This is a great question. Unfortunately, the reason isn't a one-sentence answer. It's all around the founding fathers' goals of government being accountable to the people.

First, some background: The people, as individuals, were intended to be represented primarily in the House of Representatives (which incidentally is why it's called "the People's house"). Each state as a whole was formerly represented in the Federal government by Senators (thus, it was called the State's house). The idea was that the founding fathers didn't want a super strong federal government shoving laws down onto the states. Instead, each state would govern as is best for the people of that state.

The implications of this are many. For example, when senators were appointed by a state legislature, they weren't as beholden to lobbyists, big-money corporations, and large campaign donors because they didn't require their vote (nor campaign money). Yes, there was some politics and corruption, but not as much.

Secondly, if the federal government were to try to shove unpopular statutes down onto the states in a power grab, the senators representing the states would put a stop to that. For example, if the federal Dept of Education wanted to require Common Core education standards be taught, the senators would be pushed by the local state legislatures (whom appoints them and whom they represent) to put a stop to that, thus keeping those decisions at a state level. They would be reticent to vote for any laws that supersede local governance.

Thirdly, the population centers of each state have the most money and people with wealth. These areas also happen to be the most liberal. So, this drives the senator to pander to cities and liberal viewpoints disproportionally more than the more conservative rural areas due to the population density and ability to garner campaign donations from wealthy individuals. Think California, Illinois, and New York. Their senators do not represent the views of their rural areas at all.

That's just a few of the implications but I've typed enough. :)

This post was edited on 2/14/24 at 9:31 pm