The House is there to represent people.
Both need to agree in order to get something done. This ensures that something that is passed is approved by a majority of people and a majority of states.
Otherwise, without this proposition, the states might not have ratified the constitution - the states predate the nation, and the nation is a union of states. This method of government is called "Federalism".
Representitive democracy is anti-democratic, not allowing babies to vote is anti-deomcratic. Based on the role purpose of the Senate, its more democratic that those examples.
Its purpose is 2 votes per state, with representitives elected by the people of those states.
You may not like that that is its role, and that is fine, but you can not say it would be more democratic if some states had more votes in the same way it would not be more democratic for some people to have more votes.
Each person's vote for a senator in Wyoming is worth 50x or more what it is in California. That's wrong, and it's anti-democratic. People ought to be on an even playing field.
Democracy is three wolves and two sheep voting on what to have for dinner. It's last thing we want. So when the three wolves invite the two sheep to join them in a democracy, the sheep wisely say "Not a democracy, but a federal union, with an upper house in which votes are allocated by species rather than population, then we will join your nation". Now the wolves may moan that this is anti-democratic, but they agreed to it, as that's the price paid for getting the sheep to join with the wolves. The sheep are the small states, and the wolves are the large states.
So anti-democratic structures are good. But at the same time, giving the population input is also good. We want popular pressures to have a veto, but not to be able to force legislation onto states without their consent.
Similarly, we want the states to have a veto but not to force their legislation onto the nation as a whole without the public's consent.
This is the balance -- a mechanism to limit mob rule while also requiring mob consent. Seriously this is not some strange thing I should have to explain -- these issues were all debated during the discussions surrounding the adoption of the constitution, as you can read in the Federalist Papers. See especially no. 10.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-017...
It is why we do not live in a democracy, but in a Federal Republic. The house is the hotbed of populism, that's where all the crazy stuff happens, and the senate is the moderating force that can filter it out. The house then has to moderate its positions and pass something that the states also consent to.
And that's exactly how it's played out. The senate always moderates or blocks extremist measures coming out of the house. The founders were amazingly prescient.
Moreover this obviously leads to better and more stable government. Control of the house flips from red to blue to red every 5-8 years. Now imagine a nation's entire base of laws constantly flipping back and forth that often.
As an example, when the GOP controlled the house in 2017 they tried to pass a tax bill to completely eliminate the SALT deduction. The Senate moderated that to 10K max. Now the democrats control the house and they want to make it (effectively) unlimited again. The Senate will block that. In 2024, say when the GOP is back in control of the house, they will try to eliminate it again. The Senate will block that. The 2017 house eliminated Obama's ACA -- but the Senate blocked that. Just think of all the whipsaws in policy we would have if healthcare is massively reconfigured every 4 years. So you need to do more than just get 51% to redo healthcare in America. That's how it should be. Yes, it's anti-democratic, but thinking you can rewrite a nation's laws with 51% is foolishness. It's a recipe for secession and civil war.
In other words, going from 49% to 51% doesn't mean you go from 0 to 100% power, but rather you have to settle for 48% of what you want, and then 51% of what you want. The removal of that discontinuity creates stability in government.
It is intentionally, and wisely, anti-democratic, while also being intentionally, and wisely, anti-aristocratic. Both sides need to come to a compromise, and this stability is why our constitution has lasted as long as it has.
The voting blocs aren’t between small states and large states, those basically don’t and haven’t existed for a long time. The senate is not a moderating body; the founders entirely failed to account for political parties.
The constitution isn’t a suicide pact, the founders lived in a completely different world, and it’s very apparent that the US federal government system is dysfunctional and failing.
The US legislature is designed to not do much, especially with the filibuster. Which is a huge problem when there are a succession of crises that the legislature has failed to address.
But we're not talking about the state level, we're talking about the federal level. Senators are there to represent the people of their state, and the fact that some people get vastly more representation than others is wrong. People should be as equal as possible for a given playing field.
Funny how the people arguing that it's okay to do this to protect 'minorities' are never, ever okay with doing this for any other minorities. Give extra voting power to people in low pop states to shield them from the majority? Great! Give extra votes to black people, or Asians, or Muslims, or Jews? Uhhhhhh, no, no thank you.
But what are "states", if not the people in them? Land area? Then Texas and Alaska should have what, hundreds of senators for each of Rhode Island's?
