Harrison Hickman, a pollster and political analyst, has this interesting article about the three Classes of U.S. Senate seats. This year, the Class II seats are up. The article explains the statistical anomaly that the Class II seats are quite different from the Class I and the Class III seats. 2014 is a year in which the Class II seats are up.
Every southern state has a Class II seat, except for Florida. By contrast, only five southern states have a Class I seat.
The population of the states with Class II seats is considerably lower than the states with Class I and Class III seats. This is all just a result of a random process.
The U.S. Constitution went into effect in 1789, and said U.S. Senators would have six year terms. Congress then held a lottery to determine which of the U.S. Senate seats fell into each of the three classes. The purpose was to determine when each seat would be up for a new election. One-third of the Senators elected initially were assigned to Class I, and they had to run again in 1790. The Class II seats were up in 1792, and the Class III seats were up in 1794. The pattern has continued to this day. When new states were admitted to the Union, their two Senate seats were assigned to one of the particular classes, so as to keep the number of seats in each Class as equal as possible. Today, there are 33 Class I seats, 33 Class II seats, and 34 Class III seats.
Particular seats never change their Class. If a Senator is elected in 2010, and resigns in 2011, a special election is held for that seat in 2012. But since that is a Class III seat, it then has another (regular) election in 2016.
This may not be related to this article, but the 17th Amendment needs to be re-amended – if there is such a thing as re-amending an amendment.
Initially, the Founding Fathers intended the U.S. Senators to be the representatives of the states in Congress, and this is why the legislatures were allowed to select their respective Senators.
The 17th Amendment was finally adapted in the early 1900’s as during the late 1800’s the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were able to control the legislatures and thus the U.S. Senators. The people witnessed the corruption which ensued and demanded the upper house be elected by the people just like the lower house. This amendment was justified, but for whatever reason I cannot learn, this amendment was not worded to allow the people to elect the U.S. Senators, but also allow the legislatures to have the right to recall a U.S. Senator if such Senator was not correctly representing the views of the state legislature of the state he or she was elected from.
Today, many Senators totally ignore the legislatures and are not listening even to the people who elect them. It was learned in this current election that Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas (a Republican) does not even own a home in Kansas, and there is some question as to whether Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana (a Democrat) owns a residence in that state.
The Constitution(al) Party strongly calls for repealing the 17th Amendment. They would, in my opinion, receive stronger support from the public if they would instead call for re-amending the 17th Amendment as I have outlined.
But since this party tends to want to return our republic back to the late 1700’s economically and otherwise, I doubt they will ever consider such.
The free and slave State stuff in the minority rule gerrymander Senate got about 750,000 men KILLED in 1861-1865.
Lots of blowhard robot party hacks from the many below average States in the Senate —
Result about 10 percent of ALL voters elect 51 of the 100 Senators.
Abolish the Senate.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
The most typical class based on Hickman’s criteria of population and Obama support is Class III. Class I is the largest and strongest Obama support; Class II is smallest and supported Romney.
Class III, the most typical class which has elections in 2016 has 24 Republicans and 10 Democrats. I don’t think that was what Hickman was trying to portray.
The initial distribution was not random. When there were senators from 10 States (NC and RI had not ratified the Constitution, and New York hadn’t elected its senators), they 20 senators were divided up into 3 groups. The three groups then drew for their class.
The groups were such that NH, SC, and GA would forever elect together; MA, NJ, DE, and VA would forevever be together; and CT, PA, and MD would forever be together.
There might have been a deliberate North-South balance. The group of 4 had two northern and two southern; and the groups of 3 were split 2 and 1, north and south.
NY drew the spot in the CT, PA, MD group linking the 3 (and over time MD has become more MD oriented).
This left NC to join NH, SC, and GA reinforcing that group.
The next 4 states drawn in to the CT, NY, PA, MD group were VT, OH, IN, and MO, forming the core of Class II-less group which is skipping the 2012 election. It was chance that two remote states that have since become highly populated FL and CA were placed in the group.
I need to reword part of my original reply to this post. The Robber Barons (as they were called) may or may not have controlled or influenced many of the legislatures of the various states. This misstatement, admittedly, is based solely on my own conclusion of the history of that era, and I acknowledge I could be totally wrong in this regard. However, according to most history texts, they did control the United States Senate to the point, that the public demanded such U.S. Senators be elected by popular vote, thus the 17th amendment. I apologize for my misstatement, and acknowledge I should have checked my history closer.
Rather than supporting the correct voting system and the team which has supported that many people will simply take parts of the correct system and target geographical areas and people associated with us but not the true source of unity.
One recent example is a local candidate for Sheriff whose campaign manager was on our email list. Their campaign promoted and executed a “vote of no confidence” against their opponent which is a negative attack unlike a “vote of confidence”.
They used a negative attack rather than teamwork rather than teamwork and unity and it may cost them the election.
I’ve seen that happen often and when things get all messed up and some people who joined them later told me; “I wished I’d been for proportional representation and voted for unity.”
Greg Jan of the Alameda Green Party was part of the NOTA campaign when I ran for Gov of California as a Green in the 1994 primary which NOTA won with about 46% since there were three candidates garnering about 54%.
Now 20 years later the Green Party spokesperson Mike Feinstein states that the Green Party wants to replace top two with multi-winner proportional representation.
Will they now say; “I wished I’d been for proportional representation and voted for unity.”?
I’m positive that they will mess things up again because their motives aren’t for the good of the whole, but for the Green Party.
We can predict that they’ll do more of the same that we’ve seen from them for 20 years in every Green Party election and decision.
This article shows me that they aren’t going to switch to a unifying voting system and that their rhetoric and lawsuits are a continuation of the status quo in the Green Party.
This post is worth everyone’s attention. When can I find
out more?