11/17/2023

The Hidden Biases at Play in the U.S. Senate

In recent decades, its composition has become even more skewed

The United States Senate was never designed to represent all people equally. But over recent decades, it has become unrepresentative in ways the founders could not have imagined.

In the negotiations that created the Constitution, the House was to be apportioned proportionally, based on the population of the state. When a proposal was offered to apportion the Senate in the same way, representatives from the less populated states objected.

The solution is what became known as the Great Compromise, a Senate that was designed to treat every state equally, regardless of population: two senators for the states with the least population, two senators for the states with the most population.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.