I’m not going to mince words here. The U.S. Senate is laughably inept and should be gotten rid of. Both in function and principle. It’s an artifact of pre-nationalist thinking and shows. It’s woefully anti-democratic and shows. Every time I think about it I’m filled with naked contempt for this country because it’s not even allowed in serious discourse to discuss its getting rid of because people would scream like crybabies just at the thought of it.
That said, short of discorporating the country and immediately forming a new U.S., there’s no way to get rid of it. It’s embedded in the Constitution in several places. Short of a reverse-Korwinesque ‘amend the unamendable’ shenanigan there’s just no getting rid of that worthless body. So screw it. We need to come up with a way to cajole the voters and the courts into having a more democratic and representative government.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to:
[ul]
[li] Change the meaning of ‘state’ in such a way so that the government will be summarily made much more democratic.[/li][li] If the above can’t be done, come up with a way to embody the principle of “one-man, one vote” while still preserving those putrid ‘states cannot have their borders changed’ requirements, as if the state mattered more than the people living in it.[/li][li] If neither of the above can’t be done, then at least neuter it in a House of Lords-ish way to limit the damage this combination cyst/sacred cow does to the government.[/li][/ul]
Solutions which use a minimum amount of force and/or unanimity get extra credit.
Speaking as a Brit, I’m a fan of bicameralism, as untrammeled rule by a single chamber is a recipe for bad government, but at the same time I understand your frustration with ‘absolute’ bicameralism as the US has.
I’d prefer the US switch to ‘asymmetrical’ bicameralism - the House as the forum of the people is made stronger, and the Senate reduced to a delaying power of 1 or two sessions, apart from crucial subjects (such as treaties or otherwise) which a veto would still be appreciated (or not - superiority of the House in all matters would also be fine).
To accomodate this I’d repeal the 17th Amendment and make the Senate appointed by State Legislatures again. That way States would have a more direct involvement in the Federal government but are not capable of frustrating the popular will.
Of course I’d also make the House sit for longer than 2 years!
Just my two cents anyway
I believe the US Constitution allows for the States to meet for a new National Convention - I guess that’s as likely as me being the next US President
There’s nothing wrong with the Senate that scrapping the filibuster wouldn’t cure. If a minority party has 40 members and are willing to vote as a block, they can paralyze the entire government.
Yeah. Getting rid of the Senate is, for all intents and purposes. impossible. Any attempt to do so would probably break up the union. So, unless you want to destroy the village in order to save the village, best focus on reforming the rules.
I’m with the “fix the Senate” guys, even if it’s not in the spirit of the OP.
And I don’t think you even need to scrap the filibuster entirely, just neuter it a bit. Something like the “declining filibuster” option (where you need 60 votes to break it, then 55, then just a majority - perhaps separated by a few days or even a week) keeps the “enhanced debate” feature without paralyzing the body. Then add in a rule that executive and judicial appointments cannot be filibustered. Suddenly the body is a lot more useful.
Right now, that is. In theory, we could also be held hostage to a couple tens of millions of intransigent voters who want special treatment (i.e. tax dollars) for their low population states. Fortunately, while that is an issue, it’s not currently big enough of one to prevent substantive work from being done if the filibuster were reformed.
But it does exacerbate the effects of the filibuster. A small minority of the population can throw a tantrum and try to wreck the government because they don’t realize how much they are subsidized by the federal government via infrastructure, ag subsidies, defense spending, and welfare, and delude themselves into thinking that they made it on their own simply because their state taxes are low. Their state taxes are low because the federal government is paying for everything!
I would go with neutering. We could get the Senate to pass a rule stating that all legislation passed by the House in the first session will be agreed to by the Senate at the end of the second session unless it is voted down beforehand. In this way the filibuster could be made to work in favor of the passage of legislation (after a longer period of deliberation along the lines that Malden Capell suggested). Regarding the malaportionment the Senate could change their rules to form a Steering Committee that must approve bringing business to the Floor (though the agenda would still be set by the Majority Leader). The Steering Committee could be seated directly proportionate to the general population or by giving each Senator as many votes for seating it as they received when elected to office.
Obviously we couldn’t expect the current wingnuts on the Supreme Court to allow such sensible changes. It would take a vastly different court makeup for this to go through. And just getting the Senate to neuter itself would require a massive wave of support. So it’s pretty far fetched. But it could be done without amending the Constitution.
Nonsense. It’s not just the filibuster and it’s not just that certain citizens are privileged with extra representation. The very existence of a second legislative body creates more hoops to jump through. As the speed of change in the world increases this becomes more and more of a liability. (One that other advanced nations haven’t saddled themselves with.) As if that wasn’t bad enough we have finally, after 200 years of paternalisitic democracy, have produced mature political parties separated along distinct ideological lines. With the clear differences between parties obstructionism will only increase. Essentially we have two choices about the US legislature. Either we will make it functional or more and more power will shift over to the Executive. Simply removing the filibuster is not enough. There are just too many extra opportunities in the Senate with additional committees and leadership, not to mention holds, for legislation to be held up. And lets not forget how malaportioned it is giving powerbrokers in the square states undeserved political clout. We have Representatives. We don’t need Senators.
If you want to consolidate power in Wash DC, you have to live with something like the Senate. You are never going to get a large, geographically and demographically diverse country like the US to form a strictly democratic union. Instead, ask yourself why it is necessary to consolidate so much power in the federal government in the first place.
IOW, if you don’t want the fine people of Mississippi telling you what you can and cannot do in your state, then don’t let them. Don’t want them holding up UHC? Do it in your state, where you don’t need their permission.
I like that idea. I could envision reforms that create a more defined division of labor between the two chambers. For example, the number of representatives in the House could be quadrupled, they’d be limited to one 2-year term (or one 4-year term; or two 2-year terms), and they’d do the business of legislating. The Senate could be limited in sessions or subjects, and the rest of their time would be spent being the learned elders of the government: forming committees, holding hearings, and exploring the more strategic issues of the country.
Unfortunately for any reform, more Americans can name the Three Stooges than can name the branches of our federal government. Ending the filibuster has the benefit of being simple to explain.
I disagree with the entire premise of the OP. There is nothing wrong with the Senate. There really is nothing wrong with the filibuster, either. If anybody in the Senate had any honor or dignity, they would make anybody threatening a filibuster go through with it. Completely. That would end the games pretty quickly.
You want Washington to be better? Start by electing better people.
I also support any organization at the national level that is measured and staid. Change isn’t necessarily good, you know. And if a law is such that 40% of the population oppose it, isn’t that an indicator that it is a bad law? It is only because we insist on electing demagogues and assholes that the system is “failing.”
The only change I would make is repealing the 17th Amendment so that laws have to be a compromise between what the people (House) and states as members of a Federalist union (Senate) want.
A filibuster isn’t always a bad thing. The United States is a Republic to protect the minority, otherwise the majority would create laws that would trample them. Often, people find themselves as minorities in one way, and majorities in another, or they switch around a bit. A filibuster makes a nice open point, even if it cannot stop a bill from becoming law, that a party or group is opposed to a bill.
I don’t want to sound like a radical, but if you were really looking to cleanse or purge the Senate or House you would actually need to kill them all. As crazy as this sounds, there has been times when cities have fired whole police departments because of corruption. Doesn’t the Tree of Liberty need to be water sometimes with the blood of patriots and tyrants? :dubious:
I also don’t understand the hatred for the Senate in comparison to the House of Representatives.
I actually prefer the Senate because it’s not nearly dominated by ideologues the way the House is largely because Senators, with some exceptions, represent much larger and more diverse populations than Congressmen who represent smaller and less diverse districts(and I’m not just talking about race/ethnicity).
As for the filibuster, I’m not opposed to it in principal, since I’m not a fan of majoritarianism and I tend to feel that if you can’t get a solid majority to support a law, as opposed to a bare minimum then perhaps its not a good law, but I do think it’s gotten far too easy to impose.
I wouldn’t mind bringing back the old days where in order to impose a filibuster you’d actually have to have Senators speak for hours on end.
In the last chapter of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Democracy, Daniel Lazare envisioned a political crisis that would end with the Senate still in existence, but reduced to mostly ceremonial functions like the House of Lords. So mote it be.
I totally agree. I shudder to think what our current House would have done since 2010 without the Senate to force some moderation. Two houses is good; it reinforces our system of checks and balances.
I also agree that the filibuster rules need changing so that the whole body cannot be held hostage indefinitely by the minority.
I pretty much do, too. Allowing for the fact that I don’t like current politics and trends, I don’t see the fundamental structure as the problem.
I also find the OP’s assertions that the Senate is “inept” to be a pretty poor basis for discussion. What specifically is bad about the Senate? That it passes too much legislation? That it hardly passes any? Moneyed interests? There’s a lot to dislike, but I don’t know what parts the OP doesn’t like.
Why do the states matter at all? Or rather, why should a superorganism called “the Commonwealth [State] of Virginia” have any rights that preclude the rights of individual humans? And if so, why don’t counties and municipalities have rights equivalent to those of states?
That’s a thing I’ve never understood about “States’ Rights” thinking. Sticking with Virginia as an example, it’s filled with “States’ Rights”-minded people who fume at their perception that the Federal government is taxing away money from people and giving it to people far away, and that the Federal government is not responsive to the will of “the Commonwealth.”
But these exact same people support taxing the region known as Northern Virginia, the Commonwealth’s principal money-producing region, and distributing the money to people far away. And they routinely ignore/override the expressed will of Northern Virginia. What magic makes it okay for them to do to lower rungs on the ladder of government what they find so tyrannical when it’s done by the rung above them?
The Senate isn’t just inept because of its recent intransigence or filibustering rules. More obviously, it’s inept because of its incredibly lopsided representation. How would you feel about a bill that allowed people of a certain family line to arbitrarily have five different votes to cast for the House Representative? If you feel bad about it, why do you tolerate more extreme antidemocracy in the Senate? Less obviously is the fact that the world has become considerably more complex – back in the 18th century it was possible for men like Henry Clay to be reasonably informed about almost every pertinent issue. Today it’s almost impossible. But the average power of the individual senator has only increased over time. Both because the U.S. government is much more powerful WRT the world stage and also because the U.S. government assumes more power within. The U.S. Senate needs to seriously be about five times the size it is right now so that specialized experts can concentrate onto committees like in the House. Otherwise you get ignorant government and/or abdication of responsibilities to an outside party.
The whole ‘compromise to maximize consent’ argument is really lacking in my opinion. First of all, the Senate isn’t aligned democratically so there’s no guarantee that whatever passes the Senate maximizes consent. In fact it’s more likely to decrease it. Second of all, the idea shows a ridiculous amount of omission bias. Not getting a particular piece of legislation done always benefits some interest. The North and South disagreeing on where the transcontinental railroad and therefore not getting one build at all doesn’t punish both parties equally; and there will be some parties who will benefit more from not having a railroad at all. Anti-majoritarian governments, even if they refuse to ingratiate themselves with the kind of poisonous compromise Hamilton and Madison lampooned, empower minority interests as long as they’re in favor of the ‘do nothing’ solution.
It took 10 years between the Supreme Court delivered Brown vs. Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act being passed and it’s precisely because of that blinkered ‘seek compromise’ function. In the meantime, that was an unnecessary extra 10 years of human rights abuses. Moreover, part of the reason why Congress has almost entirely surrendered modern foreign policy to the President is because world events move too quickly for legislative bodies to react in time – this leads to a, in my opinion, dangerous concentration of power into the hands of the executive branch.
It is when it impedes the functioning of democracy.
