By it's nature and intent, the Senate gives small states more than their fair share of power. The 52 Senators from the 26 smallest states represent only 18% of the country's population, yet they constitute a majority of the Senate. That's a crime against democracy.
With the filibuster, Senators representing just 11% of the nation's population can block legislation wanted by the other 89%. That makes it a capital offense.
The Senate is one of those peculiar institutions forced into the Constitution at its birth — an unholy and undemocratic compromise, a necessary evil to get small states to ratify the document. Several of those unholy compromises have been corrected, some at enormous cost, but the Senate remains.
The disparity in population between the largest and smallest states is now more than five times what it was in 1790. At that time, the largest state, Virginia, had 12.5 times the population of the smallest state, Delaware. In 2010, the largest state, California, had more than 65 times the population of the smallest state, Wyoming.
"One person, one vote" sounds great until you realize the votes aren't equal. When measured by representation in the Senate, a single vote in Wyoming is worth 65 votes in California. If votes aren't equal, how can the voters be equal?
What lesson does the filibuster give to our children and to others around the world yearning for democracy? It sends the message that it is acceptable (even right and just, if you listen to them) for minority elites to thwart the majority; that being in the majority does not mean that you deserve to prevail; that there is something else that determines who wins. It is a profoundly subversive and anti-democratic message, and it's a dangerous message. Extremists of all stripes take heart from the message that it's acceptable to thwart the majority and to impose extreme views on it.
The Senate was a foul compromise from the very beginning. Now it is rotten to the core; a huge, festering tumor weighing our democracy down; making it all but impossible to address the severe problems confronting this nation that need to be solved. If the will of the majorities were enacted in national policies — as would happen in a truer democracy — we could make real progress toward solving some of our big problems.
With the recent Republican abuse of its current, extremely anti-democratic filibuster rules, the Senate has taken a profoundly undemocratic institution and made it worse. By giving so much power to block the majority to such a small minority, the dysfunction in the Senate raises the question of whether this nation really is a democracy anymore. We may still be a great nation, but we're not a great democracy, and the Senate is the main reason.
The essential characteristic of democracy is majority rule. Within the limits of individual rights set out in a constitution, the will of the majority would prevail in a democracy. It is the right of the majority to pass its policies and legislation. It's as if we live in a kind of post-democracy, where the majority will is often thwarted by minority elites.
Much is written of the rights of the minority, but what of the rights of the majority? The rules of the Senate blatantly violate both the rights of the majority and the principles of democracy.
The right of the minority is this: the right to be heard in order to try to persuade others to your view. If you are still in the minority after making your case, then you lose the day. The majority wins.
Senators who support allowing a minority to block the majority are enemies of democracy. The Founders warned of people like that, and called them tyrants.
1790 census figures (PDF)
2010 census figures (PDF)