[PEN-L:33542] Sam Smith on Senate Segregation

["Michael Hoover" <hooverm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

[For all the talk of Trent Lott's failings, there is still no mention of
>the stunningly segregated character of the institution he leads, the US
>Senate. This is adapted from an article your editor wrote some time back
>for the NY Press]
>
>What does New York City have more of than New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
>Montana, South Dakota, Delaware, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and
>Wyoming, all put together?
>
>People.
>
>What do New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, South Dakota, Delaware,
>North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming have that New York City
>doesn't have?
>
>Eighteen US Senators.
>
>New York City gets to share two senators with the residue of New York
>state, which is also larger than all these other states put together. In
>fact, there are 16 states with a combined population less than New York
>in its entirety.
>
>This discrimination is, of course, not unique to New York. The larger
>states of California and Texas have it worse. And the capital colony of
>Washington DC lacks even partial representation in the Senate. There are
>currently 21 states with an aggregate population less than that of
>California. They have 42 senators while California has only two. There
>is nothing defensible, democratic or decent about this.
>
>The results of this constitutional but crazy apportionment of America's
>upper house means, among other things, that ethnic minorities are
>underrepresented in a manner officially permitted hardly anywhere else
>in American culture. The Senate is as segregated as any southern
>legislature before the 1960s. If the Senate had been a school district
>it would have been under court-ordered bussing for the past few decades.
>If it were a corporation it couldn't get any fedral contracts. If it
>were a private club, you'd want to resign from it before running for
>public office or joining the cabinet.
>
>In fact, the malapportionment of the Senate is perhaps the most
>important, undiscussed issue in the country today for there is hardly a
>matter of political importance that would not be affected if that body
>were to reflect 21st century rather than 19th century demographics.
>
>Curiously, however, leaders of constituencies that would clearly benefit
>- with cities at the top of the list - show little interest.
>
>One reason for this is misunderstanding. It is widely believed that
>admitting new states requires a constitutional amendment and that a
>state, once created, can't be split. In truth, it is easier to spawn a
>new state than it was to give women the right to vote or to pass an
>income tax. A simple majority in Congress and the president's signature
>- plus approval of an affected state's legislature - and the job is
>permanently done.
>
>Another reason is inertia. Politicians like the status quo because it
>was wise enough to put them in office. Further, there are plenty of
>powerful people who prefer to do politics using their Palm Pilot or
>checkbook rather than the voting booth. It is for such reasons that any
>reform of political process has to come from outside the traditional
>political system.
>
>Then there is the argument that creating new states is a political
>impossibility. But it has happened 37 times since the creation of the
>republic and in a number of cases - Kentucky, Vermont, West Virginia,
>and Maine - new states were formed out of existing ones.
>
>If you don't care about history, think of the future. In not too many
>years, white Americans will cease to be in the majority. Even leaving
>moral questions aside, how much longer will it be politically practical
>to tell blacks and latinos that the rules can't be changed to let them
>into the Senate in some reasonable number?
>
>There has been some talk of dividing California into three states and
>even secession murmurs from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But the
>modern idea of urban statehood really got its start exactly 30 years ago
>in a remarkable campaign for New York mayor and city council president
>by Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin. This was no Warren Beatty flirtation
>nor a Donald Trump fantasy but a paragon of political campaigning:
>colorful, uplifting, funny, and - most importantly - full of good ideas.
>And these ideas were not just sound bites. When Mailer and Breslin
>proposed a Manhattan monorail and jitney buses, they accompanied their
>arguments with maps, stats, as well as top, side, and interior views of
>the vehicles in question. They proposed monthly "Sweet Sundays" - when
>the city would comes to a halt "so human beings can rest and talk to
>each other and the air can purify itself." Among their other planks:
>restoration of Mohammed Ali's world championship, vest pocket
>neighborhood colleges and zoos, free bicycles in the parks, a US Grand
>Prix in Central Park, and weekend jousting matches for teenagers. Mailer
>and Breslin understood that real politics is not just a matter of
>management but a collective expression of a community's soul.
>
>Their two most important ideas, however, were that New York should
>become the 51st state and that, as a consequence, neighborhoods would
>become the self-governing equivalents of towns and villages.
>
>One of the spin-offs of the campaign, Peter Manzo's book, "Running
>Against the Machine," inspired this then-young journalist to write an
>article arguing that DC should become a state, which in turn led,
>several months later, to the formation of the DC statehood movement.
>Despite our city's small size, the fall of Marion Barry, ethnic
>prejudice, and all the other problems faced by weak and debilitated
>colonies, the movement got far enough to win editorial encouragement
>from the New York Times and Washington Post, hold a constitutional
>convention, attract the transitory enthusiasm of presidential candidate
>Bill Clinton, win a respectable number of votes in its one House test,
>and even elect Jesse Jackson to the only electoral office he ever held,
>albeit briefly -- the position of surrogate or "statehood senator," a
>popularly elected lobbyist for prospective states. The DC Statehood
>Party, which merged with the DC Greens, held a city council seat for
>over 25 years.
>
>If citizens of such weak clout as those in DC can get this far, imagine
>what the powerful folk of New York City could do if they rose up in
>righteous anger against their lack of equitable representation in the US
>Senate. Imagine a Million Mensch March descending on Washington to press
>the cause, a cause which is not just that of New York but of every
>American city and every group frustrated by the undemocratic hereditary
>power of the landed states that got there first. Urban states are the
>sina qua non of a better America. Let a dozen of them bloom. - SAM SMITH