Article|Archive
Do we still need the states?
For the moment, yes. The daily parade of horrors flowing from the White House makes states a vital part of the resistance. Over time, however, the states will not save us from runaway authoritarian presidents. To the contrary, the states help elect them. Local governments would be a superior substitute.
It is time to start thinking about radical surgery: the abolition of state government.
Some might say this is no time for dreamy thought experiments. The crisis is upon us. But Americans are fully capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Even given the urgency of the moment, we would be remiss to ignore the long-term problems.
The most obvious problem is that state intervention is a double-edged sword. Had Kamala Harris won the 2024 election, red states would be doing everything possible to thwart her agenda—as they did during the Obama and Biden administrations. To be fair, blue states have done the same during both Trump administrations. Today's state enthusiasts will always be tomorrow's state critics.
The second problem with states is that we don't need them. Without states, the tens of thousands of local governments, either individually or in collaboration, could attack federal overreach just as well. They too can pass laws and bring lawsuits. If anything, local elected leaders are better positioned to do so, since they are geographically closer, and thus more accessible, to the people they represent. Moreover, since the political divides between urban and rural locales dwarf the divides among states, local elected leaders are more likely to reflect their constituents' political preferences than are state legislatures.
Most importantly, the states got us into this mess. Their astonishingly broad—and disproportionately distributed—constitutional powers over both state and national elections, combined with the many ways in which state legislatures have abused those powers, are incompatible with any credible definition of democracy. The resulting electoral distortions dramatically increase the chances of an authoritarian party pulling off a national trifecta—control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
On five occasions already, the state-centered Electoral College has installed presidents whom the voters had rejected nationwide. There have also been many near misses, making it a statistical certainty that the Electoral College will award the presidency to many future losers of the national popular vote. True, 2024 was not a direct example, as Donald Trump finally won the popular vote, albeit narrowly. Even so, as his party's nominee he had lost the popular vote in 2016 and again in 2020. Without states, and therefore without the Electoral College, he would have entered 2024 having lost two consecutive presidential elections. His chances of winning a third consecutive Republican Party nomination would surely have taken a huge hit.
It's not just the presidency. The Constitution gives every state two U.S. senators, regardless of population size. If you live in Wyoming, you get approximately 69 times as much say in the U.S. Senate as your fellow citizen who lives in California. Today, a majority of the U.S. population is represented by only 18 percent of the Senate.
These legislative and executive branch inequities have a ripple effect; they also skew the federal courts. That is because, by constitutional design, federal judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Three of the current Supreme Court justices were appointed by President Trump after he had lost the national popular vote; five were confirmed by senators who collectively represented only a minority of the U.S. population. And consider this: From 1969 to the present, 15 of the 20 Supreme Court appointments have been by Republican presidents, even though the Democratic nominees had won the national popular vote in a majority of the corresponding elections. Lower federal court judgeships fit the same counter-majoritarian pattern.
The process for amending the U.S. Constitution similarly gifts the smaller states with powers grotesquely disproportionate to their population sizes. Not so long ago, even after a 2/3 vote of approval in both houses of Congress, states that represented only 22 percent of the U.S. population were able to block ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
State legislatures have shamelessly exploited their outsized powers. They have enacted brazen gerrymandering schemes, and with false claims of widespread voter fraud as cover, increasingly aggressive voter suppression laws that surgically target minority populations. These and other state actions have laid waste to our two most sacred democratic norms—political equality and majority rule.
People, not the artificial constructs we call states, should be our basic voting units. Nor should your say in national elections depend on where in the U.S. you live. Aside from corroding the principle of one-person-one-vote, state-based voting in national elections distorts outcomes in ways that make it too easy for radical movements to seize nationwide control with only minority support.
After the fact, states can sometimes nibble away at specific excesses, but their bloated constitutional powers and their abuses of those powers help spawn the crises in the first place. Instead, why not entrust the resistance to the tens of thousands of local governments?
Without state government, E pluribus unum would take on a different meaning. No longer a union of states, this country would become, simply and more meaningfully, a union of its people. And a far more democratic union at that.
Do we still need the states?
For the moment, yes. The daily parade of horrors flowing from the White House makes states a vital part of the resistance. Over time, however, the states will not save us from runaway authoritarian presidents. To the contrary, the states help elect them. Local governments would be a superior substitute.
It is time to start thinking about radical surgery: the abolition of state government.
Some might say this is no time for dreamy thought experiments. The crisis is upon us. But Americans are fully capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Even given the urgency of the moment, we would be remiss to ignore the long-term problems.
The most obvious problem is that state intervention is a double-edged sword. Had Kamala Harris won the 2024 election, red states would be doing everything possible to thwart her agenda—as they did during the Obama and Biden administrations. To be fair, blue states have done the same during both Trump administrations. Today's state enthusiasts will always be tomorrow's state critics.
The second problem with states is that we don't need them. Without states, the tens of thousands of local governments, either individually or in collaboration, could attack federal overreach just as well. They too can pass laws and bring lawsuits. If anything, local elected leaders are better positioned to do so, since they are geographically closer, and thus more accessible, to the people they represent. Moreover, since the political divides between urban and rural locales dwarf the divides among states, local elected leaders are more likely to reflect their constituents' political preferences than are state legislatures.
Most importantly, the states got us into this mess. Their astonishingly broad—and disproportionately distributed—constitutional powers over both state and national elections, combined with the many ways in which state legislatures have abused those powers, are incompatible with any credible definition of democracy. The resulting electoral distortions dramatically increase the chances of an authoritarian party pulling off a national trifecta—control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
On five occasions already, the state-centered Electoral College has installed presidents whom the voters had rejected nationwide. There have also been many near misses, making it a statistical certainty that the Electoral College will award the presidency to many future losers of the national popular vote. True, 2024 was not a direct example, as Donald Trump finally won the popular vote, albeit narrowly. Even so, as his party's nominee he had lost the popular vote in 2016 and again in 2020. Without states, and therefore without the Electoral College, he would have entered 2024 having lost two consecutive presidential elections. His chances of winning a third consecutive Republican Party nomination would surely have taken a huge hit.
It's not just the presidency. The Constitution gives every state two U.S. senators, regardless of population size. If you live in Wyoming, you get approximately 69 times as much say in the U.S. Senate as your fellow citizen who lives in California. Today, a majority of the U.S. population is represented by only 18 percent of the Senate.
These legislative and executive branch inequities have a ripple effect; they also skew the federal courts. That is because, by constitutional design, federal judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Three of the current Supreme Court justices were appointed by President Trump after he had lost the national popular vote; five were confirmed by senators who collectively represented only a minority of the U.S. population. And consider this: From 1969 to the present, 15 of the 20 Supreme Court appointments have been by Republican presidents, even though the Democratic nominees had won the national popular vote in a majority of the corresponding elections. Lower federal court judgeships fit the same counter-majoritarian pattern.
The process for amending the U.S. Constitution similarly gifts the smaller states with powers grotesquely disproportionate to their population sizes. Not so long ago, even after a 2/3 vote of approval in both houses of Congress, states that represented only 22 percent of the U.S. population were able to block ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
State legislatures have shamelessly exploited their outsized powers. They have enacted brazen gerrymandering schemes, and with false claims of widespread voter fraud as cover, increasingly aggressive voter suppression laws that surgically target minority populations. These and other state actions have laid waste to our two most sacred democratic norms—political equality and majority rule.
People, not the artificial constructs we call states, should be our basic voting units. Nor should your say in national elections depend on where in the U.S. you live. Aside from corroding the principle of one-person-one-vote, state-based voting in national elections distorts outcomes in ways that make it too easy for radical movements to seize nationwide control with only minority support.
After the fact, states can sometimes nibble away at specific excesses, but their bloated constitutional powers and their abuses of those powers help spawn the crises in the first place. Instead, why not entrust the resistance to the tens of thousands of local governments?
Without state government, E pluribus unum would take on a different meaning. No longer a union of states, this country would become, simply and more meaningfully, a union of its people. And a far more democratic union at that.
