Before 1913, the roles of Senators were pretty straightforward. We are a (nominally) a federalist system so while the House of Representatives protects the interests of the citizens the Senate protected the interests of their respective sovereign states.
Since 1913 a Senator answers to their statewide constituancy as opposed to a Representative who answers to their district’s constituancy. As a side note, a state can elect representatives at-large whereby all of the Reps are elected by the whole state and thereby you have a few representing everybody. The last state to do this was I believe Arizona in its early days of statehood.
I’ve noticed that in the discussions about UHC there seem to be a group of Dopers that believe that individual congresspeople should vote for the best of the country - not necessarily their voters and another group that bemoan people not knowing basic civics. I think these are related because in our system my Representative and Senators represent what I want . . . not what you want. The Senator I most respect is Diane Feinstein :eek: because although I disagree with almost all of her political ideals, I firmly believe she votes based on what is best for Californian which is her job.
Now there are a few cases where the “big picture” is more important than the “little picture”. Civil Rights in the 60’s for example. It’s constitutional rights we’re dealing with and I don’t care if it was a southern issue - as soon as it’s OK to deny someone their rights then it effects EVERY American. Also, with everything intertwined in the US today, there is a certain level of “If it good for America in a holistic sense, then it is good for every American.” Maybe NCLB or UHC falls into this category but I would really like to avoid specific issues. TFSM knows we have enough threads on those.
Combined with this is with the growing federal mandates that cripple states (thank you SCOTUS for Dole v. South Dakota ), is it time to reexamine the 17th Amendment and have the Senate to go back to representing state interest in indirectly mine or should we have Senators continue to being directly responsible to voter?
So for the debate: should individual congresspeople vote based on their constituants’ interests or the nation as a whole and should Senators go back to representing states directly?
I’d hesitantly support returning things to it being that a Senator is elected by the state legislature or something to that effect, but I’d want to know if there was any greater reason than raging democratic fervor that brought us to where we are.
Reading through the Wikipedia article on the 17th Amendment, it looks like the issue was principally that the exact methods of election tended to be murky (possibly purposefully) and it was nearly impossible to make sure that the process was going along without tampering or bribery.
However, parliamentary governments show that one can have an elected official voted for by elected officials and not have it be all that worrisome a process. If whatever the system is that they use were to be adopted, I’d support revoking the 17th Amendment. When you let politicians elect politicians, you have the benefit of personal knowledge. They know how smart and capable the person is, where the general populace really only knows whether he can give a good speech and kiss babies good. If you can keep the process of election clean, you’re probably generally going to end up with a better person.
I favor repealing the Amendment. There are several good reasons for this.
First, early commentors throughout American history noted that, while certainly partisan, there was more real turnover and flexibility in the Senatorial system, and that Senators were exceptionally capable. They had to be - they were answerable to other politicians directly. This does not mean things were not affected by public opinion, but they were specifically meant to be seperated from public opinion.
This would also recreate the conditions where Representatives were more important. Right now, the House is basically the Senatorial Wading Pool. I have no problem with new legislators learning the ropes in the House, but I don’t think it should be the “Senate-lite.”
These days, I think it would be quite advantageous to have more variety of educational background in the Senate, but this is extremely hard as long as you almost entirely have to prove yourself as a Rep first, and wait your “turn” in the local party structure. One big advantage of the older Senate was that capable people could get in, and it wasn’t viewed as a “step down” or “step up” for the most part. I’d like to see people with a scientific or business background get in and add their views and experience to the mix. Sure, a legal education is good - but it’s also very narrow and limiting. And darn near nobody in Washington has anything else.
Now, understand that I would like somewhat larger House districts (cutting Rep numbers to 350 or so would do a world of good). I would like a lot of other things.
One of those is that I want people to pay some damn attention to what goes on in their states. It would stop the indefinite accumulation of power in Washington, as state legislatures wouldn’t be as keen on it, while giving people more of a reason to watch whom their legislators are.
One effect that hasn’t been mentioned is that with this system you’d end up making federal issues more important in state elections. One nice thing about State gov’ts is the Dem/Repub divide isn’t as divisive as at the federal level (not that it isn’t often divisive, but in my experience, anyways, it doesn’t play as dominant a roll at it does in Washington). But once State Legislatures also have to run on who they’d select for the Senate, the question of who they’d choose to go Washington would end up being as important as where they stand on the various issues that they’d actually spend most of their time on if elected.
Personally I prefer having candidates for the State House run on local state issues instead of whatever the issue-of-the-day in DC happens to be.
Just playing devil’s advocate, but the with the huge impact that the federal gov’t has on state and local issues today, isn’t picking Senators a state/local issue?
I fail to see how making senators less answerable to the people would in any way improve the system, and I certainly don’t see any way it would improve the system enough to justify a Constitutional amendment.
Perhaps, but they also have the drawback of personal knowledge, in that a politician electing other politicians might just base their choice on who they were drinking buddies with back in law school, or the like. In an election by the people, these issues are minimized, since even the biggest man on campus is unlikely to have had enough drinking buddies to sway a statewide election, but in an election by the state legislature, it could easily be the determining issue.
Because the people aren’t the brightest bunch you could ever pick. Assuming that they know what’s best for themselves, let alone everyone, goes against the purpose of representative government.
That’s a special case though. Vermont is a small state with a largely homogenous population. Wouldn’t really work for Florida or California or even Georgia.
I think it’s a worse assumption to assume that the state legislators care what’s best for the people, than it is to assume that the people know it. Especially since the idiots will be distributed all over the spectrum, and will thus at least partly cancel each other out.
Why do we need a Senate anyway? A one-house legislature is more efficient, and the political factors that required the Great Compromise have no relevance today.
This. The Senate is designed explicitly to slow lawmaking & resist reform. This actually makes it hard to react to difficult realities because the bias is always against change.
(Is this the source of the phrase, “center-right country”?)
If we “can’t” abolish the Senate, we should create a third chamber, while still only requiring two chambers to pass a law.
Some folks get into politics to help others, and some get into it to help themselves, and a legislator of either type gets his vote counted the same way.
What percentage? Why go into politics over any other business if your goal is self-profit? In return you get to live in dull, poorly-lit institutional buildings and deal with–principally–fruitcakes and loons all day. If you go into business, you get to inhabit nice offices and most of the people you’re dealing with are fairly innocuous corporate types and salesmen.
Certainly politicians can and do become corrupted, but even corrupt, their job and their principal goal is by and large to decide which of any several options will end up the best for everyone. Getting someone to back you financially for any one position is pretty easy, and if anything you want to play both sides. You’re still free to make whatever choices you want, and you get free goodies from everyone for doing it.
When a decision goes against public opinion, this can generally be guaranteed to be because the legislation before them wasn’t very good or the idea itself wasn’t very good. It’s not because they were bought off. When a politician has been bought off, it’s usually pretty obvious, and also unremarkable–like reducing taxes on one single particular company or whatever. They know they’re being watched, they know that they can’t accept bribes, and they know that if they do anything that strikes anyone as being less than wholesome that they’re out on the street. They can only profit on little shit that everyone’s fine to overlook.
), is it time to reexamine the 17th Amendment and have the Senate to go back to representing state interest in indirectly mine or should we have Senators continue to being directly responsible to voter?