It's funny that you mention Alaska, because they are the #1 overall state when it comes to Senate and Electoral College "voter power". As you said, they get the same Senate representation despite having a fraction of the population of NJ. In addition, each vote cast in Alaska counts far more towards the presidential election than a vote in NJ does.

This is mainly because Congress will not increase the size of the House of Representatives. If we were to give Wyoming a single representative and used that as the bar for how many citizens a representative should actually represent then California would have 82 members in the House instead of 53. California would be worth 84 points in the Electoral College while Wyoming would still only be worth 3.

That's because the federal level is supposed to only deal with federal matters and be nonexistent elsewhere.

Each state has the same weight in the senate because they are all equal players in that space.

The house has the bias towards population.

Most regulation is supposed to take place at the state level.

> Each state has the same weight in the senate because they are all equal players in that space.

Except they represent wildly different populations and all have equal say in the senate.

> The house has the bias towards population.

One that has been capped by the DC Admission Act and perverted by gerrymandering.

> Most regulation is supposed to take place at the state level.

Says who? How in the world does that work for things like pollution (which isn't stopped at state lines) or basic rights such as the right to love who you love and/or get married?

> Says who? How in the world does that work for things like pollution (which isn't stopped at state lines) or basic rights such as the right to love who you love and/or get married?

Says the Constitution... 10th Ammendment: any power not explicitly enumerated to congress is left to the states.

Article 1 Section 8 enumerates the powers that the federal government has, along with some granted through ammendments.

I'm aware that powers not left to congress falls back to the states, you specifically mentioned regulation and this is in a thread about the EPA.

How is a state supposed to, on it's own, handle regulation against pollution from it's neighbors? How do they stop the state upstream? How do they they stop the state next door?

They don't, which is why it's s federal matter. But I'm stating that each state has an equal say in the decision (in the Senate) precisely because it impacts states approximatepy equally (hence the federal matter). If it didn't, you could plausibly see a densely populated state vote to pollute their neighbor's state by tyranny of the majority.

> But I'm stating that each state has an equal say in the decision (in the Senate) precisely because it impacts states approximatepy equally

I do not agree that impacts states equally nor do I buy into the premise that states should have an equal say. We aren't seeing the tyranny of the majority, we are seeing the tyranny of the minority between the filibuster and the senate not being representative of the people.

The senate is representative of the states. The house is representative of the people.

I reject the idea that states deserve representation outsized to their population, I'm well aware that's not the current state of affairs but I find it anti-democratic.

As for the house I find it representative of the people in name only. By capping the total members we have done a gross injustice to people by letting the ratio of rep->constituant grow to an unreasonable number. Along with our two party system I certainly don't feel as if I'm represented by my senators or my rep.

Again, I understand how things currently "work", I'm just saying it's a shit status quo. I also understand this is just the opinion of a random person online and I'm not asking you to argue against it (though you're welcome to disagree).

A state isn't supposed to do any of that on it's own. Congress is supposed to pass laws regarding those sorts of things, not just create an agency in the Executive branch and let it run wild.

> Congress is supposed to pass laws regarding those sorts of things

You honestly think it's a good system to have congress be the ones legislating on every new way companies come up with to pollute?

> let it run wild.

We have very different definitions of "running wild".

All of this assume a functional congress which we absolutely don't have. I'm working with the cards dealt, you want to imagine some pie-in-the-sky idea of how congress should function. I agree it should function better but I don't see how letting companies pollute more is somehow a "win" and it certainly won't motivate the people in congress who don't even believe in climate change. All of this thinking seems to completely ignore that we need 60 senators to pass any legislation (due to the filibuster), a chamber of congress that is in no way representative of the people.

> You honestly think it's a good system to have congress be the ones legislating on every new way companies come up with to pollute?

Absolutely not, and nobody (including SCOTUS in their ruling) says that they have to. Congress can still delegate authority to agencies, but at a certain point the agencies are limited in what they can do unilaterally without specific legislation.

> All of this assume a functional congress which we absolutely don't have. I'm working with the cards dealt, you want to imagine some pie-in-the-sky idea of how congress should function.

I agree that Congress is entirely dysfunctional. But I think that this sort of unconstitutional power that they've been so happy to delegate to the Executive has absolutely played a role in getting us the dysfunctional Congress we have today.

You can call it "pie-in-the-sky" but letting Congress continue to skate by without doing their jobs and letting Executive branch agencies unconstitutionally usurp the authorities of the other two branches is something I'm glad to see put to an end.

We can hold Congress accountable. I can't say the same for nameless, faceless bureaucrats.

I have neither the faith nor hope that congress will act so from my perspective this is only a bad thing no matter how much "It's the right ruling given the law/constitution", it along with other recent decisions.

A lot of the "it's the right interpretation" crowd seems to be completely uninterested in who gets hurt in the meantime and seem to look at it as if it's just cold logic executed in a vacuum. These ruling have real consequences and no amount of "congress should act" or "this was their job"-thinking will fix that. It also doesn't address the outsized power that some states/parties have, I grow less and less sure we are actually able to hold congress accountable.

Though I will say I hope for the future you foresee, I just can't see it becoming reality.

Maybe that was badly phrased but it refers to states having more power than they should (or less) due to how the electoral college and senators work.

It was designed that way on purpose.

Yes. To give the slave states power beyond their value.

The value of those states was not in question when they threatened succession; they were important enough to fight a war over. Nor would many of the states have joined the union in the first place if not for this system, so America wouldn't have existed in the first place if you had your way. The entire country is premised on this compromise.

The centuries-old political climate in which the electoral college was born has little if any bearing on its utility for the modern United States. I doubt the only thing keeping rural states in the union now is leverage against abolitionists.

It was designed to prevent tyranny of the majority.

This argument comes up often, but I've never understood how tyranny of the minority is any better.

The people who make that argument are usually benefactors of that tyranny.

It's because tyranny of the minority means prevention against new laws, not the enactment of them. It's the safer path, generally not absolutely. A bias towards inaction.

Tyranny of the minority only means prevention of laws the minority disagrees with. That minority hasn't, historically, taken issue with new laws that cater to them.