Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation. By Frances E. Lee and Bruce I. Oppenheimer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 304p. $48.00 cloth, $17.00 paper.

Extract

The principles of state-based representation in the Senate and “one person, one vote” reside comfortably, yet incongruously in the American political psyche. Few of us have lectured on the Senate without raising this point. We carry on about Wyoming and California and their equal number of Senators. Perhaps our lectures extend to discussion of policy issues: Would Clarence Thomas have been confirmed if the Senate were apportioned based on population? and so on. But seldom does the discussion go much further. And, strikingly, this has been true even in the academy. We have 1,001 ways to measure committee preferences, but we know relatively little about the effects of state-based representation in the Senate. Lee and Oppenheimer's book changes this state of affairs and offers an excellent account of the importance of state-based representation for the Senate and beyond.