Yankee addressed tmth's concern on regional rights.
Oh God, I leave the Senate in time for this to come up?!?
No, no, no, never, ever, ever, not in a million years will this ever be a good idea and I will see this amendment breathe its last breath so help me Dave.
Didn't expect you to support this, but then it is you're region. You and how many other active midwesterners? Two? Question; would you support another region being broken up?
No; never. It's all or nothing. Eliminate regions, implement some sort of actual reform, radically restructure regional boundaries so that everyone needs to deal with having a new region, but eliminating just one region makes no sense at all. I've made this point before, and I'll make it again: you're only proposing getting rid of the Midwest because it's the least active one right now. I'd probably dispute that point, but, fine, let's say it's true. But there's no reason whatsoever to presume that it will be the least active region forevermore. Back when similar proposals have been floated in the past, it was traditionally the Mideast that was proposed to be axed, because it was historically the least active region and viewed as the one with the least distinctive "regional culture", plus it was in the middle so it was easy to carve up.
In destroying the Midwest, I can say for sure you're demolishing a region with a proud and interesting history and a distinct regional identity - we're the region of *hughughug*, happiness, comity, a strange infatuation with personalist governments, and loony leftism. That's fine if you have a compelling reason to do so, but I haven't even seen one being presented. If you feel strongly about competitive elections, you ought to support the abolition of regional senate seats in favor of districts or, better, more at-large seats, so that we Midwesterners wouldn't have to look on as the Mideasterners have all the fun.