President Obama is taking a swipe at the Founding Fathers, blaming
his inability to move his agenda on the “disadvantage” of having each
state represented equally in the Senate. At a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago
Thursday night, Mr. Obama told a small group of wealthy supporters that
there are several hurdles to keeping Democrats in control of the Senate and recapturing the House. One of those problems, he said, is the apportionment of two Senate seats to each state regardless of population. Obviously, the nature of the Senate
means that California has the same number of Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage,” Mr. Obama said.
The
Founding Fathers decided in the “Great Compromise” in 1787 to apportion
House seats based on population and give each state two seats in the Senate
regardless of population. The solution was a compromise between large
states and small states in a dispute that nearly dissolved the
Constitutional Convention.
The president also blamed “demographics” for the inability of the Democratic Party to gain more power
in Congress, saying Democrats “tend to congregate a little more densely” in cities such as New York and Chicago.
He said it gives Republicans disproportional clout in Congress. “So
there are some structural reasons why, despite the fact that Republican
ideas are largely rejected by the public, it’s still hard for us to
break through,” Mr. Obama said. He also said Democrats suffer from the “congenital disease” of not voting in midterm elections.
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