Bill Meyer is one of the most decently honest human beings on Earth. A while ago he performed an entire monologue about the Electoral College and why the USA has states like North and South Dakota.
I don't know if he knows the history of these very low population states or not, but, I ran across an article in a rather unique online publication called, "Alternet." I am fairly sure a walk to the library to validate the facts in this article is enough to make modern day Americans blood boil.
Here it goes. Evidently, "The West" was created out of gerrymandering. The difference between the state level gerrymandering and the low population states is a Congressional act or that of a presidential order.
Get this. It is about adding Republican Senators. The electoral college vote was sort of a side effect. The legislators of the time didn't consider an extra US House member as important as more US Senators.
Two days before (click here) the lame-duck President James Buchanan left office, he signed legislation carving off part of Utah Territory, which stretched across most of modern-day Nevada, about a third of Colorado and some of Wyoming, to form part of what we now know as Nevada. Congress would soon pass two more bills expanding Nevada at Utah’s expense.
This largely forgotten act of line-drawing enabled one of the most consequential gerrymanders in American history. Because the virtually unpopulated Nevada became its own territory, Republicans could admit it as a state just four years later. That gave the Party of Lincoln two extra seats in the Senate — helping prevent Democrats from simultaneously controlling the White House and both houses of Congress until 1893.
And why are there two Dakotas?
[T]he reason why there are two Dakotas — despite the fact that both states are so underpopulated that they each only rate a single member of the House of Representatives to this day — is because Republicans won the 1888 election and decided to celebrate by giving themselves four senators instead of just two.
By 2040, according to a University of Virginia analysis of Census population projections, about half of the country will live in just eight states — which means 16 senators for one half of America and 84 for the other half.
Just sayin'.
Love ya, Bill. Like, Assange in a Supermax? Really?
