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If the purpose of the senate is to provide equal representation to each state, can't that goal be accomplished by having one senator per state instead of two? How much money would we save, not just on the extra 50 senators' salaries and benefits but on all their staffers as well, office supplies, overhead, and other necessities of the job?
Presumably so that in case of vacancy for whatever reason there will always be at least one Senator available to represent the interests of their state, considering that the odds of both seats being vacant simultaneously are much less remote.
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Originally Posted by Taiko
It was to insure the state still had a voice in case of an illness or death like Senator McCain had before the state could send a replacement. It also allowed a state to split its vote on an issue. Also one state could decide the senior senator represented the urban citizens and the junior represented the rural or it could be geographically based like coastal representative versus bordering another state or some other state determined criteria. The 17th Amendment made moot the part of the state choosing its senators in such a manner
That's another very good reason; the ability for a state to split votes or have different regions or demographics share the power of representing the state is very convenient.
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Why did they settle on two senators per state and not three or more. Probably came down to the Lord versus commoner class distinctions from America's European roots. Only two made the senator an extra special guy, even if some smaller population states would only have one House of Representatives congressman.
The gains from each Senator past going from 1 to 2 quickly diminished, and presumably the framers thought that two would be all that would be needed. Three Senators means that you can't have a 50-50 split, but there's no reason four per state couldn't work . This is just speculation on my part, but the Founders may have anticipated having a greater number of states than we actually got*. Notice that western states tend to be much larger than east coast states, and if there were 100 states there would be 200 Senators (the same as if each state now got 4 Senators each).
*Of course this has to be balanced against the fact that the U.S. was much smaller at the time, only extending to the Mississippi River. However, Louisiana and the Floridas being added on would not have been surprising even at the time. Many probably would have been surprised to see Texas, the Oregon country, the Mexican cession, Hawaii, and Alaska become part of the country. Indeed Thomas Jefferson described Astoria, Oregon as "the germ of a great, free, and independent empire on that side of our continent, and that liberty and self-government spreading from that as well as from this side, will insure their complete establishment over the whole.", and John Quincy Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, and James Monroe all agreed with his view that Oregon should and probably would become its own republic. This apparently was a widespread view as late as the 1820s.
Now, if one takes the average size of the original states (plus Vermont) (23000 square miles) and divides it by the size of 1783 US+Floridas+Louisiana, one gets 92 states, almost twice as many as today even though the country is much smaller.
If one senator is sick or absent - that state will still have some representation when votes come to the floor.
Arizona would have no representation while McCain was sick if he was the only Senator.
Yup. The founding fathers saw the need for a little redundancy in the Senate.
Our republic depends on continual representation to survive as a union. Without it, one state could lose to a competing state. That's why Senators are required to be in the chambers to vote on the bills submitted to them.
Back in the day when a nick with a pen-knife could kill a Senator, or just a drink of polluted water, if there was only one Senator per state, it could be weeks and weeks before there would be a replacement.
It's the same reason why both Senators from a state are prohibited from leaving Washington at the same time today, unless the Senate is in recess.
If the purpose of the senate is to provide equal representation to each state, can't that goal be accomplished by having one senator per state instead of two? How much money would we save, not just on the extra 50 senators' salaries and benefits but on all their staffers as well, office supplies, overhead, and other necessities of the job?
I think ever state should have 4 Senators and the resulting Electoral Vote change....EC = 635
just search for any of the several dozen CD threads on the electoral college. Reducing the Senate to fifty would be a parallel argument. It would reduce the clout of low population states, and such states would refuse to ratified the required constitutional amendment. Ergo, it will never happen, short of a 2nd American Revolution.
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. This is just speculation on my part, but the Founders may have anticipated having a greater number of states than we actually got*. Notice that western states tend to be much larger than east coast states, and if there were 100 states there would be 200 Senators (the same as if each state now got 4 Senators each).
