It is Heidi Heitkampenesque Democrats who can bring victory in the November elections. Witness Connor Lamb's win in Western Pennsylvania. You could'nt pin him down as right or left because he was both. His stand was for issues most relevant to voters who elected him. No grandiose objectives and one size fits all ideology for him. That is a page taken straight from the Republicans' MO, tried and tested which has got them success. Especially in sparsely populated Red States like North Dakota, especially when they have two Senate seats just like densely populated New York or California. Those Democrats should give their 100% to North Dakotans, not what's right for New Yorkers or Californians!
6
Donald Trump, the infantile wannabe dictator, is the greatest threat to the Constitution, to the rule of law, to decency and moral leadership that this nation has ever faced.
No American, including North Dakotans, with a functioning brain and heart, who believes in democracy, fairness and justice for all can support any Republican candidate who stands with Trump.
9
So if a lot of Democrats are campaigning on preserving health care, what are the Republicans campaigning on?
You don't want _____, do you?
health care
fair prescription drug prices
clean air and water
Social Security
Medicare
tax payer dollars going to fix a crumbling & dangerous
infrastructure
national parks
laws to regulate banks so they don't create another crisis
a Consumer Protection Agency to protect consumers from
fraud
respect for competent judges and a fair judicial system
an end to Citizens United and our crooked campaign financing
diplomacy & friendly, cooperative relations with our allies
Vote Republican if you ____________
want far greater inequality and the rich to get evn richer
have rich people pay little or no taxes but the rest of us make
up the difference
believe yanking children away from their parents at the border
is a great idea and really deters immigrants seeking asylum
want to rig elections and invite the Russians to do their part
want billions spent on a wall to keep Americans from fleeing
Trumpism
far prefer GUNS over butter
would rather listen to lies and propaganda rather than the truth
believe Trump is a much better American than John McCain
and Robert Mueller
This is the agenda to make America Great
a. true b. false
10
" If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s. Which is super fine with all of them."
And if you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/100th as much as a Wyomingite's. Small is big.
2
@GeorgePTyrebyter
Trump didn't win "because of immigration" he won because of all the misinformation surrounding immigration and because he exploited people's natural tendency to suspect "the other," using myriad half-truths and outright lies, mostly concerning immigration and crime. He continually stoked American's fears about "those people" to the point where an absurdity like The Wall is welcomed by his supporters who see no contradiction or irony in erecting a wall around this nation of immigrants. They want protection from the horde and Trump promised it, that's (one big reason) why he won.
The Dems are not for "open borders" if that means "zero restrictions on immigration," which is what's implied by that phrase. They don't "support illegals" if that means "take away my hard-earned money so we can give them all free stuff."
I agree this country's attitude toward immigration, shaped by misinformation can sink the Dems' chances of recapturing Congress. Too much of the electorate believes the imaginary horde is real. Combating fear with facts won't win change votes but a compelling version of "Stronger Together" will. How to make it compelling is above my pay grade but I'm certain the answer starts there.
11
Plain old democracy - where the candidate or ballot initiative with most votes wins - doesn’t protect those in the minority. Christians could vote for laws disfavoring Jews, or whites could vote to keep blacks in the back of the bus. So a Constitution is written to protect everyone’s rights. And every new law is measured against it.
So by protecting all of us, the Constitution protects minority stakeholders as well. Their rights cannot be voted away. This is what we believe is the American way.
But thanks to the Electoral College the opposite is happening. The minority is now holding power over the majority. Throw in gerrymandering and it only gets worse. The situation in North Carolina is positively diabolical!
Twice in 16 years each voter in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas and other small-population states was turbocharged by upwards of fifty times the voting power of any voter in the much larger coastal states, meaning that two of the last three presidents (both GOP) benefited from this extra layer of clerical accounting between the voter in the booth and the person who moved into the White House.
The tyranny of the minority is like a sick joke - the complete opposite of what the founding fathers intended. All voters are not created equal and their endowed rights are minced by this practice. If every other president can coast in without winning the popular vote, democracy will be devalued.
8
Hey, I have an idea for a representative government! Here it is: one man (or woman) one vote. I know, it's wildly radical -- and far from what we're used to here in the USA. But I think it's worth considering.
6
North Dakota does not need to be its own state. They should be combined with South Dakota. That a state with the population less than a tenth of New York City gets 2 senators is ridiculous. And undemocratic.
8
"It’s true, people, it’s true. If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s. Which is super fine with all of them."
Great for the people in ND, not so great for people who live in NY and other states with more people than cows.
5
Thanks for all that you do, Gail Collins! Today's arch-depressing events highlight, even more than your razor-sharp perspective, your wonderful sense of humor.
5
North Dakota sounds like a bad case of group think. Give all those people a free trip to NYC and tickets to Hamilton! Maybe they’ll step out of their comfort zones after that!
4
With his most recent 'approval rating' - support by TRUMP for any candidate, could turn out to be the 'kiss of death to those he supports'.
2
Love it – the first paragraph is genius! I’ve been watching and photographing turkey vultures all this past week, and just learned their Latin designation, ‘Cathartes aura’, means – wait for it: Golden purifier! Kinda apt, methinks!
1
The biggest vulture of all is Donald J. trump .
But he is the meekest one of all internally , this weekend he is hiding inside his self created cubicle , sulking.
McCain`s farewell the President was not invited but two of the two other Presidents are invited to pay respect.
4
The founders’ fear of “the mob” and the possibility of slave uprisings coupled with the scourge of gerrymandering have placed inordinate power in the hands of minority populations. We can only hope that the fear of the GOP’s heartless medical care policies will tip the balance this November. Even agrarians, after all, get sick.
5
Vultures are a thing of beauty in flight. Vultures literally rock. Their wings are designed to capture thermals and currents in the air in a fashion as to allow a minimum of effort. Aerodynamic engineers call it dihedral rock.It is good to know that every vulture gets this day. Where I live there is enough carrion to keep 3 or 4 family groups happy for the summer. Without them carcasses would bloat in the heat, explode and stink up the air.
Speaking of bloated carcasses that are about to explode and stink up the air, when Trump descends on North Dakota how much red meat do you think he'll have to throw out to his adoring fledges to satiate their appetites? The one thing you can say about vultures is, they don't leave a mess behind. Can you say that of Trump and those he chooses to anoint?
10
"If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s."
American democracy.
What a great idea!
Perhaps we should try it.
2
With Vermont being barely bigger than Wyoming, at least my vote’s “value” will be more than that of even one fron N. Dakota.
Fortunately not all the small states are red — some like VT, Rhode Island & Delaware trend blue, offsetting some of those Western states where the sage brush brambles outnumber people.
4
There are so few people in North Dakota that they should only really get about half a senator. They are way over represented and it is a crime, in my opinion. We should give one senator to Dakota, the state that is made up of North and South Dakota. Same goes for Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and so on. They all get way too much say in this country and they are all somewhat antisocial and belligerent. They live out where no one wants to live for a reason, because they can't get along with other people.
3
Being a ND native and having just returned from a trip back there to visit relatives, I found this article especially interesting as well as right on.
They just call her "Heidi" if you talk to the folks about her, and she does seemingly have met every one of the those 700,000 plus citizens of her state.
They have a great fondness for her, and in discussing her possibility of winning with them everyone seems to think it is a "done deal" for her. It helps, and you were right, the Kramer guy is not a particularly likable person either.
Senator Heitkamp may not be a Republican, and lots of us coastal liberals do not approve of some of her decisions (she is also a real gun rights supporter), but she is exactly the type of moderate we keep pleading for, and the very type of Democrat candidate we need in that state.
Which is why I think our Democratic leaders have made the right decision in allowing each state and area to nominate candidates that will garner local support, and to campaign on issues of importance to the folks whose votes are needed to help us take over the House (and hopefully the Senate!) this fall.
Go Heidi!!
14
Years ago, I remember driving across South Dakota, crossing the Badlands, etc. At one point, I didn't see another vehicle or another human being for about 100 miles. Several prairie dog villages, but no human villages or towns.
Then a big billboard loomed on the horizon. It had a photo of a cowboy on a horse galloping across the plains, and it said:
"Need room to roam? Move to North Dakota."
Very sparsely populated area of the country, the Dakotas..
4
The great puzzlement of American democracy: How Americans continue to vote against their own self-interest. "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"
31
ND has 2% of Ca's population but an equal number of senators.
Senate representation needs to be reformed so that it is based upon population. Unless and until that happens we will continue to have issues where the public favors certain policy by 70% yet it cannot get passed the senate or its supreme court---gun control, abortion rights, money in politics etc.
35
The original idea of thwarting the majority in the Senate, a supposedly more thoughtful body, was a good one. Population aside, it is good for the country when there needs to be consensus to make big changes rather than let the majority rule. I also warn Democrats...you always suggest killing the filibuster until you are in charge. It is nice to consider ways to take away the power of your enemies, but remember that it then hurts you, too.
6
Between the senate and the gerrymandered House, I am exhausted with the minority running the majority. Because the ethic of winning is everything and politics have become a zero sum game where the winners take all, a very clever sliver of a minority manipulates a naive minority population through guns, gays, God, and abortion to vote against the majority who have widely different views. Riding waves of fear this minority is drowning the majority which continues to fester frustration. I fear where that frustration may do.
17
>If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s.
Make your vote count!
Move to ND.
98
@Ira Block
I live in SD with a population of about 814,000 people - mostly republican while I am a Democrat. It does not feel like my vote counts for much. When I contact my representatives, they send me form letters about how wonderful their policies are. It is very frustrating, but I keep on voting and calling.
20
Ya know that movie wasn’t even made here.
The real motto of North Dakota.
5
"If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s."
When I was born it was 1/23rd maybe; and 100 years ago it was about 1/5th. When my great-grandfather left New York for Illinois in 1845 neither California nor North Dakota were even states.
So the country changes and you can go on plotting ratios between populous and less populous states if you like all the way back to the founding. There have always been dramatic disparities. New York, of course, for most of the nation's history was the most populous. So I suppose in 1850 they resented that Floridians, with 1/40th the population, should have been sending any senators at all up north from the swamp.
If we were actually a democracy or a country subject to rule by referendum this might be alarming. But of course we are not and have never been.
3
The Obama years put a smooth scab over the open wound of America’s other exceptionalism; exceptionally fearful, divided and too often ignorant. Trump ripped it off, encouraging all that is ugly beneath to surface. The 2018 campaign that really begins after Labor Day will channel the ugliest human instincts, especially on the right. In Minnesota, our Republican candidates have already gone negative, personal, anti-Pelosi coming from “anonymous” sources. Democrats have tried to talk policy and about positive future. I wonder which vision will win out.
19
So Gail's column started me wondering about ignoring population size when it comes to the one-person, one-vote thing for the Senate, which has more power than the House in many cases (i.e. Supreme Court appointments, etc.).
I looked up the population size of states
http://www.ipl.org/div/stateknow/popchart.html
8 states have less than 1 million people (WY, VT, ND, AK, ID, SD, DE, MT), while 7 states have more than 10 million people (CA has 37 million+,TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH); yet each state gets 2 senators.
The most Republican states are as follows, listed by the % advantage over Democrats:
WY 36%; UT 33%; ID 25%, SD 18%, MT 18%
The most Democratic states are as follows, with the % advantage over the GOP
MA 22%; MD 21%; NY 17%; VT 16%
(worldatlas.com)
So what does this say about the advantage Republicans have at election time?
Now factor in the ways the GOP cheats to rig elections in its favor (gerrymandering, voter ID, fewer or malfunctioning polls in Dem. districts...Russians(?)
Next check out our complicated Electoral College system of how "voters" are determined.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html
Remind me why we are considered a democracy again?
11
We are not a pure democracy, which is something that should be covered in every high school civics class. The country is a representative republic or democracy. The Founders did not trust a purely democratic system and believed it might result in mob rule. Whether that can or should be changed is another discussion.
5
And the draft dodging Conman plays Golf and tweets, as the last decent Republican is honored. Shame on you, Trump fans. As for his GOP Collaborators, May you get your just rewards, in this life or the next. Starting in November.
Seriously.
36
I think the only vultures we have here in Oklahoma are the turkey buzzards and they are migratory. I take that back, in addition, we did have Scott Pruitt who has migrated to Washington DC.
27
The Founders, faced with the need to fill up an empty continent, gave bonus political power to empty states.
A quarter millennium later, with Americans having the choice to live where they want, this bonus political power perversely goes to the places least successful in attracting a population.
Among many other detriments, this hobbles our ability to respond as a nation to the global challenges of the 21st Century.
27
I'll have to go tip my hat to our local vulture today. Andy the Andean Condor is usually out and about this time of year. He's a nice fellow. His wingspan is probably bigger than two of your kids stacked. I could make a joke about the President's hands right now but I don't mean to remind him of his inferiority complex. He'll start asking for parades or something again.
As for the Senate, I try not to stress too much. I happen to live in a state with about three days worth of Grand Central traffic. We're expected to double our population in the next 20 years though. If we keep growing, we might make a full week in my lifetime. Fact of the matter is though, I'm getting Mitt Romney as a Senator whether I like him or not. At least North Dakotans have a potential alternative. I'm here counting my blessings the walk-in candidate is better than our current Senators.
If you want to talk about unrepresentative governance, you should try living in a deeply red, heavily gerrymandered, partially theocratic state. At least Californians have 1/50th of a voice. My vote is always symbolic on anything larger than the county level. I'm mostly hoping the Utah Republicans' affinity for corporatism will bring enough out-of-staters to purple the state. I mean hey, Mitt Romney found a career opportunity here. Maybe you can too.
140
@Andy
You happily remind me of Will Rodgers; thank you for brightening my day!
@Andy
You happily remind me of Will Rodgers; thanks for brightening my day!
@Andy Mitt’s not a Trumpian tho, right? Does he have a spine? I mean he doesn’t need the job. He really could be a McCain lite. Or even more if he wants to make a lasting mark.
And Wyoming has not even 600,000 population and it too gets 2 seats in the Senate to the 2 seats California gets, and hence these nearly empty big square states get the same extra 2 electoral votes as California. Trump won those four electoral votes in two states with combined population of barely 1.4 million while California, where Hilary Clinton won by more than 2.5 million votes got just 2 extra electoral votes for the trouble.
The original deal with small states and slave states is what poisons American democracy except we are not a true democracy, we are a Republic and in that Republic the U.S. Senate is the original oligarchy.
We can't fix the nation, not really, til we fix the ludicrous imbalance in the Senate and we can't fix that without changing the Constitution, which we cannot entertain because it would open the present one to all kinds of reactionary tampering by who? By the regressively imbalanced Senate to begin with.
14
N. Dakota has only one congressional seat ... Cramer won it in 2012 on his fourth try ... when Rich Berg left it to try to run for the senate ... and lost to Heidi Heitkamp.
Cramer was defeated twice for the congressional seat by Pomeroy, a Democrat. He was defeated by Rick Berg for the Republican nomination in 2010.
Berg didn't like Cramer and endorsed Cramer's opponent in the 2012 primary ... finally Cramer beat somebody.
Cramer has been a doctrinaire tea-party B-teamer who indeed "frequently wraps himself around Trump like a famished boa constrictor." While he's not odious (think Roy Moore) or truly loopy (think Michele Bachman or Louie Gohmert), you'd sure think North Dakota could do better.
113
@Lee Harrison Let’s just keep Heitkamp then. That’s the only sane thing to do! Cramer sounds like a loser to me from what I have read.
Another article that screams "Abolish the Senate, and the Electoral College!" Oh well, I feel better now.
4
Every election this autumn is important. All Americans should be encouraged to vote. Please, above all, support Michelle Obama's initiative whenweallvote.org.
40%+ of Americans who could have voted in 2016 didn't participate.
11
Gail, if this NY Times gig doesn't work out, you'd be a great writer for Saturday Night Live. Your comedic timing is always right on the beat.
7
The only teeny-tiny quibble I have is that –as another fiend for accuracy– the proper name for the the train station you mention is "Grand Central Terminal", as all the RR lines terminate there. Otherwise, right on, sister!
4
Parliamentary system urgently needed in the land of the taxation without representation
One Dakota is enough. One Carolina is enough. NYC should be a state. Jeez million people. Wyoming, 600 thousand. Richmond Va has 375 thousand and a brat for a congressman
8
Gail, you got your groove back!
3
As Tuft's professor Dan Drezner has said, the evidence that Trump was not growing into the presidency was hiding in plain sight. That is still the case.
A new poll shows just 36% believe Trump is doing a good job. And let's reiterate that we need Democrats to take the House and Senate! Thanks for the article, Gail.
18
Sorry New York and California. North Dakota and Wyoming have spoken. Too bad New Jersey and Massachusetts. Montana and South Dakota see things differently.
Too bad Hillary supporters. You only had a three million vote margin in the popular vote. So you lose.
And remember. The GOP needs Dem leaning states taxes to finance their Red State vision.
So perhaps if each state were required to send the exact same amount of tax revenue to the Federal Government in Washington, D.C. Then apply the remainder collected to their own individual states.
A new "Fairness Doctrine?
21
Thank you for showing us so graphically the mess we are in with the Electoral College inequities.
25
@pkbormes I am not sure this is exemplary of the flaws of the Ekectoral College, exactly, but it does say something about why it’s a problem when we have the tails of these small states wagging our dog. Bad news. Very bad news. We may yet see the Republic broken up. I, for one, have no interest in being ruled by a minority I disagree with so vehemently. One that would elect the ruined GOP and Trump. No thanks.
“Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.”
I think you misread something. It's actually "liver and onions," which may account for their politics.
4
Former resident of the state here. Cramer cannot get enough of Trump and Trump got over 62% of the vote. The trump voter is nervous about their soybeans, corn, and wheat but hasn't made the connection between the prices and Trump's action. History is much more interesting. Through the early part of the 20th century, North Dakota was socialist. The great grandparents of the current trump voter started a state mill, a state elevator, a state bank, and even today member owned cooperatives provide over 3/4 of the state's telecommunications. They eagerly accepted federal New Deal programs like the farm bill and rural electrification. The parents voted what was truly Democrat Farm Labor and up until most recently, sent conservative democrats to Washington. It is interesting to talk to those great grandparents still alive and the grand parents who wonder what happened to the politics of their grandchildren. The tea party is also non existent. When the crowd gathered at the first tea party rally and the question was asked how many got government benefits (farm bill, social security, medicare, etc.) over 85% of the crowd raised their hands. The cognitive dissonance of the north dakota voter is massive.
37
@tom And they haven’t figured it out in the intervening years? Is there something in the water,
Deciding the Presidential election by the popular vote is probably a possibility if proponents can get a few Republican majority states to sign off on it, though I’d consider it unlikely. Consider that what went your party’s way in one election might go the opposite way in the next. There are unforeseen consequences to tinkering with the established system. The U.S. is not a pure democracy. Our existing system protects the rights of people who live in sparsely populated states as well as those in the cities on the coasts. My state, North Dakota, has just one representative in the U.S. House and three electoral college votes based on its population, but two Senators.
I have met Cramer and Heitkamp numerous times over the years, as I have the governor. This is typical in a state of this size. There are advantages to knowing people you are voting for and their backgrounds going back 30 or so years. At least I know who wants to represent me in our representational republic.
2
The two Dakotas are a good argument for doing away with representation by "state" rather than region. A state should have a minimum population which many of the low density but high cost Western states fail to achieve.
Since these low population "states" have many things in common, combining them into one state of "Dakota" makes sense from an economic standpoint. It is wasteful to have separate state governments with all the expenses involved. That savings alone should appeal to the self-described conservative voters of North and South Dakota. The election-year recruiting rush to find enough people to fill all the elected government seats would be simplified and better candidates would be found with a larger population from which to select when two states are merged.
6
@Lynda
Your dripping condescension-"states"- and capricious Constitutional meddling are key reasons why Republicans don't vote for Democrats, even when they'd get a much better deal if they did.
So please stop that. It ain't helpin'.
Because even after the griftertraitor in The White House is history, his voters will still be here and they will still vote like clockwork.
2
@Dave T.
Lynda's post seemed logical to me, not dripping with condescension. When I muse about state merging, I think not only of merging the Dakotas and many other middle states, but also NH, & VT, RI & CT, DE & MD, and giving PR & DC full voting rights and representation. It's not about blue/red, it's about fairness and allowing all people to feel they have a voice. The Constitution was written for a very different set of logistics, and the dysfunction we currently have is a result of antiquated methods for distribution of power.
2
I was going to say you get the Molly Ivins award for your work in skewering foolishness with a grin, but then learned that there is a MOLLY award - - so please accept that your wit is instrumental to maintaining sanity as we search for a route out of the swamp?
13
So let's get rid of the Electoral College and while we are at it, put term limits on Supreme Court Justices. Oh yeah, and let's get rid of Trump too.
22
Hard to imagine that a vast majority of the women in North Dakota would vote against one of the few women Senators and for Donald Trump's pick.
3
@Pat Choate
Not everyone is into identity politics. That's one reason Dems have so much trouble wininge elections.
1
@Pat Choate They need to vote for Heitkamp because she will at least protect women’s healthcare. Everyone’s healthcare actually.
2
IMHO.....make the Dakotas one state and then make Puerto Rico the 50th state.
236
@tadpoles: I agree...makes perfect sense.
4
@tadpoles
Reliably high voting participation by millennials and people of color is a much easier, safer solution than combining states (good luck with that.)
1
@tadpoles. Emphatically agree! That way we wouldn’t have to change the flag.....
2
Who exactly is House Rep. Kevin Cramer (R) of North Dakota ?
If you like radical right-wingers with medieval views of 2018, he may be the social cretin for you.
He's a critic of Planned Parenthood and wants to cut off off its public funding.
Cramer on American society: "We have normalized perversion and perverted God's natural law."
Cramer got support from the Public Advocate of the United States, an anti-LGBT group which advocates for conversion therapy and ties homosexuality to pedophilia.
Cramer has agreed with an anti-LBGT survey question that said public schools should be "prevented from brainwashing elementary school children with the Homosexual Agenda."
Cramer opposes the Affordable Care Act and has voted to repeal it.
Cramer voted to repeal the estate tax.
Cramer opposes same-sex marriage.
Cramer rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.
Cramer supports an increase in oil and gas drilling on public lands and supports cutting taxes for energy producers.
Cramer wrote Trump's energy plan, which focuses heavily on promoting fossil fuels and weakening environmental regulation.
Cramer supports cuts in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps); in 2013 he cited this biblical quotation in support of Republicans' efforts to cut $40 billion from the program over a ten-year period:
"If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat"
Pray, starve and drop dead from poverty and pollution, North Dakota !
Kevin Cramer 2018
Go Heidi Heitkamp !
950
@Socrates: Cramer was also that big doofus on Seinfeld. Or was that a different Kramer? Anyway, it's hard to tell who would make the better senator, although the one on Seinfeld was more lovable.
97
Eek. He's horrible, isn't he?
7
thanks for this post. this what I want to see in nyt -positions and issues.
7
The Senate is not designed to proportionally represent the people. That's the House's job. (I'll leave the pernicious evil of gerrymandering for another time.)
A much easier solution, less fraught with unintended consequences than re-writing the Constitution is to make sure that everyone votes. Millennials and POC must vote at the same high-participation rates as us old white people. That way, places like North Carolina, Georgia and Florida would be much more likely to send Democrats to the Senate than they are today.
We'd likely have a much bluer and more responsive Senate not to mention a much more engaged citizenry. We wouldn't risk the mischief of a Constitutional convention or the great uncertainty of a Constitutional amendment.
Remember that North Carolina, Georgia and Florida are boom states currently ranked #9, #8 and #3 in population. Do we really want to give them even more representation? What we want is better representation.
Vote Blue Or Die 11/6/2018.
12
Closing paragraph pretty much sums up our problem. A state the size of ND has as big a voice in national policy as CA, NY or even NV. That is not a misdemeanor, that is a crime. Thanks slavers and enablers club of 1787.
11
@Paul
Slavers did some really terrible things in 1787. Think 3/5 of a person of color = one white person.
But a bicameral legislature isn't really attributable to colonial-era slavers.
It was modeled on the British system of Lords and Commons.
5
Let me bring a little hope into this debate. If the Congress of the United States can vote to give a black man 3/5ths of a vote and be signed into law by the president, why shouldn't a ND citizen have a vote worth 50 times a CA citizen? Let me explain why this could be so. Because it is as morally repugnant today as it was then, but no one at the time knew how to change it without destroying the country. But it was changed. And the country survived. And it can be changed today as well. Nor will it destroy the country today, only make it a more moral and just government than what we had.
6
Vultures and Trump, I love the comparison but it really isn't fair to the vultures. Trump is creepy looking too and from what I have read his main diet consists of McD's cheeseburgers, chocolate cake and Diet Coke. Not exactly a respectable meal. I also have no doubt that if stranded on an island with one other person and no hope of rescue soon Trump would have no qualms about dining on his partner, alive or dead.
Lets face it vultures are better people than Trump.
11
Ok, I have this plan that I have posted before. Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota have a combined population of about 3 million humans. All that has to happen is that about half a million democrats have to relocate to these states, and problem solved. Just a couple of Amazon/Facebook/Google campuses and associated development would solve the problem!
13
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the billionaires are partying with the money they don’t pay you. Now that the greedy, crazy people are running your country don’t expect much to happen except a constant stream of made for Twitter moments to keep you distracted and entertained. Don’t be surprised if something extraordinary happens before your elections to make you think greedy, crazy people are just great and you vote for them. Meanwhile back in Moscow, another round of toasts for President Putin for making Russia great again.
20
I suppose that I should hope that Heitkamp will win because she is a Democrat in name. But if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh she will have solidified the anti-democratic GOP majority on the Supreme Court for decades. And we all know that the conservatives supremes are the linchpin of the Republican tyranny. And even if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh, she may lose anyway.
The only salvation for democracy in this country would be to eliminate the overweighting of GOP small states as North Dakota through electoral and electoral college reform. Since there is no hope of that happening, we are very close to Putin's Russia. Oh, you say that Putin helped Trump in 2016?
8
One of your best! Perhaps, 1/50 just as much.
North Dakota? I never knew that the Vulture was their state bird, ( I thought it was the Ostrich). Too, I never realized that the republicans are supporting geneticists in their efforts to find pre-exisiting conditions in folk's DNA, thus debilitating the Affordable Care Act with neonatal logic.
Soy Beans to that!
9
And like vultures, these low population states get far more back then they give with respect to federal monies. What ever happened to one person, one vote?
6
Maybe if enough college students snuck over from Moorhead, and East Grand Forks? But alas they have their own Senator to vote for.
1
Good luck to her. She's got her work cut out, with all the none-too-subliminal Make America White Again bile still gurgling. Democrats should also be quite concerned about N.J., where a major ad campaign has targeted Senator Menendez--not the easiest person to defend. And they should do more to support Andy Kim's congressional campaign in N.J., which is also facing a barrage of negative ads.
2
So let me get this straight......the incumbent Dem will lose because DJT’s tariffs on soy beans (trade wars are good, and easy to win) and DJT providing $6 billion in relief to farmers.
Farmers now the new welfare queens and she loses her seat?
13
Until now, I had always thought that North Dakota was made entirely of cardboard, which would give a cardboardy Senate candidate a pretty good chance at victory. Thanks for the heads-up, Gail.
I realize that the Democratic Party wants as many senators caucusing them as possible, especially given the razor-thin margin of party control, but except for the foamy mouth and blood-dripping fangs, Ms. Heitcamp could easily pass for Republican any day.
Still, given the stakes, Go Heidi!
3
All states with two senators each. Another terrible mistake in the constitution.
3
A patch of Forest Hills small enough for me to crisscross--on foot--on a good morning has more people than N. Dakota. This 2-senator per state rule is so ludicrous that most Americans think it is normal--like a football team owner deciding what is or is not patriotic. Or like a POTUS who knows more about ISIS than the generals do. Or like a crooked real-estate agent using America like his personal cookie jar.
4
And Ted Yoho, Fl congressman, says that "only property owners should be allowed to vote". Conservatives are pushing us back to the agrarian period where only white men who own property can vote, and who also think that women should not be leaders, "that's a man's job".
Kevin Cramer, ND House rep, touts that 'good old time religion' and that we, society, have manged to pervert his God's natural law.
Conservatives have not evolved at all on any front. That seems to me to be a more serious violation, perversion even, of their God's Law.
9
I thought the state motto was “At least we’re not South Dakota”.
4
The scary thing is you don't have to be from North Dakota to that any candidate who wraps himself around this president is most certainly a no-go choice...Too bad not many vultures are found in swamps.
4
"Cardboardy."
Good thing that term popped up at the end or I would have thought Gail was talking about Mike Pence. But the photo should have been a giveaway. That white-haired old guy isn't staring at Trump in a state of phony vulture. Sorry, rapture.
There was no mention of Trump screaming about rioting if his present favorite servile white guy doesn't win. He must be off his game.
7
If you live in ND your vote in the House of Representatives is worth 1/53 as much as a Californian's. CA makes up 12.2% of the House and ND 0.2%. By the way, spending bills must originate in the House.
2
“North Dakota’s official motto is not really “Bigger than Wyoming.” We are fiends about accuracy and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea just because I made a joke. It’s “Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.” Although I believe many of you will agree that mine is better.”
Not only better, but in my estimation more accurate. Any group of people, the majority of whom voted for Trump certainly are not pro-Union (and I’m not talking about labor).
1
ND's state slogan “Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.” might as well end with ...so there South Dakota!
3
I don't know Gail, but I'm pretty sure North Dakota's official motto is "Gateway to South Dakota!"
2
“Republican Cramer, who frequently wraps himself around Trump like a famished boa constrictor...”
Cramer could never hug Trump as tightly as Trump hugs himself, and as he did this week in the Oval Office when journalists asked him for a statement of appreciation of John McCain. The double-arm-hug is a deeply defensive and fearful position in body language. Trump may feel less afraid while ranting to the faithful at his rallies, but as soon as he returns to Washington he reverts to his true self- a cowardly toddler bully who knows the “games up!”
5
typo: We will pause for a minute to let those of you who did not know crayons were made of soybeans a chance to catch up
1
I am not motivated, I do not care about America enough to spend any energy. I am an immigrant son and America is a mediocre place I live. America never goes for her better angels but rather succumbs to her worst demons. Torture, always preparing for war, an ignorant populace. Nope, I really don't care one bit who wins because Americans deserve the losers they vote for.
@Mogwai: And your choice of Eden is? Your attitude is what gets losers elected.
4
The supreme court is conservative catholic and mainly white with an insignificant liberal Jewish minority. State legislatures in the old confederate states are locked down by Republicans. Congressional districts are gerrymandered to lock in GOP control of national legislation. Democratic votes are severely reduced due to the elimination of the voting rights act which has allowed Republicans to purge voter rolls, reduce the number of voting precincts and precinct hours of operation, require voter ID to prevent voting by vulnerable populations and to manipulate voting ballots through the use of non-paper ballots. Add to that the enlisting of a foreign enemy to aid in throwing the presidential election in 2016 and the supreme court coup d'état of the presidential election in 2000 and you have a stunning example of how a fascist state can be installed in what was once considered the world's oldest and most stable democracy without firing a shot.
7
In my depths of despair over a total nincompoop, liar, narcissist and racist sitting in OUR OVAL OFFICE, I turn to Gail Collins for succor and am seldom disappointed.
Keep it up Gail.
9
It would be nice to keep Sen. Heitkamp in the Senate but it would be even nicer for the Democrats to take back the House.
On Nov. 6th vote to replace Maine's one do-nothing Republican House member with a smart, young Democrat --- Jared Golden.
By the way, our turkey vultures will soon begin migrating south. Quite a sight.
4
North Dakota and South Dakota used to belong to the Lakota and their Arapaho and Cheyenne allies. Eagles were sacred to them all. Both states carry the name of their ethnic kin the Dakota who mostly live in Minnesota.
Vultures are honorable birds who perform an essential ecological function. Bald Eagles have been known to scavenge and eat carrion. America's scientific ignorance dishonors scavengers and believes that draining a diverse productive swamp is a good thing.
MAGA dishonors and disrespects men like Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse, Two Moons, Lame White Man, Little Wolf, Little Crow, Quanah Parker, Lone Wolf, Satanta, Dull Knife and Little Raven.
160
In North Dakota, the Sioux, the Chippewa and the Three Affiliated Tribes mainly vote Democrat. Heitkamp and other Democrats take considerable note of issues that affect the tribes.
2
From the article....<<Yes. North Dakota’s population is about 755,000 residents. (State slogan: “Bigger than Wyoming!”)
Correction: North Dakota’s official motto is not really “Bigger than Wyoming.” We are fiends about accuracy and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea just because I made a joke. It’s “Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.” Although I believe many of you will agree that mine is better.>>
.
Very clever and divertente Gail… It’s this condescending tone that gives the Republicans the last laugh election after election and the press a bad name.
2
All bow down to the CSA! (Confederate States of America) Bigly, sad.
1
Crayons! Trump's favorite writing implement.
5
Cramer even wears the Trump red tie “uniform” Ick.
5
According to Wikipedia, North Dakota is the nation's biggest producer of dry beans, flaxseed, honey and #3 in lentils. Given California's health-obsessed eating habits, I modestly propose that its citizens take their "one person 1/50th of a vote" power and adopt a flatulence-free diet. This might help ND's citizens see the value of Heitkamp's (somewhat) more progressive politics.
4
First off the US is a market based economy and so is healthcare in this country.
Which means if you don't have enough paying customers per square mile, you get no clinics, hospitals or doctors unless a more populated area of the country subsidizes it.
Hence the federal government and Obamacare to try to level the playing field, after all unsubsidized healthcare insurance in Alaska costs three times what it does in Chicago and Chicago is not an inexpensive city.
As far as soybeans, the biggest gripe with China is intellectual property rights which affect mainly tech and big pharma companies who have billions and could fight their own wars.
Instead soybeans are in the cross fire because someone didn't think how of to fight or win the war before they started it.
As a famous general once said a battle is won or lost before the very first bullet is shot.
2
There is an obsession to control the smaller states, when the solution may lie somewhere else. New York and California, for example, are very large economies, certainly larger than Sweden and Denmark, the ideal social democratic societies. New York and California should be advocating for a small Federal Government and as little Federal taxation as possible (keep as much revenue to themselves). Use the Federal Government for what was originally intended for: common defense, interstate commerce, international commerce, and protection of basic rights. Then create the ideal social democracy in their own states. Nothing stopping New York or California from doing that, other than perhaps the rich people who lives in these states, and perhaps the upper middle class also, as they will try to avoid paying high taxes. New York and California, lead the way.
@3Rs I don’t kno that I am against that. Then I can move to where like people live and prosper. While the other states turn into the Balkans. For all I care.
The Senate races, North Dakota’s in particular, highlight the persistent flaw of the Great Compromise of 1787. That’s when each state having equal representation in the Senate became a part of the Constitution. It was necessary to establish our constitutional union, but serves no purpose today.
Except, that is, for the overrepresentation of people who live in states with small populations. As Ms. Collins points out, in the Senate both California and North Dakota have the same voting power. And North Dakota is not the smallest by population. Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming each has fewer people.
Let’s put that another way. California has the same number of people as the smallest 21 states by population—combined. But wait, the next most populous state, Texas, Senate equality takes combining the smallest 18 states’ population. Every state gets 2 Senators. So, unrepresentative democracy is bipartisan. It’s also antidemocratic.
America’s greatness is based on our values. One of those that has emerged from the strife and suffering of civil war, civil rights, and equal rights is a government that counts all votes equally.
How can we tolerate North Dakota’s citizens having 52 times more voting power than California's citizens when based on population? And Alaska’s 53 times more? And Vermont’s 63 times more? And Wyoming’s 69 times more? (Again, bipartisan.)
The Founders struck a compromise to establish the Constitution. They also empowered us to change it.
11
Once there was only Dakota, an organized incorporated territory. In 1869 it was divvied up into North Dakota and South Dakota. Was it because there were separate constituencies demanding separate recognition? No, it was because the Republicans who dominated Washington thought it would be a good idea to have four senators from a heavily Republican area instead of just two. So a Dakota senate vote equals 50 California votes, instead of a mere 25. The Dakotas are the poster twins for gerrymandering, now and forever more.
29
I truly wish people would stop cherry picking the constitution. One party can't gerrymand the Senate. Population based democracy could trample on minority rights in a heartbeat, as does the gerrymanded house.
4
Heitkamp is a DINO, just like Manchin and Donnelly. They helped the GOP install a torturer as head of the CIA and are helping Trump stack the courts with hard-right judges. The Democratic Party would do well without them.
3
No, Heidi Heitkamp is a moderate Democrat. She is noteworthy for being able to work with Democrats and a Republicans to get things done. A Democrat of the New York or California variety would have no chance whatsoever of winnng in North Dakota.
5
Montana, too. Trump is coming here next week to help unseat our two-term senator Jon Tester. Pence has been here several times. Our state motto is "Oro y Plata." It's all about the $$$.
5
@Jane Deschner Let’s hope they’d have no impact. Disgusting that they do these things. Tester is a good guy. Trump and Oence not so much.
2
The Dems in IN, MO, MT, ND, FL, MI, and OH, those who are endangered, still have not figured out a key political fact: Trump won because of immigration, and Dems are on the wrong side of the issue. Dems support sanctuary places. They support illegals. They are open-borders. That is going to damage many Dems this fall, and will blunt the "blue wave".
Oops. Ms. Collins raises a serious issue, not about vultures, which seem to populate all sections of the country smitten with politics, but with what “representation” means to the different houses of Congress. The House may well mean one person-one vote, but it also is saddled with what is called social contagion and the tendency of human electorates to be subject to fad and foible. The Senate was meant to represent something else—those among us who should be above it all—people like John McCain—perhaps a disappearing breed, but not because of constitutional provisions.
C’Mon, Ms. Collins. Like our expectations of members of the Senate, we don’t expect Times pundits, and especially you, to pander to the baser instincts of humankind—unless you can occasionally provide us with a refreshing laugh about it. North Dakota’s not funny. It’s—well—North.
2
Ms. Heitkamp is a Senator from North Dakota and she passes as a Democrat. When I heard about her vote on bank deregulation, I thought that sometimes she has trouble passing as a Democrat. That is my cynical take.
My realistic take on Ms. Heitkamp is that, like Hillary, she is an establishment Democrat. If Trump had lost, the bank a deregulation bill likely would have come up for a vote, Ms. Heitkamp would have voted in favor and President H. Clinton would have signed the bill.
1
Heitkamp is a moderate. She manages to work with people from both parties. Democrats in N.D. tend to be blue dogs or candidates who would look like liberal or moderate Republicans elsewhere. Until recently, Republicans in the state were on the moderate side for Republicans and might have been one time Democrats, until they were persuaded to switch parties for the good of their political careers. There seems to be a harder edged type of conservatism these days. I’m not sure if it arrived with the tea party or with Trump or is just part of the national zeitgeist. I’m certainly already seeing more obnoxious campaign ads paid for by big money groups outside the state for both Heitkamp and Cramer. They seem tone deaf to me and unlikely to persuade voters, but who knows? I think the vast majority of voters have their minds made up already and won’t change their votes.
57
@Bookworm8571 I hope they have decided to stay with Heitkamp as Cramer seems out of the mainstream. I would hope Midwesterners of ND mettle would be smarter than falling for the currently deplorable GOP. As far as I can tell they have no policies for the people, except the wealthy, or the country.
2
I couldn’t explain the current political trend if I tried. My take on the state used to be that we elected Republicans to the state legislature to set state policy and Democrats to Congress to bring home the farm funding. Assuming that the President remains Republican and Congress is controlled by Republicans, there are advantages to having our Senators and Representative also Republican. Heitkamp is extremely well liked on a personal level, has a long history in state politics and both she and Cramer have a lot of name recognition. The race is going to be close. I couldn’t guess who will win. People here are conservative and many are also religious and they are also as interested in the Supreme Court and social and cultural issues as any other conservative.
2
I can think of all kinds of cliches: Be careful for what you wish for. The devil you know is better than the one you don't. Just to name two. But the one thing I think the people of North Dakota and many other places should do is think about this: If everyone who represents you, if all our leaders all think exactly the way Trump does, what will that look like? If the leaders for your state cannot think, speak, or act outside the Trump box where are we headed? If the leaders in all the other organizations you are familiar with all acted the exact same way as their president ( your job, your school, your church, and your child's sports team to name a few) what would that look like? If you went to school and offered suggestions to your child's teachers and they responded by threatening to or actually withholding help for your child, how would you feel? If your pastor saw a person from somewhere else or a person of color and you were told in the sermon to get them the hell out of here, what would you do? And if your child struck out and cost the team the game and was called a loser by the coach, what would you do? The bottom line is , sooner or later, you have to be willing to say "I will not accept in my leaders what I will not accept in my pastor, boss, child's teacher or coach". And then vote like your soul depends on it. Once you sell your soul, not much is left. Show your fellow citizens you still have your soul.
10
Thank you for a perky, funny column and take on politicians. I can always count on you for a good healthy chuckle.
Since I can be a treasure trove of trivia I did know that soybeans are how Crayola crayons are now made and the reason behind it. All good.
I believe all the political rhetoric that is out there across our nation is the reason why we had excessive heat this past summer as well as climate change. Washington D.C. broke some records regarding high temperatures and other parts of our country too. I bet meteorological charts will prove my theory. They may match up to GOP gerrymandering districts.
1
The first imperative for democrats if they win big in November is to fight for legislation to change the electoral college system. Let's get that done before 2020. There are so many wrongs they have to right that were perpetrated by this destructive administration: the dismantling of the ACA, immigration policies, rampant disregard for the environment, relations with our international friends, our schools and children, and so much more.
We need to operationalize our commitment to each vote counting. Enough of the antiquated vestiges of a country of slavery, in every possible way. We have a "leader" now who spits at the constitution, and believes the amendments start with the 2nd. Dissent is our precious right, and I want to see a president who respects that very basic right of our once-democratic nation.
Oh, and Gail, you're the best!
3
I'm with you all the way, till this closing quip: "If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s. Which is super fine with all of them."
Mark Twain said of Wagner's music that's it better than it sounds, but I must say that the above line sounds better than it is.
Some parts of the country will naturally be more sparsely populated than others. In most cases, they support valuable economic activities -- or at least wholesome ones -- that are suited to a high ratio of land to people, such as soybean farming.
The people who live in those areas need their senators to compensate in some degree for being completely overwhelmed in the House of Representatives. (I'm not trying to be brilliant, just recalling what we all learned in civics class.) Otherwise they'd be a permanent political underclass, wholly dependent on the willingness of politicians from densely-populated areas to consider their regional interests. We need to remember that the great issues affecting "the nation's future" are not all that's decided in Congress.
If you had managed a line about the unfairness of the Electoral College system, it would have been more welcome.
5
@Longstaffe: Agreed. We were taught in social studies (the successor to civics) that the Senate existed to give an equal voice to all states. The House is there to represent "the people" equally.
The trouble is that the House has fallen victim to gerrymandering, so that millions of people residing in so-called red states have been completely disenfranchised for years. It's one of the reasons voter turn-out is so low. People tire of going to the polls to cast what is essentially a symbolic vote. They see the concrete proof that their votes do not count in districts that have been designed by Republicans to prevent Democrats from ever achieving a majority.
Texas, for example, is heavily gerrymandered & has one of the lowest voter turn-outs in the country. Canvassing for the Democrat Mike Siegel (running for Congress in Texas 10), I often hear my fellow Democrats laugh cynically & say, "Going up against McCaul in his safe district? Good luck!" People are aware of how they have been manipulated; they know "their" Congressman doesn't represent them at all, but they figure they have already lost to big money, so why bother to vote at all?
It is this attitude of surrender that keeps Dems out of power here. They don't see change & they are now cynical enough to believe that it will never happen. That is what Trumpublicans are counting on in November: that Dems will continue to stay at home & continue to allow them to dictate the terms of government, rather than fight back.
3
If you want to know the character of a man, watch him drive his golf cart across a putting green.
14
@NA
And cheat. Just a taste from the Washington Post:
“Golf is like bicycle shorts: It can reveal a lot about a guy,” said Rick Reilly, the sportswriter who hit the links with Trump for his 2004 book “Who’s Your Caddy?” — in which Reilly lugged clubs for several of the world’s best golfers and VIP amateurs.
As for Trump? “When it comes to cheating, he’s an 11 on a scale of one to 10,” Reilly said.
12
Vultures are important not just to nature but to cops, as well. On days when the temperature tops 100 Fahrenheit, and when cops are hitting the roads in Kansas trying to clear missing person cases among the endless cornstalks, whatever would they do without those circling turkey vultures?
Gail needs to occasionally pook her head back into reality, and by that I’m not suggesting reality SHOWS. It’s not that Obama was destroyING his party with an overambitious healthcare bill that needed to be (barely) rammed in 2010 despite virulent rejection of it by over half the people at the time – he actually DESTROYED his party with it over three election cycles, and some would argue four although I’d say that Hillary did that in the fourth all by her lonesome. But Republicans appear to have twigged to the fact that once you make the mistake of allowing a new entitlement to be passed – ANY large entitlement, not just the ACA – and permit a sizable constituency to become dependent on it … you can’t just repeal it without providing equivalent benefits; not and politically survive, anyway. So I don’t expect future repeal attempts. They’ll just let it be an old soldier, and just … fade away.
You start messing with trade, there will be winners and losers. But with all Trump’s recent success in this area, it appears that damage will be kept to a minimum. If Sen. Heitkamp wants to be re-elected in North Dakota, she might consider firing up the hashtag #ForeverTrump! …
1
… As to a Californian’s vote being worth 1/50th of what a North Dakotan’s is worth in the U.S. Senate going solely by relative populations, a lot of Americans might consider that about right, not wanting to be governed by California. Our founders resolved that states would COUNT for something in their brave new world … and they still do.
3
And telephone poles are the state tree.
It's not just the Senate. With only one member in the House of Representatives, they have more representation per person than most of the states. But, to give every American equal representation in the lower house would require increasing the total number of representatives. Not necessarily a great let alone good idea. Too many cooks, broth and all that.
There's an analogy in here somewhere involving Senators and their states' populations and the "0.1%" that I think Gail needs to tackle in her own get-right-to-the-point way.
Thanks, Gail, for researching a local scene we all need to know about.
As for "a state with fewer people than Indianapolis gets to determine a large chunk of the nation’s future," how about a column on why we should get rid of the senate altogether?
4
Hey now, I'm a North Dakotan, and it's not at all fine with me that our state is overrepresented in the Senate (or that bigger states are underrepresented, depending on how we look at it). But I'll skip a diatribe on how outdated our constitution is and focus on the more important issue: Kevin Cramer is a horrible person who uses his office to enrich himself and his friends, while Senator Heitkamp toils endlessly for the betterment of our state. Not only is she likable, but she's smart, determined, and a fierce advocate for our farming community - small, independent farms especially.
A quick anecdotal story: I've asked some friends if they're going to vote for Heidi, and they look at me with a puzzled stare and reply with some version of the banal statement, "ND votes Republican. I've always voted Republican." I remind them that obviously that is not true since Heidi won in 2012, and moreover, this rural state used to be one of the most progressive in the nation. They respond by trying to change the subject.
So I urge the democratic party to look back on the progressive policies that make ND work, primarily the State bank and the State Mill & Grain Elevator. Cramer actually wants to privatize those engines that keep our state running, while Heidi defends what works while also trying to move us into the 21st century by (for ex.) cultivating more renewable power (wind) instead of oil (which destroys farmland). Let's talk about the issues, and Heidi will win again!
430
@Eric I’ve always wondered how North Dakota went from the Non Partisan League to becoming a conservative bastion. I assume much of it is the politics of abortion?
5
@Eric
Thanks for reminding us Easterners that ND was more progressive. You do have a lot of wind to harness; we have a lot more gas.
And thanks also for letting us know that Cramer wants to privatize industries: just how surreal can politics get? He's dumb, granted, but has no one explained to him that he's espousing the central, failed vision of a Communist state?
4
@Eric
You need to ask your friends, why ND always votes Republican, what is in it for them. Also if you can, get Senator Heitkamp to as many of those farm towns as you can, let her talk to the people personally. In a state li ND getting to know and talk directly to the candidate is the best campaign tactic. Let the GOP air their attack ads, and let the candidate refute them in person.
Not too many Sundays left, but get her to go meet the people leaving church in the larger towns and talk to them personally, a warm friendly meeting that says I am here to hear you, and will represent you, is worth thousands of votes.
1
"If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s."
Sounds to this old man as though something not fair about that. Not fair being the category of things first called attention to by toddlers a number of whom eventually join folks who finally look to the Constitution for a solution.
(Other toddlers start packing heat, but that's its own sidebar which the framers and Scotus appear to have addressed.)
But the Constitutional route partakes of interminability. Not to say that it shouldn't be embarked upon. It should. Just plan for only today's grandchildren being around at resolution.
In the meanwhile, how 'bout publicizing this piece in CA urging Golden Staters to restore some balance immediately in the grand scheme of things. But for each of them to
immediately augment there own influence by a yuge factor.
How? By relocating to North Dakota! And, yes, the first to pull up their small influence stakes will get the largest augmentation but there's still a long way to go from 1/50th to might as well stay put, waiting for tectonic plates to dump your house into the ocean.
Think about it!
3
Ms. Collins very good. However I think that possibly another North Dakota person - your copy editor perhaps, letting Grand Central Station creep into the article, where those from New Yoooork know it is Grand Central Terminal.
4
@Charleston Yank It is, in fact, Grand Central Terminal. We in New York, like Gail Collins, call it Grand Central Station (if we call it anything at all).
4
I can understand how it might make some sense to have a body of Congress where members only come up for election every six years. But the reasoning behind all states, regardless of population, having the same number of voting members in that body totally escapes me. What am I missing?
3
@Jeff Atkinson
What you're missing is that the Senate was not supposed to represent the people directly but the states themselves as representatives overseeing the covenant with the federal government. If you check your Constitution you'll see that Senators were originally appointed by their state legislatures. The 17th Amendment changed that to selection by popular vote.
That created the problem we have of the Senate being for sale just as the founders knew the House of Representatives would be. The House has precedence over the Senate since it represents the people. The Senate cannot recess without the permission of the Speaker Of The House of Representatives but the House cannot pass bills without the oversight of the Senate. This was to ensure that the for sale Representatives would not be able to harm the states.
The equality of two Senators per state allowed the smaller states to form blocs to counter legislation that the larger states would run roughshod over the smaller states.
Another example of how the founders cared about the minority opinion. Too bad we screwed it up with the 17th Amendment. Not completely but it is damaged.
North Dakota, the land where sunshine in the winter is rare! Or so said a friend of mine who moved to the sunny Southwest many years ago. The daughter of Norwegian immigrants, she was a Republican. But now, not so much. Farming is in her blood and being from a farming family, she is having a hard time with Trump. And not just for that. Whereas many Republicans do not want to acknowledge the cruelty of family separations, that is what has changed her mind. Not Republicans anymore....she says.
6
Once you move outside of the Liberal journalist-activist east and west coasts, Trump is still loved by much of the real USA. The real USA wants better trade deals, better jobs, lower taxes and legal immigration and Trump is delivering.
2
@P McGrath
Sorry P McGrath,
I'm born and raised in New York City, and am an unabashed liberal. That does not make me any less a "real" American than you.
And judging by that fact that trump got into office with nearly three million less votes than his opponent, and that his poll numbers are the lowest ever for any president at this point in his administration, the "real" USA is at best conflicted about this wretched excuse for a presidency.
10
@P McGrath The real USA is full of farmers, including many in my family, whose incomes are down this year due to Trump's tariffs, who are having difficulty hiring folks to work their acreage and saw little from the tax cuts. And we are not elitist snobs who discount our fellow citizens on the coasts as not being part of the "real USA".
11
The trade deals are, in FACT, tariff wars that are hurting American workers.
The tax cuts were overwhelmingly for the rich and the corporations. Many people saw their taxes go UP, while others gained very little!
Trump is throttling even legal immigration. Plus, he has instituted harsh, unwarranted policies that are putting children in cages, separating children from their parents, disrupting the lives of U.S. citizens, denying them passports, etc. He traffics in outright lies about undocumented immigrants who, contrary to his falsehoods, have lower crime rates, work hard, pay taxes, and have spurred growth. Most came here because they were fleeing desperate economic, political, and violent conditions, yet he would turn his back on them. Hardly a Christian or ethical thing to do!
By the way, how do you like the FACT that he continues to hire *FOREIGN* workers for his resorts rather than American ones?!
Or, the FACT that most of those Carrier jobs he promised to save were lost anyway?
Or, that there is NO wall and that Mexico will NEVER pay for it?
Or, that he promised health insurance for ALL at LOWER premiums and BETTER health care?! Yet, he backed Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare and throw over 20 million people off the insurance rolls?!
Or, that he promised to “drain the swamp”, but has appointed the most corrupt cabinet in U.S. history?!
Oh, yeah! He's making America great again alright — for his corporate cronies.
Don't be conned by Don the Con!
8
Always amusing to read liberal columns and opinions that decry the existence of small, red-leaning states that get two Senators. Please. places like VT and RI have foisted two lefty-democrats on us year after year. I don't see anyone saying Bernie should be sent home. Of course, the best are the calls to change the constitution so that the Senate devolves into the House - so short-sighted and totally devoid of an understanding of how the current system keeps us from jolting Left or Right.
2
Most progressives would have no problem limiting the number of Senators that such small Democratic states have, too!
There is a principle involved here. Unlike amoral conservatives and Trump diehards, we seek a fair and democratic system, not a partisan one.
I'll repeat my earlier proposal. A state gets *two* Senators only if its population is over 3 million people.
And, we must grant D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood or, at least, the ability to vote in Congressmen and Senators to represent them!
See my previous post for the list of states and populations.
8
we've had states split, can't we have them merge?
"The Carolinas" has sort of a romantic ring so we'll let them stay. Especially since NC is turning blue...
pretty much the whole red middle of the map could IdaMonaWyNdNb...
What I just don't understand about states like North Dakota are poulation that are more religious than their urban counterparts. Yet, they just can't get enough of Trump, whose behavior continually falls into the blasphemous category.
20
I'm sure that one person fifty votes is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind.
2
The biggest vulture of all is Donald J. trump .
But he is the meekest one of all internally , this weekend he is hiding inside his self created cubicle , sulking.
McCain`s farewell the President was not invited but two of the two other Presidents are invited to pay respect.
2
Another great Collins column. However, included in the list of small population states where citizens' votes count more than they do in populous states are many blue states: Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, besides South Dakota and Wyoming. Could probably add Hawaii and NH. Let's concentrate on changing or eliminating the electoral college. http://www.ipl.org/div/stateknow/popchart.html#statesbypop
5
@Leslie M
"Let's concentrate on changing or eliminating the electoral college."
As soon as you figure out a way to keep California, New York and four other states from selecting our president forever.
@NYHUGUENOT
Iowa should continue to have that distinction?
I think N & S Dakota should be made into one state. It can be part of a election fairness renewal that will include DC residents representation in Congress. N&S Dakota have near 0 diversity and don't have terribly different interests. They do not need 4 senators when some of us have none (in spite of paying more federal taxes on average than they do).
As for soybeans, did you know the #1 ingredient in mayonnaise these days is soybean oil? Soy, like corn, is primarily poison for the human body. After learning this, I quit eating soy and corn. That was just a month ago and I've already seen a visible decrease in inflammation and some improvement in other symptoms. We need less representation for corn and soy and more for diverse crops... uniting the Dakotas would be one step in that process.
8
Soy is “primarily poison”?!
First I’ve heard of that. It would surprise millions, if not billions of Chinese, Japanese, people.
Any links, references, citations, evidence, or plausible explanation?!
3
@Stephanie Bradley
I suggest doing a web search - you'll find 1000s of references. It can cause thyroid problems among many other things. I love soy - I consumed it every day for decades and it was not easy for me to give up. The fact that Asians eat tofu is not comparable to how mass-produced soy is baked into American processed foods. Fermented soy (like soy sauce) is not as problematic, unless it's genetically modified and sprayed like it is on industrial farms.
Sounds as if the motto of North Dakota when it comes to the Senate should be "Bigger than California." Heidi Heitkamp is a centrist Democrat with two big issues (as you note)--health care and trade--in her favor. The Democrats have been winning on health care and basic economic issues nationally and Heitkamp is personable and shrewd enough to make it work for her in North Dakota. The more Trump visits, the more it will remind voters of his toxic policies including incarcerating innocent young children and failing to reunite them with their parents (remember "family values), and his equally nasty personality. Heitkamp looks OK, but then there's Joe Donnelly in Mike Pence's Indiana and Claire McCaskill in Missouri. Let's hope the voters revulsion for Donald Trump will ignite "a prairie fire" that carries these Democrats back into office.
4
I believe in strong minority dissent, but our two senators a state, regardless of population, is extreme. This situation allows for minority rule with majority dissent--an undemocratic system of representation, to say the least. Of course the GOP benefits from this form of representation since much of their support is in lightly populated western states.
Our forefathers made provisions for minority dissent, and they were correct. But they could not visualize the expansion of the nation and the extreme change in demographics.
I believe it is time to rectify this senate situation so that it is more representative of present population numbers.
Unfortunately, such a remedy for an obvious fault in our governing body's population representation, stands as much a chance as that proverbial snowball.
5
Agreed! They should combine several Western states for senatorial representation. Or, as that won't fly, set up, via Constitutional amendment, minimum population thresholds to have *two* Senators.
In the meantime, grant D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood and split California in two. That would give the Democrats a well deserved six more Senators!
@Stephanie Bradley
"In the meantime, grant D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood and split California in two. That would give the Democrats a well deserved six more Senators!"
That's precisely why it will never happen. When we last added states out was because one state was predominately Democrat while the other was predominately Republican.
1
“Bigger than Wyoming” is a catchier state slogan than “Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.” But the best one yet would be “We flipped the Senate!”
234
Gail, I doubt you'll hear Melania complaining about her husband spending so much time in North Dakota without her.
Until this column I admit I had never heard of Kevin Cramer but then there are so many of these miscreants in the Republican party it is hard to keep up with all of them.
Something horrible happened to people like Kevin Cramer, maybe it was in childhood. Surely you don't become a full grown Republican without some trauma in your life.
25
How about the 700,000 residents of our nations capital that have no representation in Congress at all? I think any mention of the obsurdity of our “democracy” needs to include mention of this little known fact.
56
Two senators for 755,000 people while California has two senators for 37 million people. THIS is why our system is broken and we have an illegitimate president and Congress.
29
There are more people living in the Town of Hempstead, NY than live in the entire state of North Dakota. That is astounding. Seems to me that if just a few handfuls of thinking people moved to North Dakota and Wyoming and voted there, we could quickly say bye bye to Mitch McConnell and the rest of the radical right senators and representatives who get to Washington on extremely skewed (and ultimately unfair) voting systems and then go on to support and back authoritarian thugs. Come on people!
10
I was skeptical at first, but Hempstead, NY's population is, indeed, more than North Dakota’s!
See
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/hempsteadtownnassaucountyne...
2
@Phinneas Maybe it would be more effective for large donors who support the Democratic Party to aid the movement to states like North Dakota of those voters who would vote for Democratic candidates. They might get a better return on their investment.
Everything he learned - He learned from Roy Cohn ...
9
Ahhh...the Republican life...
The photo accompanying the essay shows Cramer in the Evangelical pose...
Soy beans indeed—- more like Soylent Green.
Thanks again Gail —- time for another Xanax.
14
Ms. Collins, another insightful, condescending column! You insult North Dakotans and whine about how the Constitution provides for Senatorial representation. I guess democracy doesn't work unless your politicians are favored by it.
1
The Senatorial representation was developed at a time when there were only 13 states and they were not that disparate in population!
It's time for a change.
Plus, if you want to play the “originalist” card, keep in mind that the people weren't even allowed to vote for and choose their own Senators until the early 20th century! The Constitution, before it was then amended, had state legislatures choose Senators.
When half the Senate now represents only 18% of the population, it is definitely time for a change!
4
Gail,
In your inimitable style of entertaining and insightful essays, you remind us, of the fundamental flaw in our democracy.
No matter how much one tries to imagine how the current representative government could be redefined so that we could achieve an ideal electoral process where every adult would have the right of being counted as one vote, it seems impossible.
The concept of a Republic created to circumvent the notion that all citizens, declared to be eligible to vote, would count as much in a slaveholding state economy as a non-slave holding state economy, seems to have evolved to a permanent chokehold on democracy.
I have listened to the arguments on low vs high population states dozens of times over the last 50 years and witnessing all of the actual results of this irrational structure, but, as of this date, the phenom of the 2016 election and the obviously skewed results of our gerrymandered districts have created a democratic government that does not represent the polled preference of the American people: notably, a majority of Americans want good affordable healthcare, a good education for their children, a government that will endeavor to protect the environmental commons of air and water including research and development of systems that will help the U.S. and the world transition away from burning fossil fuels, and most of all provide a livable wage and fair share of the economic success of the U.S.
It is frustrating! The solution is to vote 11/6.
555
@james jordan
James you touch on a very important issue that no one seems to talk about and that Gail highlights. States were an apparatus for the formation of the country, but after almost 250 years, we have never reassessed their value and more importantly their fairness in a Democracy. If one of these states or 5 of these states, in a geographic region, that is inhospitable to large numbers of taxpayers, looses so many citizens that their population is 1/10th of other states, do they get the same number of Senate seats? Representational Democracy was a necessity of the 19th and 20th century, but as technology make the world a smaller place, do I need to be represented? I say no! One person, one vote.
3
Or, at least, give them only 1 Senator until they have over 3 million people. That would also have the benefit of making the Senate much smaller.
By the way, Washington, D.C. should have voting Congressmen and Senators as should Puerto Rico, with its over 3 million U.S. citizens!
Puerto Rico has more people than *21* states!
Puerto Rico 3,411,307
Iowa 3,134,693
Utah 3,051,217
Mississippi 2,988,726
Arkansas 2,988,248
Nevada 2,940,058
Kansas 2,907,289
New Mexico 2,081,015
Nebraska 1,907,116
West Virginia 1,831,102
Idaho 1,683,140
Hawaii 1,428,557
N. Hampshire 1,334,795
Maine 1,331,479
Rhode Island 1,056,426
Montana 1,042,520
Delaware 952,065
South Dakota 865,454
North Dakota 757,952
Alaska 741,894
D.C. 681,170
Vermont 624,594
Wyoming 585,501
2
@james jordan Actively support, give money to and vote for ALL democrats!
1
We will see what happens in the mid term elections and that is all we can do. The economy is booming with the highest consumer confidence since 2005, unemployment is the lowest in 50 years, companies are investing in their employees with stock, bonuses and wages have been increasing. Both Target and Walmart are reporting the highest earnings in history and that defines Middle America and the working blue collar man unlike the coastal elites. May the people who promise no socialism win.
4
@Jan Socialism: as in all the agricultural subsidies that the tax paying 'coastal elites' give your farmers? The only 'coastal elites' I know of are Trump's bankster and real estate pals.
32
@Jan
Wages are flat despite what some Trumpists claim.
27
@Jan Consumer confidence was high in 2005 because lax first and second mortgage financing criteria along with a housing bubble created the illusion that they were wealthier and led consumers to raid their burgeoning 'piggy banks'. While unemployment is the lowest in 50 years, companies are NOT investing in their employees. The great majority are buying back their own stock and the bonuses are one time shiny objects mostly going to the higher ups. Real wages have been flat for decades and any recent gains will be wiped out by inflation and higher consumer prices occasioned by Trump's loony tariff wars. WalMart is a privately held corporation and the rapacious Walton family will pocket the profits, pay their workers a pittance more and continue to suckle at the public teat because we taxpayers pay for the Medicaid many of their employees are on. There is an economic reckoning coming and it won't be pretty, especially for "Middle America and the blue collar man".
26
Heitkamp supporting legislation to ease regs that restrict small bank lending? Ironically, her efforts may not be enough to help those banks soon to be stuck with carry-over loans to farmers unable to cover their 2018 crop line of credit- due to the collapse in Soy bean prices.
A conundrum for sure. Still think she will win, because of unintended consequences from DT's trade war with China. North Dakota voters will soon realize voting for Trump was a mistake when they discover those small banks can't approve next year's crop lines due to the sudden preponderance of classified loans on their books!
Hope for an improvement in Soy bean prices now seems to rest solely on demand for Crayons! Good luck North Dakota!
12
Thanks, Ms. Collins - another good one. I've read a lot of the comments and certainly agree that it's about time we considered some changes to the Constitution pertaining to population vs representation. However, let's be careful what we wish for - we already know the GOP has a very serious problem with basic math, truth in numbers, census questions, etc. If left to the current administration to make these Constitutional changes, they'd try their best to convince us that half of California and New York have moved to Alaska and North Dakota. A mass exodus from all the high population areas happened before our very eyes!
58
Because our vote is worth less in populous states it's more important that more of us vote. Resist and vote!
8
Let North Dakota vote against their own self interest. Just don’t come whining or expecting a farm bailout or showing up at the er for treatment when you’re in need.
14
@Brad: Until now, North Dakotans voted for pragmatism, reason and a senator who truly knows and represents her constituents and they know her. I would just encourage them to keep it that way.
1
First things first, Gail. The revocation of the Electoral College’s moldy accreditation should be #1., followed by the inherently undemocratic two Senators per state constitutional relic you refer to.
2
As a North Dakotan, I love this!!!!!
2
“We will pause for a minute to let those of you who did not know crayons were made of soybeans a chance to catch up.”
Thank you. In this political season, a breathless pause that is NOT accompanied by a fiery curse and the sound of my head smacking a wall is a real luxury.
3
Re vultures, North Dakota soybeans, Elections and Happy September, Gail! No one but Trump's legions has a bone to pick with you over your marvelous paean to Senator Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota. We see the unutterably awful present of President Trump all around us from sea to shining sea. Only our votes will lift us to a better life than we have led under the no longer Grand Old Party viz McConnell, Ryan, Pence. OK, we're talking about elections today, but also about the ongoing obsequies of Senator John McCain and blessed American singer Aretha Franklin on view during her magnificent funeral in Detroit, basking in the adoration of the multitudes, in her bright red Christian Laboutins! We have the power of the vote, fellow Americans. Like Arby's has the beef! Regime change in America will only happen if we Americans hie to the polls in two months and cast our ballots against America's never-before-seen ignorant and tyrannical 45th President.
9
Ok people be a bit less snarky. North Dakota, at one point, was a nuclear powerhouse during the Cold War. Has a great and affordable education system, affordable housing, open space, clean air, good hardworking people, and reasonable senators such as Heidi Heitkamp. Let us also not forget, because he has, he asked he to ride on Air Force One to ND and his praise.
3
Bigger than Wyoming. Smaller than Indianapolis. Also smaller than The Bronx!! Tell me again how we need the Electoral College to protect the states with almost no people from the states awash with people. But never mind. With global warming and rising seas the good people of Wyoming and North Dakota might find themselves with lots of new neighbors retreating from the coasts. Imagine that.
7
Some have "it" and some don't.
If Ms Clinton had left her husband as soon as Ms Nordegren left hers it would be a different player featured on the links each weekend.
No guts, no glory
@Ian MacFarlane: Who is Ms Clinton and who is her husband and what does that have to do with North Dakota's senatorial elections?
2
Ms. Collins reminds me that it is just as important as to where you vote than whether you vote. I'm old. I have a useless PhD. I worked in AI before it was popular and taken over by young guys (the old ones made fun of me for being in a not serious CS field). Once again, I'm moving to find cheaper(er) housing. I'm wondering: Texas (go Beto go!), Colorado, Wyoming? I'd like to have my vote count once before I die. Open to suggestions....
21
@Suz Newton
Move here!
@Suz Newton
Come to Lafayette CO, a perfect spot in which to grow older. Great services and a host of interesting people from everywhere. Even New Yorkers like me.
Check us out!
@Suz Newton
Try Canada. Wait, tho', until we get prortional distribution of representation according to voting percentages. Trudeau used to declare that was his first goal. Now, as polls show he has lost that potential leverage, he's agin it...
Let me get this straight. Crayons are made out of soybeans. North Dakota sends 2/3 of its soybeans to China. So are our children using Chinese crayons in school? How does that Make America Great?
5
No. Chinese kids are using American crayons.
Heitkamp is illustrative of the adage that the worst Democrat is better than the best Republican. North Dakota is emblematic of everything that is wrong with the Senate. 700,000 have the same number of senators as the millions of Californians or New Yorkers. The system set up to placate southern slaveholders now hamstrigns our progress and allows 70% of the Senate to be controlled by 30% of the population.
33
Years ago, book stores sold large maps of the United States on white paper. Inside the outline of each state was only the name of the state and the state capital with a dot by the capital.
The idea was that after you visited a state, you selected one of your petroleum-based crayons and colored in the state.
Being careful to stay within the state outline was the only hard part. Planning your colors so you didn’t end up with two green states next to each other was for long-range thinkers.
In Ohio, you never met a kid whose map had North Dakota colored in.
You never dreamed that one day the future of the entire country would depend upon North Dakota and a woman named Heidi.
14
Maybe Kevin Cramer could tack toward 'crayons made with beautiful clean petroleum products are safer for kids than those made with soil encrusted soy beans'.
Just a thought. And one that a Republican could safely float to his base.
2
I love your columns, Gail. But please, Grand Central Station? Acceptable for a tourist, but you write for a NY paper. It's Grand Central Terminal. Or just Grand Central. But not Station.
Sometimes your wit is what gets me through the latest barrage of news. And I have always enjoyed the exchanges with conservative colleagues like Arthur Brooks and Bret Stephens. We need all the sane voices we can get, given how precipitously their number has dropped since He-who-shall-not-be-named became our fearful leader.
3
We are not quite a democracy. Dump the Electoral College and we stand a chance.
15
I’ll comment on just one point mentioned here. The founders realized that our country was not just made up of individuals, but rather organized into entities called states. Hence the name of our country is the UNITED STATES of America. And I dare say that even though the idea of “states rights” has caused many difficulties in our country ( our Civil War comes to mind), I, for one, am glad that my state can enact regulations that “protect” it’s citizens from what others in other parts of the country would rather have in their states.
The founders recognized the reality of both individuals and individual states, and chose to give representation to both. The House of Representatives by population ( if not gerrymandered, sigh!), and equality among state entities with equal representation in the Senate. Is it perfect? No. But it’s worked fairly decently for a couple of centuries so far.
6
Most of the Founders were Virginian slaveholders, and the Slave Power strongly influenced them to insure that the South would be strongly represented in this new country. They even ensured that although slaves themselves could not vote, their population would partially count towards representation in Congress. Hence, each enslaved black male counting as three fifths of a man(white man) written into the Constitution.
1
@BH
The 3/5ths compromise and “bowing” to states rights in many aspects was perhaps the only way to keep America together after the Articles of Confederation” just didn’t work out. The Constitution provided for a stronger Federal Government but to secure southern approval some compromises had to be made insuring some states rights (even slavery!)
As I said, it ain’t perfect.
@SAH
A compromise prevents the good from being done because it's not perfect.
The founders in Article 1 Section 9 mandated that there would be no more importation of slaves after January 1, 1807. It was their intent to see slavery ended but knew it could not be done immediately.
I think they knew that it would eventually die out on its own due to automation and slaves running to the free states. The cotton gin for example eliminated many slave positions. Eventually machines would pick the crops as well.
Musing on North Dakota's wee population -- and the fee-fi-fo-fum of its votes. Manhattan, the smallest of New York City's five boroughs (23 square miles!) has a population of 1.6 million people.
Really, is this the representation we fought for back then?
186
@Rea Tarr
Perhaps you are confusing the methodology of statewide citizen representation to our federal government. By design, representation to the House of Representatives is determined by population within a state. To balance the power of highly populated states, the Senate is equally represented by 2 senators from each state. Seems like a time tested decision to me.
4
Besides which, without that compromise, the Constitution would not have been ratified in 1789 and there would have been no United States. And those calling for the end to the Electoral College should save their collective breath. The remainder of the country is not going to cede the selection of the President to California and New York. For better or worse, the rest of the country voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
1
@Rea Tarr
1.6 million = population of N&S Dakota combined. I just wrote a comment on merging the two states for fairness in representation.
1
The only senate race 538 got wrong in 2012 was North Dakota, which Heidi Heitkamp was not supposed to win. So while the blue team should take this race very seriously, they can also take heart that the good senator has done it before.
11
Any candidate who can successfully manage to communicate which policies are actively hurting their constituents might have a chance at a win.
But I doubt that it will be many.
I have listened to people on Medicare decry government insurance. I have listened to people tell me that we to cut Medicaid from "those people" who are takers, and tell me I am wrong when I point out that many increases in cost come from the vast cost of caring for elderly in nursing homes. The speaker's mother, for instance.
I hear people tell me that at last someone is standing up for America against all those anti-American forces giving us a bad deal, even though it will mean that they don't get a good job this year, again. And I have heard the economy is burning white hot, even as I know not a single 50 year old who has been absorbed back into the economy in a similar capacity or at a living wage.
I hear the lies and distortions, spoken as gospel. Good luck Senator Heitkamp; but good news too. You only have to convince 377, 501 people to agree with you.
87
I have never been to North Dakota, but I watched Fargo. It seems like Heidi Heitkamp is the Frances McDormand character and Kevin Cramer more like the Steve Buscemi character. If North Dakotan's don't want to end up in the wood chipper they should vote for Heitkamp.
84
@Ronny I liked your comment but most of Fargo took place in Minnesota.
2
It seems as if every candidate, in every election, has always declared the upcoming one to be, 'the most important of our lives.' It also seems that all of those previous statements were
akin to crying wolf compared to what we're facing now. This, truly, is the big one, folks. At least until we get to the next one.
Let's all do our best to ensure its outcome gets us out and keep us out of this ever deepening ditch while we still can.
31
As much as I disagreed with Heitkamp's vote on Banking Regullation, this column does illuminate how important that Senators not forget what helps their constituency. I just wish that it was not a vote that does not take into consideration what benefits all of the population of said State.
I also believe that there should be two Senators from each State. Population in each State is reflected by the number of House members. The Senate's responsibilities are different than the House responsibilities.
That all said, Heitkamp is right to harp on the Health Care issue.
And any other issue that affects the every day North Dakotan.
She should point out her opponents stands on why he is not fit to represent North Dakota in the Senate despite his ties to trump.
She is going to win, despite the fact that Trump is supporting her opponent, because she actually cares about the State and its constituency.
Hopefully there wil be a vote to get rid of the Electoral College. That is what is doing our Nation in. Two illegitimate Presidents have been the result of that insane set up.
Go Heidi.
43
@Jean Getting rid of the Electoral College would require an amendment to the Constitution. Dream on!
@Jean
We're not going to let New York and California pick our presidents forever. The Electoral College stays.
As visionary as our founding fathers were, they is was no way they could for see the current debacle of the creation of our legislative branches. I'm certain the dominance of a small sparsely populated state like ND in comparison to a behemoth like California could not be considered in their era. Although the constitution is supposed to be a living and breathing document, much has to be done to create a more balanced system of representation. There needs to be some type of flexibility to fix this issue.
48
@Curt
" much has to be done to create a more balanced system of representation."
Every state has two Senators. How much more balanced can it get?
N. Dakota has one Representative and California has 55. Where's the balance in that?
Thank you for this article!
The American people in self defense need more media focus on the toss up elections. For vulnerable seats see
House Races 2018: see https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings
Senate Races 2018: See https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings
The people in the Red States need to know more about how their governments fail to protect them. See https://www.fairwarning.org/2017/02/top-traffic-death-states-support-trump/
14
I do think that your slogan is better, Gail. That reminds me of years ago when New Jersey was looking for a new state slogan. My favorite contender was "New Jersey, gateway to every place else." It didn't win. As for sparsely-populated North Dakota having the same number of US Senators as California, it's hard for this Rhode Islander to complain.
10
@syfredrick Oh, don't sell yourself short. Compared to Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota and Alaska (combined number of Senators: 10; combined number of Representatives: 5) you are a giant! Two member not just in the Senate, but in the House as well! Square miles, not so much: 1,544.89 sq. miles to 963,726.47 (that would be comfortably more than half of the European Union). So, the others have a slightly bigger territory. Square miles, trees and cows don't vote. People do.
6
Wisconsin had a slogan contest. The best entry, though not the winner, was "Eat Cheese or Die."
2
Hope Heitkamp wins. She is decent and pragmatic, not an ideologue spouting nonsense. And yes our Republic’s governmental structure needs to be reformed.
The Senate is too unrepresentative and disproportionately favors low population states and the electoral college tilts the election campaign to swing states. The number of Senators need to be modified by the population of each state and be proportioned on that basis. The Electoral College eliminated so that the popular vote determines the Presidential election and every single vote is treated equally.
These reforms will greatly improve our democracy and moderate our political parties!
43
Thank you Gail for helping us to laugh, or at least get a chuckle, at incongruities that otherwise make us groan. And as for the comparison between North Dakota and Indianapolis -- I grew up in the latter, and the voting record then was much like N. Dakota ... and today, I think I'd even take N. Dakota and Heidi rather than Indiana & Pence!
14
Republicans should be careful what they wish for. If the 755,000 North Dakota population number dwindles because of the destruction of the ACA, will that become a tipping point for a reexamination of 2 senators per state? At what number does this massive inequity of senatorial representation become absurd enough for us to amend the constitution?
63
The Constitution, let’s face it, is getting a little bit long in the tooth. It’s becomng about as anachronistic as another document we have an unfortunate habit of mindlessly following -which many insist on referring to as ‘The Bible’ - while attempting to ‘interpret’ its text to suit a 21st century society in which we frown on polygamy and crucifixion, no longer live in tents or sacrifice goats (or human virgins) to appease imaginary beings on high, and rely on LED bulbs rather than magic oil lamps.
There is a limit to how long we can willingly suspend disbelief and recognize the legitimacy of a supposedly ‘representative government’ in which two Senators carry the same voting power in Congress, on behalf of many millions of Californians, as the two Senators selected by a few hundred thousand Wyoming residents.
There also will inevitabily be a limit to our willingness to accept tens of thousands of deaths by gunfire each year as unavoidable human sacrifices heaped upon the altar at the Church of the Second Amendment.
We’ve managed a pretty good, long run based on a document that is now approaching 250 years old. However, the ascendancy of Donald Trump — elected by a minority of those who bothered to vote, who all together represent a minority of the total adult voting population — demonstrates that we have some fundamental structural flaws in the system. Until those fundamental flaws are addressed, I fear we will continue to flounder amid discord as we are now.
115
@chambolle
Then there's the question about who among us is voting. Any military recruit in the U.S. must take and pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery -- this is essentially an IQ test.
If we demand that the men and women who defend our country know what they're doing, then why aren't we demanding that the people who choose our leaders know what the stakes are? Let's have an ASVAB-type test for voters.
1
Let's unleash the ultimate threat: if these little states continue to dominate Congress, people from the big states will move there until things are more equal. So, North Dakota, just wait until all of Indianapolis (or Staten Island) starts moving in. No more down home meals with your senator. In fact you'll have to get used to some very unusual fare being served down on main street (they do have one, don't they?). If you really don't behave yourselves, that pickup truck is going to be replaced by malfunctioning public transportation - maybe even a subway going from fracking hole to fracking hole.
16
I believe in North Dakota! Assuring that each state has an equal voice in the Senate is part and parcel of the brilliance of American governmental structure- what corrupts the whole is that the other precepts: checks and balances, separation of church and state, the right of a sitting president to choose Supreme Court justices, respect for the rights of the individual, the limits on political contributions, and the importance of compromise have all been lost in the swamp of liars and cheaters and thieves. I have faith that the good people of ND will begin the end of citizens voting agains their best interests.
2
Ha! Now that’s funny.
"And North Dakota could wind up dictating who runs the Senate."
Whatever state ultimately decides the Senate balance, the Senate decides who is seated on the Supreme Court. Trump has already given a lifetime place to the very young, very conservative Neil Gorsuch. He is seeking to add the far right political operator Brett Kavanaugh. More opening are likely.
This is no time for Congressional purity tests. We must take back the Senate! Holding noses to vote is a lot less putrid than giving Trump and McConnell two more years of unchecked power.
35
My favorite thing about North Dakota is the State Capitol which is basically just an office building: the 18th floor is an observation deck with the highest vantage point in the state.
10
This, of all things currently under discussion, should put the lie to the idea of "originalist interpretation of the constitution". When the founders were contemplating the future they had no conception of the vastness of the North American continent, or an idea that we would grow from 13 states to 50 states. Nor could they envision a time when slavery would not exist or women would vote. The constitution was always supposed to be amenable to change, since the founders were educated men and fully understood the nature of change in civilizations, being on the forefront of disengaging from centuries monarch rule. The real intent of bringing the legal system to an originalist interpretation of the constitution is to enforce not just the status quo but to return our country to a time when only white men of property had any say in how the government was to function. Does anyone really believe that today? Only fully delusional white men do.
62
Girl, we need to talk. The GOP mascot must be changed to the Vulture, as truthiness demands. Let’s start a petition, and maybe a fundraiser. The merchandising possibilities are tremendous and we could raise mucho dinero for Animal Charities. The Eagle is old news, and a Flock Of Seagulls too Eighties passé. Yes ???
As for States that have very small populations yet still have two Senators, would YOU want to live in most of those places ?? Yes, it’s completely unfair and even unamerican, but what do you expect when a bunch of Men write the rules ??? The fair and just thing to do would be to abolish the Senate, and the House serve as the only lawmakers. Apportioned strictly based on population, with accurate and updated Census info.
And please continue with the Elections ! Info. We all need the motivation and breaking animal news. Seriously.
19
@Phyliss Dalmatian
Here's another idea for you, Phyliss. Two senators, but must be one man, one woman. The House must be half-and-half, also.
We're half the world's population. We get half the say.
@Phyliss Dalmatian
All of this negative talk of vultures is unfair. At least vultures have the courtesy to wait until you're dead before they begin tearing you apart. The more appropriate metaphor would be "vampires", as they jump on the otherwise healthy and drain them of their blood. Think Bain Capital.
2
@Phyliss Dalmatian: But the Senate always votes saner than the House. Examples: all those insincere, theatrical ACA repeals the Senate voted down, and Clinton's impeachment acquittal.
How is North Dakota even a State? It has a population lower than that of many suburbs. I think it would be a fair trade if we decertified ND and DE simultaneously. Let’s ditch these small States!
1
" A state with fewer people than Indianapolis gets to determine a large chunk of the nation’s future."
The US Constitution is the most counter majoritarian constitution among western democracies. Combine that with a rigged and bribed Supreme Court and gerry mandering and you will have minority rule until an Article V constitutional convention is called.
BTW, why aren't Democrats tweeting every time Trump has a rally why he isn't working on the problems, like health care or infrastructure, that he is paid by the taxpayer to work on.
27
@Paul I think it's better that Trump is out and about satisfying his grandiose visions of himself rather than sitting in D.C. stewing about the state of his affairs with his finger on the nuclear trigger. I'm sure Melania is happier he's gone as well.
3
Or, why are we paying for these ridiculous rallys, or why, when he is not rallying, he is golfing. Oh, the emoluments...
1
The "every state gets two" design of the senate was, from the first, about protecting slavery. As we're all told in elementary school, it was the "smaller states" that opposed the proportionally sized house, and so the Senate was a brilliant 'compromise' protecting the 'rights' of small states.
Perhaps your elementary school, as mine did, forgot to point out that the "smaller states" were the slave states -- remember, they also wanted to game the House of Representatives by counting *slaves* as part of their population, and wound up settling for just 3/5 of them counting!
After the Civil War, the Senate served only to prevent real reform of the south, and real civil rights being passed. It served this job for a century. What good has it done since then? What "rights" has it preserved for the national good? Let it die already, and lift the cap on house members, so the House is more properly representative again!
26
Congratulations on not saying that she deserves being reelected because she is a woman and there are too few in the Congress, even though that is also true, along with the other arguments in her favor.
I admit, however, that I am kind of curious how many politicians have ever driven through North Dakota on vacation with a dog strapped to the car roof.
10
N. Dakota was a mistake.
It was created out of political shenanigans.
5
@Prometheus all states were.
@Ira
Well then, N Dakota was one of the bigger mistakes.
I always thought the state motto was "Just north of South Dakota." Speaking of which, if Robert Mueller can end this long national nightmare I propose that we add his rock like face to the one's on Mt Rushmore. And if Heidi Heitkamp hangs on to her seat it will mean a good night for Democrats and if they take back the House, I suggest we move Vulture Awareness Day to November because that's when they'll begin to start circling.
28
There are clear as day issues that are massively different between the two parties, yet even still, the ''race'' is still too close to call. It really boggles the mind to think so.
One party is adamantly trying to take away your health care insurance (that is subsidized to a certain extent) and privatize it completely so that you will be paying more - most likely going bankrupt. This is especially so for seniors and for prescription drugs.
The other party wants to make health insurance more affordable as well as those prescription drugs.
One party has imposed crushing new taxes (tariffs) that will effectively destroy one of the main sectors of the state and put 100,000's of people and businesses out of work.
The other party is for free and balanced trade which will allow that main sector to flourish.
I understand people want to continue voting for tribe, but at some point they will have to stop voting against themselves, otherwise they will all be put on welfare.
The party they vote for is going to be cutting that as well.
56
I know that is currently fashionable (especially among Democrats) to complain about states with tiny populations (North Dakota) to have as much say as all the other states via their two senators. I feel the need to point out that if you go only by population 1) you will be losing Senators in Democratic New England 2) the Founding Fathers already dealt with this issue. That's why we have a House of Representatives.
Stop complaining; start campaigning
1
Gail, I am not sure I understand the juxtaposition of vultures and North Dakota. Sounds like two different columns to me.
The vulture column could be a comparison between a species that feasts on the unknowing and misfortunate, like the Trumps, as opposed to a bird that at least waits until they are dead before they take advantage of them.
The North Dakota column could be more like a 50-word blog posting, because that's about all the ink the state is worth. I'm sorry, but if North Dakota didn't have two Senators in this highly-charged political environment, it would get as much attention as Kevin Spacey's most recent movie.
5
Some people will never get it through their heads that Donald Trump won some states by lop sided margins because the Democratic establishment insisted on trying to ram Hillary Clinton down our throats.
A ham sandwich could have beaten Hillary in many places. Even some that keep Kosher.
12
@RM - Yeah, I, who voted for Bernie in the primary, especially dislike the members of the Democratic establishment who voted in the primaries giving Hillary almost 4,000,000 more votes than Bernie. What do they think this is? A Democracy?
Bernie would have won ALL 50 states by huge majorities. Wouldn't he?
22
@Len Charlap
When have you ever seen an open Presidential election (no incumbent running) where a party only had one primary nominee? Bernie was not a Democrat. Where were the other Democratic candidates? They were told to stay home when, before a single primary, the Superdelegates put Hillary 30 percent of the way to the nomination.....without first even finding out who else was interested in running.
4
@RM----There are many delusions out there in progressive America, and the greatest of all is that Bernie Sanders could have won the 2016 presidential election. He would have been destroyed as a communist, and you'd have heard the name "Comrade Bernie" for months before the election. It would have been impossible to explain the difference between socialism and social democracy to the majority of American voters who are severely lacking in intelligence. Bernie Sanders would have lost 40 states, but he was very effective in helping Donald Trump gain the White House. His supporters, in a snit because he didn't get the nomination, either stayed home or voted for a third-party candidate who could not win. And here we are.
44
How strange! I live in a nature reserve that is protected because it is said to be the northernmost nesting area for the griffon vulture, Gyps fulvus. I must tell the other ten or so who live here that today is the Dia Internacional del Buitre.
Of equal importance to the disproprtionate power of the states with smaller populations, is the difference in numbers of people represented in the House and the time when the its number was fixed at 435. The population has grown from about 80 million to its present levels. Increasing representation fourfold with flexible numbers of seats would decrease the power of the extant parties, remove many of the effects of gerrymandering, bring consituencies into closer contact with their representatives, thus making those representatives more responsive to voters than donors. One can imagine flexible coalitions forming in a multi-party system. Madison believed that the Congress has supreme authority in his tripartite system of governance.
And change the Senate, which was designed anti-democratically and more or less explicitly to support the ruling class (selection by State legislatures) and to resist change. With the advent of direct selection it clearly empowered the states where agriculture and extractive industries were dominant. The two-party system devolved into an rural vs urban conflict. And this is a structural defect.
The United States needs a constitutional convention.
104
@D. Yohalem
Yet another one who fails to understand that, to get a Union at all, smaller states needed protection from the tyranny of having their laws set by large, populous states. We had just fought a war where a principle objective was to end having laws imposed on us by political bodies in which we have no representation. I suppose you think we, in Vermont, should share one Senator with the Dakotas and Wyoming, while New York gets to elect six Schumers.
If there were to be a Constitutional Convention, Vermont would probably opt out and affiliate with Canada, with which our economy and infrastructure is more integrated.
5
@RM
You cannot op out. Several states tried that once, failed and you would want to join an existing confederation? Trump would be pleased, claim to be the new Abraham Lincoln. A war against the northern confederates to keep the union indivisible would help with his Mueller problem. Martial law, suspension of habeas corpus; oh the possibilities. Canadian Bacon would be on the watch list in the residence. It would be another first for the Donald, a newfound affinity for the works of Michael Moore. Almost as beautiful as the biggest tax cut ever. Of course all US troops would need to be withdrawn from South Korea to help with the assault against the confederates. Not to worry; Trump and Kim Jong Un have an understanding, plus it's too expensive to keep US forces overseas anyway. Not to mention all the munitions and fuel wasted on wargames along with what is being sent to the Ukraine which definitely must stop. Going to need that to head north.
3
@z2010m
In a Constitutional Convention, everything under the existing Constitution is up for reconsideration. Essentially, its a dissolving of the old Constitution to replace it with a new one, and anything is possible. Reducing a State's legislative representation is certainly justification for wanting out.
3
To fix the over-representation of small states in the Senate would require the approval of senators from over-represented states, regardless of whether it is done through a rules change requiring the weighting of votes by state population or by amendment. So the only solution is for the large states to break up, and for the change to be done by senators elected by brand new states. That would also require approval of beneficiaries of the current system, but only a majority of them.
12
@Robert David South Let's be clear that you're referring to small states as those in population, not acreage. While CA has both a large population and a large geography, so does TX! Do we really want more senators from TX? I think not.
3
Or a revolution when the oppressed minority has finally had enough.
Gail Collins points out the difficulty of making American democracy more representative. Yes, North Dakotans are overrepresented by comparison to California or New York, and that´s inhertently anti-democratic. On the other hand, who would pay any attention to less than a milion people out farming on a cold plain if it were not for the state-based Senate?
That said, the relative weight of each state should change to reflect population better, if not perfectly. After all, states are not just overrepresented in the Senate, but in the electoral college - and that's even more of a problem for democracy.
122
The POTUS is the only elected office that represents the entire country. He/she should be elected purely by nationwide popular vote. Period.
16
What I know about North Dakota is it gets cold there, even the cows have been known to freeze. The Missouri River runs through it, and does not always stay within its banks.
Maybe it is the cold that creates such a high percentage of conservatives, but cold countries like Sweden are pretty liberal so that hypothesis does not work. It is a farm state, there is not much lumber there, but there is oil which also attracts the right, and the progressive view of carbon free energy does not sit well with them.
Religion is also very popular there, that seems to attract conspiracy theories, and admiration for Donald the Mad, after all we have to forgive him for his sins or so they say.
ND is on the border with Canada, a pretty liberal country I think, but it does not seem to rub off on them. The median income is not bad the ACA tax probably takes a big bite of that, but not knowing the medical insurance rate it is hard to say what the popularity or dislike is.
But we can say about the population that voted so overwhelmingly for tRump, is they do not care that he is dishonest, they trust him anyway. The admire he who lies, commits adultery, swindles small businessmen, makes me wonder why anyone wold do business with them, But after all these good conservatives will get taxpayers money to make up their losses from the China tariffs, good old GOP fans.
174
@David Underwood
Yes, so so true. The Republicans turned the farmers from ND and other states into "welfare queens" precisely what the Repubs have been railing about since Reagan.
178
ACA tax? Do you mean the individual mandate?
couldn’t find 2018 rates-maybe Trump killed it year early?
? of “ACA tax” & effect on income.
From ACA website for 2017-
Pay whichever is higher of 2 methods- “percentage of income” OR “per person per year”
Percentage of income
2.5% of yearly household income
Max: Total yearly premium for the national average price of Obamacare Bronze plan (for multi-person household, ?total of sum of annual costs for each family member, or just 1 adult? )
Per person per year
$695/adult adult
$347.50/kid
Max: $2,085 per household
Seems that “income” for percentage method only counts at levels ABOVE approx $10k individual/$20K dual filer.
Soooo-
Mandate for a single person w/income of $100K year:
They will pay higher of 2 methods -the % income vs. per-person rate.
using % income:
max cost is 2.5% of ~90K since seems 1st ~10K is subtracted out. So their total is less than $2500/yr.
This assumes average national annual price of bronze plan is MORE than $2500k. If it happens to be less, they pay that instead as they pay max of either.
As ~$2500/yr is more than the “Per person/yr method” of $695/adult, they pay ~$2500.
$2085/yr for family of 4. May be exempt if low enough income. If chose Obamacare instead of penalty for lack of insurance, may qualify for expanded Medicaid in some states. Might also qualify for subsidies which can be quite good.
6
@David Underwood: The Swedes who stayed at home have been working on how to govern themselves for millennia. Not so much in ND. May of the immigrants from Sweden were decent hardworking people, but they were not the thinkers of their country of origin--any more than German, Irish, or Italian immigrants were.
9
Oh goodie, vultures.
However, hygiene is not what comes to mind when one thinks of Republicans and elections.
More like sewers and middens and a whole lot of bullying and cheating.
138
and if we are picking them bones, I would admit to some glee that Trump's poll numbers are finally falling.
Could it be because now September is here (past midnight) reality is breaking in?
124
@Susan Anderson and boa constrictors...best line ever: Republican Cramer, who frequently wraps himself around Trump like a famished boa constrictor...
6
@Bismarck Agree and hanks, I'll remember that. And it's not exclusive to Cramer:
***"wraps himself around Trump like a famished boa constrictor"***
1
It’s nice that we get to focus some energy on North Dakota for a while. It helps to remind us that, no, the political structure of the Senate and of the. Electoral College actually does not favor the modern Democratic Party, no matter what our president claims. And that should motivate all of us who reside in bigger states to do everything we can to win every national office possible to try to offset our electoral disadvantage. And when they complain that it’s not fair that California and New York and New Jersey have too much economic and political power, we can nicely suggest that they do the math to figure out how much more their vote counts than ours.
196
Are you worried about trade wars with the rest of the world? Will they serve to make us all rich? Is that where we are heading? Are you worried about receiving proper medical care to maintain your health? It’s not just Obamacare we should worry about. Trump and his GOP are coming for our Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security as well. They don’t care about us. They simply want to make themselves rich.
We now have Trump as our president, and that has made us all poor. We have become poor allies. We have become poor stewards of our planet. We are poor souls, following a poor excuse for a human being.
As bad as things are, we should take a moment for some introspection. Voter turnout in 2016 was abysmal. Apathy and spite ruled, and look where that got us. We need to do better than that, a lot better. Maintaining a democracy is hard work, and it never stops.
The good news is that a large part of the answer to our problems is given. The answer is massive Democratic voter turnout.
Vote and help others to vote. We just need to do it. There is no other way. There never has been.
384
I fear Democrat turnout will not overall be that great. Perhaps people are fatigued, but nobody I talk to seems to really care anymore. Trump unfortunately seems invincible in many ways.
The conservative Christians on the other hand are apparently all geared up for the Democratic apocalypse :(
4
@Blue Moon Attacks on social security and medicare are like the bank calling interest or savings account withdrawals "'entitlements'". If money I pay into something and expect back is a scare quoted "'entitlement'" then so is your stock portfolio and mansion, bud. I might want to take that.
5
@Blue Moon
Oh, you got that wrong, don't ya know.....Trump told the Cult the other night: Democrats "want to raid Medicare to pay for socialism". Oh, Lordy, the man's a genius, believe me!
4
Do I like Heidi? No, i do not,
As a Democrat isn't so hot,
But I cheerfully note
We do need her vote
And afterwards barf in a pot.
204
@Larry Eisenberg
All politics is local; Tip O'Neill. Look at the opposition
6
The dominoes aren’t quite falling just yet, but they’re teetering precariously in favor of the Democrats. Every Democratic win and every near miss should make Republicans start to wonder if supporting an ignorant, snarling crotch-groping liar and neo-Nazi apologist might have been a bad career move. Who could have guessed?
If Heidi Heitkamp wins, it sure will put North Dakota on the map, so to speak. It will embarrass, irritate and distress the president, who in retaliation will likely propose a big tax on wide open spaces and unpolluted views of the night sky. That’ll teach them.
And while enraging the president seems to be all the rage these days, a victory for Democrats will just add to his many self-inflicted troubles. All this, and his trusted advisers, co-conspirators and henchmen are taking plea deals, spilling the beans and turning against him in droves. Et tu, North Dakota?
There are so many fronts the president must defend. Google is returning unflattering search results, clearly a result of manipulation by the company, because everyone knows he’s not an embarrassing nincompoop. Mueller is making people tell the truth. Porn stars are blabbing after they were paid to shut up. The poor guy can’t get a break. Lucky that Russia had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with manipulating the election. In these troubled times, at least a guy can trust Vladimir Putin.
So vote, North Dakota. Vote like your jobs, health care and Social Security depended on it.
719
@gemli: If Trump would build a resort in North Dakota, might it be called Mar a Fargo? The capitalist vultures would flock there to curry favor and buy influence the same way they do at Trump's D.C. Old Post Office hotel. I'm not sure which airline they'd use, probably one that allows more than one carrion per passenger. You'd think that soybean producers would be angry with Trump, that would just be logical, but in this modern age he's usually able to offer them something else to be angrier at, which usually includes a group of inferior people they can look down on. It could be Mexicans, democrats, children, women, lgbt folks, the media, former retainers who've turned state's evidence, war heros, gold star families, people who write books, people who read books, it's a target rich environment. Let's all pray that while he's there he doesn't decide to sink the Bismarck. He's going to be in close proximity to Minot Air Base, home of our nuclear air fleet, and the temptation may strike him again (if we have them why not just use them?). Maybe he'll go hiking in the black hills looking for Rocky Racoon. And while it may be true no vulture is known to have driven a golf cart on the green, we have documentation of that deed being performed by paranoid weasels who fought their own personal Vietnam in the trenches of the sexual revolution., and did so with painful bone spurs.
39
@gemli
Let’s hope.
But the American people often seem like the chickens voting for Colonel Sanders.
5
@EricR
When Gideon checked out, no doubt he left a bible for Rocky’s revival.
Even if Rocky passed it on to Trump, it probably would do no good as one of the only things Trump thinks about is shooting off the legs of his rivals.
2
Ms. Collins prefers that the number of Senators be based on state population. That's the way the House works and the way the Electoral College works. 435 Senators seems like a bit much to me. And with this system, North Dakota would have 1 Senator and California would have 53. While we're at it, we might as well have 50 Supreme Court Justices and ten presidents. Proportional representation is the only way to go. And don't worry if things seem crowded. McConnell always gets his way.
4
@michjas : This can be solved another way.
Combine several of the low population states and break up the large population ones. That fixes both the electoral college and the Senate representation problems.
29
Except that the electoral college is skewed by giving 2 votes to every state in addition to the population based number, thus giving small states like ND a larger weight per person. Which is how the Republicans have managed to win presidential contests without winning the popular vote
186
@michjas Ms. Collins didn't say that. She only pointed out that as the system is constructed now, it biases elections in favor of states with smaller populations to a large degree in cases like ND, thus helping the minority stay in power (along with all its bullying cheating ways and refusal to admit that the majority should be allowed a voice in our government).
80
"If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s. Which is super fine with all of them."
It is hard not to recoil at the thought of a state preferring Trump by 35%. That said, the casual arrogance implicit in the above quote makes me feel sorry for Collins. North Dakota didn't create the concept of 2 senators per state.
15
@Rob
“Casual arrogance implicit in the above quote.” Just because you interpret something as casual arrogance therefore it is? While North Dakota didn’t create the concept of 2 senators per state, its a safe bet they will fight to preserve an unfair system granting them a grossly disproportionate influence in national elections.
15
Sunday evening, September 6, 1936, FDR delivered a Fireside chat that was his Labor Day speech. He stated one of the most important principles for American governance ever pronounced by a leading elected official.
He began with, “I’ve been on a journey of husbandry.” Husbandry in this case referred to making sure the Federal and state resources combating drought were being well used and in a cooperative effort. He united the listeners in a practical purpose that benefited us all. (Infrastructure anyone?) It kindled the flames in each listeners heart for enduring hope, trust and unity and did so far better than the sugar-high of unity through hate.
He finished his speech with that important principle of American governance.
“The Fourth of July commemorates our political freedom -- a freedom which without economic freedom is meaningless indeed. Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality.”
How to vote? Tired of being poor, frazzled, feeling isolated and fearful of losing your job, fearing your economic life being torpedoed by a single illness or accident? Which candidate is taking a stand with policies and statements to defend and grow economic freedom of each of us?
Trump has taught us that what you see is what you get. Vote for sewer snakes and you get sewer snakes.
440
@Liam Jumper Comparing Trump to sewer snakes? What do you have against sewer snakes?
5
Say what you want about North Dakota (I'm a little disappointed that Gail didn't mention Lawrence Welk), but they have a lovely State Capitol building in Bismarck. We toured it (free) while driving Interstate 94 east across the state in June. It's about midway between Salem Sue, the world's largest Holstein cow in New Salem, and the world's largest bison (can't remember it's name, if it had any) in Jamestown.
The Capitol building is 19 stories and is supposedly the tallest building in North Dakota. It's called the “Skyscraper on the Prairie,” with a nice observation deck on the top floor. The main floor hallway reminds me of the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, with art deco flourishes and light fixtures in the shape of wheat stalks. The legislative chambers are lovely as well, though they only meet once every two years for an 80-day session - which probably isn't much lass than what Congress does.
It's worth a visit if you're ever in the area. You'll also see a lot of soybeans. I can't remember if we saw any crayons.
250
@Art Kraus The 'skyscraper on the prairie' is not nearly so good as the Nebraska state capitol's unofficial designation, 'The Penis of the Plains.'
5
We should combine the Dakotas into one state, then divide California into four states. That would strike a blow for democracy.
6
@Innocent Bystander Except there are parts of California that vote red.
1
Gail reminds us all " If you live in California your vote for the U.S. Senate is worth about 1/50th as much as a North Dakotan’s ", so this is also a good time to point out that a majority of the Senators represents a mere 18% of America's populace:
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1031637719427018757
All the more reason to un-do GOPers' egregious gerrymandering of the House !
566
@R. Law: ironic that R. Law is unhappy with the law of the land as provided for by the Constitution, a fundamental part of which is that each State gets two Senators. If you don't like it, change the Constitution.
3
@NoYes, and the House is supposed to give population-based representation, which it has been prevented from doing by extreme Republican gerrymandering.
227
@No - Bless your li'l ole heart; we were merely agreeing with Gail's point on the Senate, highlighting further data on her subject.
As to your suggestion of changing the Constitution, luckily former POTUS Obama and former A.G. Holder are already working on the pestilence of gerrymandering:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/politics/democrats-gerrymandering-...
and there are Fed. judges whose courts have found that the Constitution as presently comprised is sufficient to reverse egregious GOP'er gerrymandering in Texas, and North Carolina - for starters.
162