational imbalance. All states are granted two senatorial seats regardless of population, but the states vary enormously in size.
Our own state of Washington, for instance, has about 8.2 million citizens. This averages out to 4.1 million per senator.
The five contiguous states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota, in contrast, have a combined population of about 5.5 million. This averages out to 550,000 per senator.
Per capita, the five small states have eight times the senatorial representation that we have. The contrast with the largest states is even more alarming. Per capita, California has only one-fifth the representation we have, and a mere one-seventieth that of Wyoming.
In and of themselves, these figures are indefensible. Also, the framers of the Constitution could not possibly have known how and to what extent the nation would grow. Circa 1800, most of the geography that later joined the United States was still under Spanish, French or Russian colonial rule.
Still, our democracy has been a marvel by world standards. Few nations, if any, have governed themselves better, and the Constitution should not be drastically changed.
An abolition of the Senate, in other words, is absolutely out of the question. But a constitutional amendment that would correct, at least in part, its representational imbalance should be considered.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
