
"South Dakota Is A Moral Sewer And Should Be Abolished," shouts The New Republic, to which native South Dakotan John Hinderaker, of the unintentionally hilarious Power Line Blog, replies, "South Dakota is a beacon of light showing the way, the truth, and the light to blue-state heretics." I at first thought the brief for the prosecution was going to focus on Kristi Noem, the execrable governor of South Dakota, who's recently been in the news on account of her daughter's difficulties earning a real estate appraiser license. She (the daughter) apparently flunked the test and, next thing you know, the person overseeing the licensing operation has been fired and the first daughter of South Dakota is an appraiser. The issue, the governor explained, is that the agency head was too old, the test too hard, and the difficulties associated with becoming a real estate appraiser were dragging down an otherwise vibrant state economy.
Now that those problems are solved, back to the competition for leading the country in COVID cases per capita!
Turns out, however, that the case against South Dakota is a history lesson going back to when it was only Dakota, no North or South or Noem, and Hinderaker's response includes this:
. . . [the] underlying complaint is that the Dakotas, "two states with a combined population of fewer than two million . . . get four senators." Of course, leftists weren't complaining as recently as 2005, when the Dakotas sent four Democrats to the Senate, or 2011, when three of four Dakota senators were Democrats. If South Dakota were still sending Democrats to Congress, you can be sure that liberals would not be attacking that state, just as they are not now attacking Delaware or Rhode Island.
Leftists try to delegitimize institutions that they do not control as "undemocratic." Thus, the Supreme Court has come under withering attack, with threats to pack the Court by adding more seats to be filled with new, left-wing justices. Needless to say, leftists found no fault when they controlled the Court. The Senate is likewise in the Left's crosshairs. How can it possibly be right for small states and big states to have the same number of senators? Of course, if the shoe were on the other foot, they would ask how it could possibly be right for the big states to swamp the rights and interests of the small states. Maybe they never learned about the Connecticut Compromise in high school.
In today's terms, the fact that states have equal representation in the Senate reflects the importance of the states in our constitutional system. Our country is a union of 50 states, not 320 million atomized individuals. It is also a valuable part of the constitutional checks and balances that prevent momentary majorities, like the microscopic one the Democrats now enjoy, from running roughshod over others' rights.
I wonder if he thinks knowing about the Three-Fifths Compromise obliges you to deem it just and wise. A few other observations:
(1) Since the 50 Democratic senators represent 56 percent of Americans, and the 50 Republican senators represent the remaining 44 percent, the Senate's undemocratic structure is the cause of the "microscopic" majority to which Hinderaker refers. First, the overrepresentation of small states elevates the power of a distinct minority to essentially equal strength. This overrepresentation is then justified on the ground that the majority's advantage is "microscopic" and therefore must not be permitted to enact its agenda.
(2) Who is "running roughshod" over the rights of others? Hinderaker mentions the Supreme Court, where there is currently a 6-3 conservative majority. But that's not what Americans voted for. The three justices who joined the court during Trump's administration were nominated by a president who had lost the popular vote. They were then confirmed, to lifetime terms, by a Republican Senate representing a minority of the citizens. A majority voted for one thing, got the opposite crammed down its throat, and is now treated to lectures concerning the majesties of a system that makes this possible. For what it's worth, which is apparently nothing, Alexander Hamilton had written in Federalist No. 22 that giving equal weight to all states in the national deliberations "contradicts that fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail."
(3) Hinderaker's "analysis" makes it sound as if there are no relevant facts or merits to consider, just partisan hypocrisy. To the degree there are facts and merits, the issue was put to rest in the 18th century by men whose work product has an authority like that of Scripture and so may not be questioned. "States matter," he says. They sure do! Today, the 15 most populous states have 63 percent of the country's population but just 30 percent of Senate seats. Demographers project that by the next census this figure will likely rise to 70 percent. At that point, less than one-third of the population will elect more than two-thirds of the senators—a veto-proof majority. Hamilton, in the same essay, Federalist No. 22:
Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.
I can understand a plantation owner from South Carolina feeling uncomfortable, but that Alexander Hamilton was one smart, far-seeing white man. That he had the better of the argument is becoming more and more clear.