William Paterson’s Senate Plan of 1787, No Gun Control in 2022

By Bruce S. Ticker

PHILADELPHIA — After Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Democrats in 2013 represented 184 million Americans in the Senate and Republicans represented 118 million, according to a guest on a news program this past week.

Yet the Republicans stopped dead legislation to require expansion of universal background checks on gun sales because of their filibuster power. It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster before a majority vote can be taken on any bill.

The filibuster can end any attempt to pass gun-safety laws aimed at preventing mass shootings, like those in which 10 African-Americans died in a Buffalo grocery store and 20 children and two adults were gunned down at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, during the last few weeks.

The same number of senators who speak for almost 40 million Californians also speak for less than 600,000 citizens of Wyoming, yet Wyoming’s senators have the power to block gun-safety legislation because of the filibuster. The Senate is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

The composition of the Senate is the prime reason why roughly 40,620 Americans, 1,800 of them under the age of 18, die from gun violence every year, according to Brady United statistics. Because each state is represented by two senators, the party in the majority does not necessarily represent the majority of the people.

Most American Jews live in high-population states, usually the blue states, with 3 million Jews combined residing in New York, New Jersey and California. Even Florida, with more than a half-million Jews, is purplish with most statewide elections decided by a few percentage points.

Any debate over changing the current Senate structure is wholly academic because changing  it would require amending of the Constitution which is seemingly impossible under our flawed Constitution.

Disproportionate representation in the Senate was hardly the original intent of all delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was delegate William Paterson’s idea, which boomeranged on his state. New Jersey is now our 11th most populous state — home to nearly a half-million Jews, incidentally — and is among the federal treasury’s largest cash cows and one of the costliest states in which to live. Coincidence?

New Jersey’s fiscal fate could not have occurred to Paterson when he balked at James Madison’s plan for a proportionate House of Representatives. He feared that New Jersey, like other low-population states, would be “swallowed up.” Paterson became governor of New Jersey a few years later.

Madison, our future fourth president, opposed the concept of two senators representing each state because he feared that we could end up with something like our current situation. However, convention delegates approved of the House and Senate formats, and the Senate later adopted the filibuster. Today’s status?

“We don’t want to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens,” says John Barrasso of Wyoming, our least populous state, according to The New York Times. Has he ever taken a stand on taking away the lives of law-abiding citizens?

The smallest-populous state’s other senator, Cynthia Lummis, said expanded background checks “would not be acceptable for the state of Wyoming. However, campaign donations of $19,000 from the National Rifle Association is acceptable to Lummis. Barrasso has received $27,000 in election money from the NRA.

Our fifth most populous state has strong gun safety laws, yet its largest city, Chicago, remains a shooting gallery, as a so-called “gun-rights” advocate stressed on television. Very true, and that person neglected to mention that anyone who wants to buy a gun needs merely to drive across the Illinois border and make a purchase in Indiana. Then they can return to Southside Chicago in time for the next shootout.

That can only be stopped by federal legislation to ensure that rules for buying guns are as stringent in Indiana as Illinois. Lummis and Barrasso are joined by 50 other senators who intend to either filibuster gun-safety legislation or refuse to join Illinois’ two Democratic senators and 46 other senators (Democrats and two independents) who might be willing to eliminate the filibuster rule.

If the Senate was far more proportional, what would happen to gun-safety legislation? The Pew Research Center of Philadelphia reports 53% of surveyed Americans support stricter gun legislation, and among those 66% of residents in urban areas favor stricter controls.

Commentators on television say that 88% of Americans support expanded background checks.

Under current circumstances, Democrats must add two more senators for any hope of voting to end the filibuster. So far, Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona oppose ending the filibuster, but there could be other Democrats who share this attitude while being silent.

A composition in the Senate based more on population would likely open the floodgates for not only gun-safety laws but better health-care coverage, child care and many other domestic policies. The difference among senators on these issues is too narrow to survive a proportionate alternative.

How would a more proportionate Senate be shaped? My modest suggestion: Redeploy Senate seats throughout the 50 states. Eliminate one of the two Senate seats for low-population states, at least in those with under 1 million. That would include Vermont and Delaware, which are Democratic states.

Expand the number of Senate seats in larger states. That would include not only New York and California but also Texas and Florida. As many as six senators may represent California, pop. 40 million; five for Texas, close to 25 million; and four each for New York and Florida, 20 million each.

Further, each state would be split into districts. Pennsylvania would be served by senators from three districts, for example — one for Philadelphia and its suburban counties; another for Pittsburgh and other western Pennsylvania municipalities; and a third for the rest of the state.

Until then or at least the next election, we are at the mercy of Republican senators who were jolted awake by the scope of public outrage over Uvalde. After heartbreaking losses of American citizens over the years, they are finally willing to negotiate a compromise with Democrats.