David Leonhardt’s most recent New York Times column is an extraordinary feat. In it he castigates the U. S. Senate as racist without actually acknowledging where the racism resides:
The anti-democratic tendencies of the Senate are well known: Each citizen of a small state is considered more important than each citizen of a large state. It’s a deliberate feature of the Constitution, created to persuade smaller states to join the union. Over time, though, the racial edge to the Senate’s structure has become much sharper — for two big reasons.
First, the states whose populations have grown the most over time, like California, Texas, Florida and New York, are racially diverse. By contrast, the smallest states, like Wyoming, Vermont, the Dakotas and Maine, tend to be overwhelmingly white. The Senate, as a result, gives far more special treatment to whites than it once did.
The second reason is even more frustrating, but it would also be easier to fix. Right now, about four million American citizens have almost no congressional voting power, not even the diluted power of Californians or Texans. Of these four million people — these citizens denied representative democracy — more than 90 percent are black or Hispanic.
I make haste to point out that the small states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island are overwhelmingly white, too.
Somehow he fails to notice that not one of the most Democratic states have either a black or Hispanic senator while several of the most Republican states do how underrepresented blacks and Hispanics are in the Senate in states with overwhelmingly Democratic constituencies. Let’s stick with his racial narrative for a bit. Assuming he’s correct, why does neither California nor New York have a Hispanic senator?
Let me suggest an alternative explanation. The United States is a plutocracy. The very rich, the top .1%, .01%, and .001% of the population have excessive political power and that’s as true in Blue states as it is in Red ones. We tend to elect the rich to the Senate and white folk are far more likely to be among the rich than black or Hispanic folk.
But that wouldn’t take Mr. Leonhardt where he wants to go which is making Puerto Rico and Washington, DC states. Okay, let’s go there. There are three compelling reasons not to make Puerto Rico a state. First and foremost, Puerto Rico has a violent separatist movement. Have we ever had a state with a violent separatist movement at the time it became a state? I don’t recall any. Second, the people of Puerto Rico don’t know whether they want the island commonwealth to become a state or not. IMO it takes more than 50%+1 of the people for such a decision. Third, it is economically and culturally too different from the rest of the United States. Deals have been cut to enable several of the states to join the union. The deal I’d want to cut is to make English and English alone the official language of the U. S. in exchange for Puerto Rican statehood. With that proviso I strongly suspect that Puerto Ricans would overwhelmingly reject statehood.
There is one compelling reason not to make Washington, DC a state. It sets an awful precedent. We don’t make cities states. If we did there are three much better candidates than Washington, DC: New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. However, I suspect that making those cities into states wouldn’t get Mr. Leonhardt where he wants to go, either, because as a secondary effect it could well turn the actual states of New York, California, and Illinois Red. Statehood for DC might well turn Virginia Red, too, depending on where the boundaries were drawn. My suggestion for DC: incorporate it into Maryland.
Update
I failed to mention that California is now represented in the Senate by Kamala Harris. I regret this oversight and have corrected a paragraph above accordingly.
The logical conclusion of Leonhardt’s argument is abolition of the Senate. I suspect he doesn’t find that as politically desirable as stacking it in his side’s favour.
The abolition of the Senate is the logical conclusion of the 17th Amendment. I’d prefer repealing the 17th Amendment over abolishing the Senate. It was one of the steps in the process of infantilizing the states I’ve alluded to. Wickard v. Filburn was another.
Leonhardt’s argument is just disingenuous and contorted babble designed to justify a cheesy way power shift Whether abolishing the electoral college, or creating states out of thin air or abolishing the 17th, I’m old enough to observe that calls to change the rules always crop up within the out of power when…………….they are out of power. Beware the emotions of the moment; I wonder how Democrats like Harry Reid’s short cited nuclear option right now.
“Somehow he fails to notice that not one of the most Democratic states have either a black or Hispanic senator…”
Uh, Kamala Harris is African-American.
Ah, yes. Thank you. I will make the necessary correction.
Massachusetts is also represented by a Native American in the Senate. And by extension, I suspect there are more than one Republican Senators in the South that are African American.
Each tribe has its own requirements but to the best of my knowledge all require registration and registration requires some kind of documentable family history.
I believe the Navajo and Cherokee require a quarter Indian ancestry to claim membership plus documented family history.
Short version: the Republican attacks on Elizabeth Warren have been rude and unfair but without more documentation than a blood test she still shouldn’t claim Indian ancestry.
WRT African American ancestry I tend to believe that every Southern white who claims Indian ancestry probably is part African American.
It was interesting that the tested requested a determination of whether the individual of primarily European descent had either Native American or African ancestry. The possibility of either was understood at the beginning.