Pork is just an example. Lots of things are State level and have interactions that would lead to a congress person whose district is in California to vote in a pan-Californian interest.
For example assume I’m in a district in some random state that is mostly industrial. But assume that most of my state is agricultural. I’d still want stuff to benefit the agricultural districts in my state. Why? Because a healthy State economy means a healthier State government, with healthier tax revenue, better ability to provide State level services, better ability to attract businesses to the state. While the borders may not seem real to you guys, State borders are very real to businesses. If one state is getting good treatment from Congress, that State’s government is going to be able to do things to attract businesses that other states won’t.
My constituents may be industrial, but they benefit from a good agricultural economy that leads to budget surpluses in my state, because for example that means the State can reduce or eliminate say, the sales tax, which benefits my constituents the same as the rest of the state.
With or without a Senate there is nothing preventing Members of the House of Representatives from working together to set general Agricultural policy. Once you start talking about specific targeted programs, that’s pork. Pork is unavoidable unless you want to remove geography from representation altogether. In the pork game some will win and others will not. Even within each state and district. That’s just how it goes. Keeping the Senate does nothing to help the pork problem. All it does is make some pigs more equal than others.
@ Martin Hyde: I will immediately admit that I know next to nothing about P-L, hadn’t even heard of it till I read a review of a book about lost states. But in the context of the debate, I still don’t think that these historic examples bear out the importance for something senate like to prevent a nation from falling apart. The American Civil War makes it clear that the senate alone is not, in any case, sufficient to prevent that from happening.
I personally think that a shared sense of identity is by far more important, tough it is of course also true that includes a feeling that one has a say in the politics of the nation.
Considering England and Scotland, we see this, imho, as well. They are diverging because of a lack shared identity of ‘Britishness’, not so much because the Scots do not have enough to say in government. Consequently the growing apart cannot be remedied by giving the Scots more power, Interestingly enough, since Scotland has its own parliament and Scots still vote for the parliament of the UK, while England does not have its own parliament, you could even argue that it should be the English who should want to secede.
The US in contrast I would personally think, has way more of a common identity, senate or not. But I am not actually a US citizen, so maybe you seem more monolithic to me, as an outsider, than you actually are.
Then don’t form such a union. By joining as equal to Spain and Italy, you shore up not only yourself but the “national” governments of Spain and Italy that keep their internal regions down.
What you’re saying is that Piedmont, Sicily, and Puglia, all of whom have their own distinct cultures, all together can’t match you without other parts of Italy. That Catalonia and Navarre together are less than your little fiefdom–that could have as easily been an obscure chunk of Burgundy.
For Delaware, tiny Delaware, we will keep our union sound.
Not the UP, nor the Bayside, will ever match that hallowed ground.
It is the First State, it is the Worst State…
[RIGHT]…and that’s all I’ve written yet,
but if you think I like the Senate, well, you’re going to lose that bet.[/RIGHT]
I think one problem is that our present states haven’t changed their borders in a while. I think there are good cases for splitting the two peninsulas of Michigan, carving a Goldengate out of California, and splitting New York up.
But even then; we got the term “Senate” from ancient Rome. And their Senate didn’t represent districts or provinces or governors, it represented tribes. Granted, that’s probably worse.
Ours represents the WASP’s of this state, and the WASP’s of that state, but not Chicanos or blacks to any degree representing their part in the population. If representing distinct ethnic groups were anything other than an after-the-fact excuse, you might expect it to do better on that front.
I can’t see a judge buying that argument. To have a clause calling for equal representation in the Senate implicitly assumes that there will be a Senate and that it will have substantially the same powers granted by the original Constitution.
It would be similar to Congress passing a law defining “slavery” as using badgers for gambling purposes, re-instituting real chattel slavery and stating that it doesn’t fit the legal definition.
Sure, I guess if all states consent, then it could happen. That defies all reason and logic, and makes it not absolutely impossible, but practically impossible.
That would be a neat trick and have an interesting court outcome. I never liked the idea of “unamendable” portions of the Constitution anyways. You’re telling me that ten thousand years from now, we can’t do anything about something no matter how much it has changed? Hell, we almost had an amendment that would prohibit any future amendments outlawing slavery.
Can a Congress bind the people to something in perpetuity with no chance of change even with unanimous consent? (or 49/50 consent in the Senate case?)
Eliminating the Senate would create a constitutional crisis of a magnitude not seen since the the Southern States decide to secede before the Civil War. I, for one, am not interested in repeating that episode.
Given how difficult eliminating the Senate actually is the overwhelming support you would need for such a radical move would mean the opposition would have to be thin indeed. There would be plenty of gnashing of teeth, no doubt. And beating of breasts. And platitudes. And moaning about how we have lost our way from the wisdom of our Great White Fathers. But trouble? Hardly.
If someone tried to do it by force, sure. But that would be true of any putsch.
Yeah, and if pigs had wings they could fly. Of course, anything could be accomplished if there were enough support for it. But there isn’t. We could re-institute Slavery, if there were enough support for it.
Eh? We’re talking about something that can only be done by constitutional amendment – those never precipitate constitutional crisis because they never happen until the idea has support of national consensus sufficient to get 3/4 of the state legislatures to agree.
Of course, before an amendment goes out to the states, 2/3 of both houses of Congress, including the Senate, have to approve it, so . . .
I thought it was pretty clear. If there were enough support to eliminate the Senate then there would also be enough support that doing so would not split the country apart. So there would be no civil disruption. If some party tried to eliminate the Senate by force in which case there would be a major constitutional crisis but it should go without saying that any such move by force would cause disruption. So my point is that you seem to have no point.
OK, like I said. If pigs had wings they could fly.
The OP asks if it is time now* to eliminate the Senate. It is not, unless you want to risk civil war.
*Not some time in the hypothetical future when people want to do it. What point would there be in debating that? Of course it would be the time to do so.
The OP doesn’t say that, actually. It says, “Has the time come?” This can be interpreted in two ways. “Is it good policy at this time?” or “Is it an auspicious time for this?” Since the answer to the 2nd question is so painfully obvious I figured people were debating the question that was actually debateable. And it looks like people are. You seem to have missed the boat.
The main issue I see with the original question as posted is that it assumes that a populist democracy is a desirable end state.
It would be great for pushing a lot of ideals I hold dear but I feel on a longer time scale it would be detrimental to the country as a whole.
Populist democracies tend to be tyrannical to minority interests and that the Senate is important for Maintaining a Balance between Urban and Rural needs as well as regional needs which IMHO is very important for our long term success.
BTW The reasoning for a bicameral legislature is pretty well explained by James Madison In Federalist #10
The bicameral legislature is common in the western world and has proven to be very effective, the failed leadership of the current political parties in the US does not negate that.
I would argue that the citizens of the UK are far less free than they would have been had the House of lords been replaced with a regional based upper house such as Canada, and Japan have vs. just stripping the mostly hereditary body of its powers.
The House of Lords is not mostly hereditary anymore, is it? I think it’s appointed by the PM, rather like the Canadian Senate. Sort of a way for a government to block future governments’ legislation. No thanks.
Personally, I think it’s a good idea to reorganize the states; the Senate is a symptom.
Why can’t urban/rural and regional needs be balanced in the House of Representatives? And if special needs can’t be resolved in a single chamber, what is so special about those particular ones? Should we add a third chamber of Congress based on race to balance those needs? A fourth based on gender/sexual preference?
It is? Where exactly? The article doesn’t mention bicameralism.
Can you give some examples where having the Senate has made our government more effective?
The problem for the UK is that a House representing the constituent Nations is not practical, for the simple fact that England is, compared to the other Nations, plain enormous. It would be unfair for England to be represented on equal parity with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but to have a House which is weighted by population size would make it increasingly a clone of the Commons.
I think our House of Lords works very well - it is a supporting chamber for the Commons, not a challenging one, only flexing its muscles to criticise how policy will be implemented and letting general policy be set by the elected House. It’s more democratic than two clashing chambers, while still diluting the rashness of the Commons.