This may be the most important issue considered by the Senate in a decade. And you have explained the situation better than anyone I've seen to date. The Senate is in many ways an archaic leftover from a system that wanted to give small states equal representation ... in the 18th Century. Without reform it won't be long until half the states in the U.S. will control what happens in the senate, even though they will represent only 30% of the population. A strange glitch in the system not foreseen by the astute founding fathers.