Liberty and justice for all?

Much has been said lately about an existential threat to democracy that we are currently facing. Really? Here in America? It might seem farfetched, but there are already aspects of our democracy that seem to be failing to represent the will of the people. Anti-democratic institutions have been built-in to our system all through our nation’s history.

While the founding fathers expressed many fine ideals, they were often only laid out in theoretical terms. The age of enlightenment ushered in a focus on individual liberty that had never been seen before. Of course, these individual rights did not extend to women individuals, nor to Black individuals. However, once enshrined in our founding documents, our nation embarked on a road that would eventually lead to fulfilling these worthwhile goals. Along the way, there were a few compromises to southern slave-holding states that led to some anti-democratic institutions. And these institutions have continued to generate clear anti-democratic effects.

The Senate, for example, was formed on the basis of a “Great Compromise” that would award two senators per state – regardless of population. Since the population of the northern states was far greater at the time, this compromise would give the more rural southern states representation that they would not otherwise have had. Today, this compromise enables Wyoming, for example, with a population under 600,000, to have the same number of senators as California, with a population of 40 million. And, in general, the Senate continues to give rural states far more power than they otherwise would have.

The Electoral College is another example of an anti-democratic institution that has been codified into our laws. It was presented as a compromise between people who thought a direct vote should elect the president and others who thought that the American public wasn’t informed enough to make this decision and wanted Congress to elect the chief executive. (Curiously in this information age, it is still an open question as to whether the American public is informed enough to make an intelligent decision about who should be our president.)

The Electoral College apportioned electors according to population, but the southern slave states had smaller population sizes – unless you also included the slaves in their population figures. In a compromise worked out at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, it was determined that Black slaves, for the purpose of allotting electors to each state, would be counted as three-fifths of a person. This gave the southern states more influence.

Of course, the enslaved population had absolutely no political representation – despite their numbers being used to increase the influence of their states. The effect of the Electoral College in modern elections has contributed to a distortion of American democracy. American elections are increasingly being decided by a handful of low-information swing voters in a handful of states – again giving outsized power to predominately rural states. Additionally, five presidents (including the last two Republican presidents) have won an election without winning the popular vote.