Fix Senate Imbalance: add New States via Subdivision:

 A Letter to My Senators (a version also sent to Congressman Jones)

January 30, 2021

 

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
United States Senator for New York and
United States Senate Majority Leader
322 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510
                             
The Honorable Kirsten E, Gillibrand
United States Senator for New York
478 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510

 

RE: FIXING THE SENATE, A RADICAL IDEA

Dear Senators:

I am Joann Prinzivalli, one of your constituents from White Plains New York.  I wrote to you on January 25^th about the insurrection, restoring and expanding the Fairness Doctrine and breaking up media conglomerates.  Today, I am writing about fixing unequal representation in the Senate.

There is a lot of buzz about the Filibuster rule, and how Senator McConnell acquiesced in allowing a vote on organizing the Senate only once he had assurances from two “blue dog” (no insult intended) Democratic Senators, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, that they would not vote to eliminate the filibuster. (I’d support a restoration of the speaking filibuster.)

My idea is not in the “buzz,” but I think it will bring much-needed change in the Senate to make it fair. Allow states to subdivide!

Article I Section 3 of the Constitution originally provided, as to the Senate:

Section 3.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

The 17^th Amendment modified that slightly:                                        

Amendment XVII

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

Because of Article I and the 17^th Amendment, the United States Senate currently has enshrined in it a rule that runs counter to the principle of “one person, one vote.”

Article V of the Constitution concludes the description of the amendment process with a clause stating

            “. . . that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate”

The Constitution makes it clear that each state is entitled to equal representation in the Senate, and that even a constitutional amendment cannot change this unless it is ratified by every state.

The SCOTUS has applied the “one person, one vote” principle to state legislatures, and particularly their upper houses – many states with bicameral legislatures mimicked the federal system, treating their upper houses as representative of counties, each county being treated equally regardless of population, or used some other unequal method of apportioning upper house representation. This was changed in states and in many municipal governments after the Supreme Court decided Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 in 1964.

In Westchester County, where I live, the Town of Greenburgh was successful in challenging the composition of the County’s legislative body, which was at that time the Board of Supervisors, in Greenburgh v. Board of Supervisors of Westchester County 49 Misc.2d 116 in 1966, leading the way to a proportionally-represented Board of Legislators in 1970.

Moving back to the U.S. Senate – you cannot change the voting power of Senators to deprive each state of equal suffrage, BUT what may be possible would be to allow each state to divide itself into a number of states equal to the number of representatives that the state has in the House of Representatives, or use some other equitable formula.  This could result in a Senate twice the size of the House, but it would make for a Senate without as great a disparity in representation.

Constitution Article IV Section 3 provides limits:

“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress”

While you consider admitting Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states, you might want to consider having Congress authorizing states to divide along the manner outlined, and then leaving it to the legislature of each state (of those that can) to decide for themselves whether they want to subdivide.

You might find some inspiration in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894 (28 Stat. 107), which was signed into law by Grover Cleveland on July 16, 1894 – the new enabling act would have to create a mechanism for each new state to form itself, within those states whose legislatures agree to partition themselves into states bounded by their then-present House boundaries. 

One might wonder what impact this might have on other boundaries, including municipal boundaries.  New York City, for example, is comprised of five counties.  It would be divided into a number of states, each of which would have two US Senators and one US representative (some of them still crossing over City borders) – one might want to continue other boundaries to operate – so the legislation should address an intermediate level of government between states and federal government by redesignating divided states as Regions (or use some other term) to permit each Region to retain its former state and municipal governing structures, with the new states created from them existing  for the purpose of representation on the House and Senate (though with some added mechanism to address other state-level issues).

Then there is the issue of redistricting – once a state elected to become a Region divided into a number of States, what would happen when redistricting would require boundary changing to add or subtract States that were once merely Congressional Districts?  It wouldn’t - each state would be protected from downsizing, but could conceivably add a representative without having to further subdivide.

It’s not an elegant solution, but it is certainly no worse than some of the “compromises” that gave rise to the original Constitution. Perhaps you might want to at least give it some thought. Thank you for taking the time to address this issue as I hope you will.

 

Sincerely

 

 

Joann Prinzivalli

Open letter to My Senators and Congressman: January 25, 2021

 The following was sent vis e-mail, in slightly altered form, to each of the addressees - this is a composite :

January 25, 2021
 
The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
United States Senator for New York and
United States Senate Majority Leader
322 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510
 
The Honorable Kirsten E, Gillibrand
United States Senator for New York
478 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510
 
The Honorable Mondaire Jones
United States Representative for the
17^th Congressional District of New York
1017 Longworth House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington DC 20510
 
RE: TAKE A STAND AGAINST INSURRECTION
 
Dear Senators and Congressman Jones:

I am Joann Prinzivalli, one of your constituents from White Plains, New York.  Before I get to the task at hand, I offer my congratulations to Congressman Jones on his election, and to Senator Schumer for his much-deserved elevation to the position of Senate Majority Leader.

For more than forty years, I have watched as our nation has slid inexorably toward disaster in a slow-moving train wreck.  A resolution of the constitutional crisis occasioned by the recent insurrection in which our Capitol Building was invaded by violent thugs whose actions were precipitated by the words of the former president, and current members of the Senate and of the House, must take priority.

I understand from news reports, that the Articles of Impeachment of the former president will be delivered to the Senate at 7 PM today – I urge the Senate to take swift action.  There is enough evidence for a conviction just based on televised speeches made by the former president and his social media communnications.  While there was sufficient evidence presented in his first impeachment, numerous members of the Senate not only broke the special oath, Senators McConnell and Graham openly stated that they would be forsworn. Later destructive actions of the former president can be laid at their feet.  This time around, the way they treat the trial should be evidence of whether they support the insurrection.

Next, there is the matter of those Senators and Representatives who incited, encouraged, planned, or participated in the insurrection, or have given aid or comfort to the insurrectionists, most notably Senators Cruz and Hawley. They must be expelled from their office as being disqualified from holding that office or any other, by virtue of Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. While Article I Section 5 of the Constitution calls for a two-thirds majority to expel a Senator, the 14^th Amendment provision makes it clear that in the event of supporting insurrection, the expulsion is automatic, requiring only a finding of fact, ad it is reinstatement that requires a two-thirds vote.

To the extent that Senators or Representatives indirectly promoted the Rebellion by continuing to falsely assert the illegitimacy of the election well after all legal challenges had been disposed, but who are not held to have been disqualified from holding office, they should be censured by their respective House, and only expelled if they persist in crossing the boundaries of free expression.

Once the Congress has put its houses in order, legislation must be written and enacted that strangles the roots of the problem.

1.      The Fairness Doctrine. The Federal Communications Commission adopted the Fairness Doctrine in 1949, with the rise of television, requiring that television news provide a reasonable balance of views, and in 1959 that television news provide “varying opinions on the paramount issues facing the American People.”  This bulwark of fairness was scuttled by the Reagan Administration in 1987.  By 1993, opponents of fairness in media promoted the Telecommunications Act, signed by President Clinton in February 1996.  The loss of the Fairness Doctrine for broadcast news, and the failure to regulate internet and cable news media has resulted in a Balkanization of news media, a diverse proliferation of biased and partisan news coverage, deepening the divide in the populace, and widening the differences among Americans.  It is not only media content sources themselves, but aggregators and republishers (even indirect republishers such as Twitter and Facebook) that contribute to the problem,   The result, in the recent election, is that millions of Americans have been convinced by their news providers, and by some of their elected officials, that a free and fair election was tarnished by widespread fraud, fraud that has been refuted at every level save the level of the media and politicians sowing dissension and insurrection.  The Fairness Doctrine must be restored and expanded to cover broadcast media as well as internet media. 

2.      Break Up media conglomerates.  Communication Industry deregulation has led to a great deal of merger activity in the media – having local and national print, broadcast, and cable news in the hands of a few large corporate entities is bad for freedom of the press – while the freedom of the press has always militated in favor of those wealthy enough to own a printing press, or buy access to one, having a variety of press outlets all controlled by a small number of large conglomerate owners, is bad for the government and for the People.  In addition, it is critical that as to the internet, content providers and internet service providers (ISPs) be separately owned, with ISPs being treated as public utilities subject to federal and state regulation.  When it comes to content providers that are merely platforms for user-provided content, they should be treated both as public utilities and as content republishers.

There are so many other pressing issues facing this Congress, and the new Administration, and other legislation that must also be passed to undo the harm of the past 40-plus years of our history.  Prioritizing the above will do much to help create a media environment in which “news” is factual, and news-opinion as to the issues of the day are presented with a view toward airing legitimate differences of opinion.

Thank you for taking the time to address these issues as I hope you will.

Sincerely

Joann Prinzivalli