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The senate in the Federal gov't gives each state two votes regardless of population. This helps mitigate tyranny of the majority. We don't have that in WA -- we have equally populous legislative districts where each district gets 1 senator and 2 reps. Here's a map: http://leg.wa.gov/LIC/Documents/Maps/Statewide Legislative District Map.pdf
In E. WA, the districts cover multiple counties (District 9 for example, covers five counties + some of Spokane county). In contrast, Olympia to Everett appears to comprise more than half the Senate (over 25 senators) and yet is only 5 or 6 counties.
It's no wonder gun laws pass so easy here. We don't have a real senate, we have a second house of reps. To have a functioning senate, senators ought to be X per county -- that would be analogous to how the national senate is based on states rather than population. But it appears this is built into the WA Constitution, Article 2, Sec 43:
Anyway, amending the WA Constitution is probably not a real option, but it would go a long way to preventing Seattle from doing whatever the h___ it wants, legislatively speaking.
In E. WA, the districts cover multiple counties (District 9 for example, covers five counties + some of Spokane county). In contrast, Olympia to Everett appears to comprise more than half the Senate (over 25 senators) and yet is only 5 or 6 counties.
It's no wonder gun laws pass so easy here. We don't have a real senate, we have a second house of reps. To have a functioning senate, senators ought to be X per county -- that would be analogous to how the national senate is based on states rather than population. But it appears this is built into the WA Constitution, Article 2, Sec 43:
(5) Each district shall contain a population, excluding nonresident military personnel, as nearly equal as practicable to the population of any other district. ...
Anyway, amending the WA Constitution is probably not a real option, but it would go a long way to preventing Seattle from doing whatever the h___ it wants, legislatively speaking.