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Comment by rtkwe | Hacker News Reader

Why have those protections in the Presidency though who is the face of America. Low population states (more accurate than saying the EC favors small states really) already have an even more disproportional impact in the Senate where 40 Senators representing just 38.4M people can completely control the laws that get passed via filabuster (lowest 20 population states + 1 to prevent cloture). That's a little of 10% over the population that can in theory decide 100% what can get passed in the US. (Granted the 20 lowest population states do include a few democratic states, but it is largely consistently republican states)

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Senators get elected at best about 70% to 30% in votes also so assume that only 70% of that 38.4M people actually 'control' the laws. "Completely control" is a bit of an exaggeration though, I think you mean not allow new laws to get passed. Having a small population with the ability to prevent new laws is less concerning to me than a populous majority with the ability to pass laws. New laws should have broad support and broad appeal before getting enacted. Due to the internet there is much more spread of culture and thought between states than ever before and I think we could see much more laws getting passed very soon if democrats and republicans, and the media, could stop acting like every single day is election day again and are contrarian to every single word that comes from the other party.

True they can only block but that's a lot of power just look at the whole last 4 years (plus a stolen SC seat) when Mitch was in charge in the Senate, it's a strong position. Also there's a lot of stuff that needs to pass just day to day that you can attach force things to be attached to if you have a solid anti cloture vote and are willing to use it.

I'm not so sure it's just the 24/7 life or death coverage that makes that happen though. In solidly red or blue seats the main threat to a senators seat is a challenge from the extreme of their party, left or right, which also pulls them further towards the extremes of their parties.

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