Article V of the Constitution, Explained

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The United States Senate favors states with small populations. Wyoming has half a million people and California has 40 million people, but they both get exactly two senators each.

I assume we all know this, right? And we know how unfair it is. And how much it favors Republicans. And how it’s intolerable and we should change it. And how it’s the root of all evil at this moment in history. Etc. This is pretty much all true, but before anybody says anything more, I’d like to introduce you all to Article V of the US Constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution…..

Article V is about amending the Constitution. You all know how that’s done, so let’s skip ahead to the final sentence:

Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

See that? It means that you can’t amend the Constitution to change the Senate. Every state gets the same number of votes. Period. Even if you fancifully assume that there’s some way of getting a whole bunch of states to agree to reduce their own power via constitutional amendment, it doesn’t matter. There’s no way to alter Senate representation without calling a constitutional convention and literally writing a whole new constitution.

So can we please all stop yammering about this? It’s unfair and intolerable and its roots are offensive and blah blah blah. But it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do to change it. If you want to yammer about something useful, how about coming up with ways for progressives to do a better job of winning votes in small states?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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