in 1989 film "A More Perfect Union", James Madison apparently called for PR as U.S. was being founded as independent country
from Wiki "A More Perfect Union (film)"
[James Madison] needed to show that a new government would be sufficient to address such challenges as Shays' Rebellion and the growing trade problems between the independent States.
Madison was strongly opposed by those who feared a strong central government, people known either as States Rights Advocates or as Anti-Federalists, such as Roger Sherman and John Dickinson.
Madison was in favor of a bicameral congress, but envisioned both houses being elected according to proportional representation.
In this he was opposed by the States Rights Advocates, and he eventually accepted the compromises necessary to address their concerns.
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It could be though that Madison was merely asking for each state to be represented proportionally (rep by pop),
which was actually brought in for the House of Representatives.
(Every state no matter how small has at least one member and the rest have number of members based on population)
Meanwhile in the Senate, each state has two members, whether state is hugely popular suc has California with pop. 39M, or sparsely-settled Wyoming (pop. 600,000) or little Rhode Island with 1M.
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For more landmark events in the development of PR, see Montopedia blog "Timeline" of PR ...
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