California could be cut into 10 states and still have five congress members in each state, although LA County would have to be cut into at least two states. Texas has long insisted they have the right to subdivide into five states, and some of us wish they would get on with it, since at least a couple of those new Texas states would have a fighting chance of electing decent senators.
The bigger states theoretically could try to pack the Senate until they got a three-fourths majority which would allow them to amend the Constitution. Of course by then some of the new states might decide they still like the old rules ...
-- Jim Cullen
Austin, Texas
>[I forwarded John Mage's remarks to Constitution-hater Dan Lazare,
>who responds...]
>
>From: Dhlazare at aol.com
>Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:22:53 EST
>
>Doug:
>
>John Mage should reread Art. V, the final clause of which states
>that "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal
>suffrage in the Senate." Since any state can veto any deviation
>whatsoever from the principle of equal state suffrage, abandoning
>this provision would require the approval of not just three-fourths
>of the states, the case with ordinary amendments, but the approval
>of all fifty. Given the unlikelihood of Wyoming, Vermont, the
>Dakotas, et al. are no more likely to surrender this all-important
>constitutional privilege than the French aristocracy was to give up
>their const'l privileges prior to 1789, there is simply no way this
>can happen under the present constitutional regime.
>
>Not that various scholars have not tried to figure out ways around
>this problem. While the wording seems clear and unambiguous, it has
>been argued that the clause itself could be removed via the normal
>two-thirds/three-fourths rule. But then Akhil Reed Amar, the Yale
>constitutional law prof, has argued that based on the Preamble, "we
>the people of the United States" could remove the
>two-thirds/three-fourths rule through a simple majority vote. But
>whether the issue is Art. V in whole or in part, any attempt to
>end-run the Constitution in this manner would itself amount to such
>a marked departure from established constitutional principles as to
>constitute a revolutionary break. With the right wing rising in
>defense of the Constitution and the left rising against the
>uprising, it would be a signal for civil war, just as it was in
>1860-61. While the Constitution has no ends of things to say about
>who has power UNDER the Constitution, it has no answer as to who, if
>anyone, has authority OVER the Constitution. Merely to ask is
>something of a revolutionary act.
>
>Dan.
>
>> >The obstacle is not the wording of the Constitution. There's nothing
>>>in Article V that says that Article I cannot be amended by the
>>>Convention to change the manner in which the two Senators "from each
>>>state" are chosen - a clause that has already been amended
>>>incidentally - so as to require their choice by, say, a global
>>>electorate, or a local electorate qualified by having been
>>>prosecuted by the previous regime for the possession of controlled
>>>substances, or by two-thirds vote of the Board of the Pacifica
>>>Foundation. But overcoming the obstacle via a revolution rather
>>>than through Constitutional Interpretation seems much the more
>>>attractive idea. Let's.
>>>
>>>john mage