Why did the crafters of the various U.S. State Constitutions (except Nebraska) choose to create bicameral legislatures? Was this simply a matter of mirroring the federal Congress, or was there a prevailing political theory that suggested bicameralism was better than unicameralism?

by DriftingSkies

As I understand the Founding documents as taught to me in high school, the Fathers created Congress as a bicameral legislature as part of the Connecticut Compromise to balance:

  • The need to balance the interests of smaller, less populous states with their larger brethren, and;
  • The need to balance the interests of the people with the interests of the states themselves, as directed by the state legislatures (as Senators were not directly elected by the voters until the early 1900's)

As neither justification would have applied at the state level, why was it that 49 States nonetheless adopted bicameralism?

almondshea

Political Science major, worked in my college's Political Science Department performing spatial analyses of electoral data for professors studying electoral malapportionment.

Originally state legislatures were designed similarly to the federal legislature, with lower house districts based on population while upper house district based on territory. For example, the 1901 Alabama State Constitution divided the Alabama state legislature as such:

The legislature consisted of 106 representatives and 35 senators for the State's 67 counties and senatorial districts; each county was entitled to at least one representative; each senate district could have only one member; and no county could be divided between two senate districts.

This setup eventually led to some pretty egregious cases of malapportionment as rural areas depopulated and legislators proved unwilling to update electoral boundaries. In Alabama the most populous district was 41 times larger than the smallest district. These levels of malapportionment were by no means unique to Alabama, in an October 14, 1964 report to his constituents, Congressman Morris K. Udall of Arizona wrote of other outrageous cases of electoral malapportionment in other state legislatures:

** In Connecticut one House district has 191 people; another, 81,000.

** In New Hampshire one township with 3 (three!) people has a state assemblyman; this is the same representation given another district with 3,244. The vote of a resident of the first town is 108,000 percent more powerful at the Capitol.

** In Utah the smallest district has 164 people, the largest 32,280 (28 times the population of the other). But each has one vote in the House.

** In Vermont the smallest district has 36 people, the largest 35,000 a ratio of almost 1,000 to 1.

** In California the 14,000 people of one small county have one State senator to speak for them; so do the 6 million people of Los Angeles County. It takes 430 Los Angelenos to muster the same influence on a State senator that one person wields in the smaller district.

** In Idaho the smallest Senate district has 951 people; the largest, 93,400.

** Nevada's 17 State senators represent as many as 127,000 or as few as 568 people -- a ratio of 224 to 1.

** In Arizona, Mohave County's 7,700 people have two State senators; so do the 663,000 people of Maricopa. The ratio is 86 to 1

These state legislative districts were eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in Reynolds v. Sims, 1964. Following the principal of "one man one vote" previously established under Baker v. Carr, 1962, the Court found that "legislators represent people, not trees or acres," and deemed that state legislative districts should be constructed to be roughly equal in population.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/377/533.html (Reynolds v. Sims, 1964)

http://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/online-exhibits/files/original/11ac559f0063813f0a80bed401b4597f.pdf (Rep. Morris K. Udall's report to his constituents)

https://codes.findlaw.com/al/alabama-constitution-of-1901/#!tid=N16816FB0BAB511DB8E46AD894CF6FAAB (1901 Alabama State Constitution, Article IX concerns representation of the state legislature)

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1963/23 (A nice little summary of Reynolds v. Sims, 1964)

Edit: Deleted the second instance of ‘egregious’

rasterbated

As a follow up question, I’d like to ask if the bicameral configuration of the British Parliament played any part in the state’s decisions, either as inspiration for or against a bicameral institution of their own.