The Senate can and should be abolished...

[redeye]

...look at Canada and Britain for a moment. They fare pretty well with practically unicameral legislatures (practically because they have unelected upper houses that have no powers) - proportional representation or no proportional representation. The Senate violates the concept of one person, one vote, and discriminates against people living in large states and in favor of those living in small states (notice that the government should be by the people, not by the states). The bicameral check and balance is replaced in unicameral countries by a requirement that all laws pass in three readings. The House can exercise the power of confirming judges, justices, and secretaries. Gerrymandering will be far more effective, but that can be canceled by proportional representation or even having an independent body draw district boundaries according to legal or constitutional guidelines.

The only catch-22 I can think of is that the Senate needs to approve its dismantling by a majority of 2/3s for this to take effect.

[Code_Name_D]

1. The senate is the only voice of resone.

Get rid of the house, and do away with thoese redistricting battles.

[redeye]

2. Get rid of the House?

In other words, make my vote officially worth 1/66 of a Wyomingite's. How democratic.

And the Senate might be a voice of reason, but it is an electoral distortion in favor of people in small states.

[izzie]

9. Frankly I like both.

The house is nearer to us and really can be pretty wild at times but Sen. is slow and thinks more so usually will not let house run wild. The Sen. also gives a small state a lot of power for it size. 2 off 100 is better than 2 of 400 plus.

[rustydog]

3. You are comparing apples to oranges!

We would have to amend the constitution to allow a Parlimentary form of government to be like England.

It is something that should be considered...Blair can be removed with a "no confidence" vote of parliment.
If only we could do that to Bush.

[redeye]

4. No...

...there's no need for a parliamentary system. It's possible to keep the executive and the legislature separate even with a unicameral legislature.

[sweetheart]

5. good idea

Of course those perverts will not give up the power to destroy the country in the name of self interest. democracy my ass.

[bowens43]

6. Huh?

The Senate violate the concept of one person one vote? We do not nor would we want to live in a one person one vote democracy. How does it discriminate against people living in large states (it would be more accurate to say that it protects people in living small states from the domination by large states). The senate functions as it should , with a longer range view then the house.

A good example, the Clinton impeachment. The house went on insane rampage and the senate brought them back to earth. The system is fine.

[redeye]

10. It doesn't protect against domination

Under one person, one vote, 75% of the population can dominate the other 25%. With the Senate, 75% of the population can dominate the other 25%, too, except if the 25% live in the smallest states and teh 75% in the largest. If, on the other hand, the 75% live in small states and the 25% do in large states, then domination is even easier.

You need to stop looking at states for a moment and start looking at people.

[SoCalDem]

7. We just need to have proportional representation

BASED ON POPULATION...

It makes no sense at all that we have only 435 representatives and a population approaching 300 million.. I am sorry, small staters, but the cruel fact is that for Wyoming & Idaho to have 2 senate votes and California & New York to have the same is RIDICULOUS.. When the "plan" was originally set up, the entire population was clustered in one small part of the country, and most states were primarily rural..

The house of reps should actually be enlarged to represent the true population better.. Representatives need to be chosen based on marking all states up in grids...no more of this stupid re drawing of districts politically.. Every town has a geographical center, so it should not be that hard.....

Congress actually meets too often.. The representatives should have MORE time in their communities and LESS time in DC..

Lobbying by any group that is not "citizen-oriented" should be illegal..

Dormitories should be built in DC for the legislators,for them to use when they are "in session"...No families allowed..No parties, no schmoozing".. Just do the country's business and get back home to your constituents..

Since every American has to file with IRS each year, it would make sense to have an "agenda ballot" each year that could be used as a mandate for what congress would tackle that next session..

The way it's done now, each person there spends probably 80% or more of their time there trying to puch their own little agenda and the public be damned..

Do you really think that the public is "worried sick" that the media is not consolidated enough?? or that the military pensioners are making to much money??

We have let the inmates take over the asylum:(

[Yentatelaventa]

8. Not going to happen

If America wanted to be like Britian then we would have thrown in the towel a couple hundred years ago. America is what it is because of what it was intended.

[redeye]

11. Um, no

I'm not sayign the US shoudl be like Britain, only that there exist nations with unicameral legislatures. Besides, the USA was also intended to be a nation of agrarian slaveholders; it doesn't make it right. It'd be best to evaluate positions according to hoe useful they are in the present instead of what Washington and Jefferson thought about them.

[rman]

12. and this is a solution to what problem?

will it solve the problem of corrupted politics?
as things stand now it'd only make things easier for the corrupted congress.

[redeye]

14. It'll solve the problem...

...or a Wyomingite's vote being worth 67 times more than mine in the Senate.

[rman]

13. and this is a solution to what problem?

will it solve the problem of corrupted politics?
as things stand now it'd only make things easier for the corrupted congress.

[goobergunch]

15. In theory this is a good idea...

in practice, it would be a nightmare.

Imagine if every bill the House passed was automatically sent to the pResident for his approval...the only way Senate abolition works is if there is significant House procedural reform (no closed rules).

[redeye]

16. Good point

The House mgiht be too large for filibustering procedures, but if three readings work in Israel and Iceland (and probably in other nations whose legal systems I simply didn't bother reading) then they might be able to work here - emphasis on might because Israel's parliament has 120 members and Iceland's has, IIRC, 83. That way, the House needs to pass a bill three times, with minimum waiting periods between them except in cases of emergency in which case the bill is passed in one reading and is then retroactively ratified or cancelled in two, and then given to the president to sign or reject.

[goobergunch]

38. There are technically three readings in the House...

however readings 1 and 2 are pretty much automatic, and reading 3 is done by voice vote. I'll see if I can dig up the House Rules citations.

[redeye]

39. Okay, thanks...

...I don't knwo how the system goes in Iceland, but in Israel the readings are very separate from one another - there's the first, then there're committees that can pproporse amendments, then there's the second where people vote on each section and amendment of the bill separately, and finally the third where the final bill is voted on - no last-minute amendments, riders, or poison pills.

Obviously, we have something different.

[goobergunch]

40. Here's the applicable rule

Clause 8 of Rule XVI

Readings
8. Bills and joint resolutions are subject to readings as follows:
(a) A first reading is in full when the bill or joint resolution is first considered.
(b) A second reading occurs only when the bill or joint resolution is
read for amendment in a Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union under clause 5 of rule XVIII.
(c) A third reading precedes passage when the Speaker states the question: ‘‘Shall the bill be engrossed and read a third time?’’ If that question is decided in the affirmative, then the bill or joint resolution shall be read the final time by title and then the question shall be put on its
passage.

http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/The_Legislative_Process/rules/108rules.pdf

[redeye]

44. Thanks for the info (n/t)

[Muddleoftheroad]

17. Solving a problem

That doesn't exist. The Senate is part of the checks and balances of our nation. Populous states like California would run everything if we got rid of the Senate and THAT would make many small staters quite unhappy. This way, both sides have power. Amazingly, it's how it was intended to work.

[redeye]

19. Wrong...

...California is not uniform. Gore got only 53% there in 2000; east to Coast Range, the state is solidly Republican. Its congressional delegation, IIRC, is something like 32-21 Democratic, not 53-0. And also, there's no problem with the majority running the nation - that's how it is intended to be in a democracy. It doesn't matter whether the majority includes all residents of the 9 most populous states or of all but those of the 8 most populous; a majority is a majority, and a person is a person.

[sirshack]

18. Where did you read...

..that Senate could be abolished?

[redeye]

20. Constitutional Amendment...

...as I explained in the last line of the original post implicitly.

Abolishing th eSenate is a little tricky, because Article V states that "no State shall be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate without its consent." There are two approaches to overcome this: one, to change Article V first to omit that sentence and then abolish the Senate, and two, to keep the Senate but strip it of all powers maybe except for trying impeachments.

[sirshack]

23. I'm still skeptical...that that can be done...

[redeye]

27. I kinda am, too...

...for better and for worse, changing the constitution for Americans is like changing the bible for Christians. Especially when it deprives small states of their overrepresentation and when 13 states can gut a constitutional amendment if so they wish.

[sirshack]

29. Changing the Constitution isn't so bad...

...the Founders recognized that that may need to happen.

But because the Senate is identified as being so instrumental in the Constitution, I doubt whether it is something that can be abolished without abolishing the present Constitution entirely.

[redeye]

32. I know it isn't bad...

...but most Americans revere the constitution and the founding fathers as if they all agreed an actually wanted to become prophets. I wonder what cognitive dissonance they'd experience if they knew that Hamilton supported electing the president for life, that Madison wanted both houses of Congress to be proportional to population, that Jefferson wanted a rewrite every 19 years, and that the constitution was essentially a patchwork of compromises between representatives of large states and small states.

I dunno if the Senate is being identified so closely with the constitution - if I had to pinpoint one thing, it would be the complete separation of the executive and the legislature, as opposed to the latter controlling the former as in a parliamentary system.

[sirshack]

35. It doesn't matter what the founders wanted...

...it's what the Constitution states, what the states ultimately ratified. What ideas Hamilton or Jefferson or anyone else might have had doesn't effect that.

I'd argue (pretty successfully I think) that the Senate is pretty well identified in the text of the Constitution, and so much singled out and assigned such specific duties that the Constitution as it exists now would not permit the abolition of the Senate.

[redeye]

37. Its spirit does not...

...but its spirit has ararely been obeyed since Reconstruction. Its letter permits abolishing the Senate, because the clause that prohibits that is not itself protected from repeal; it's like passing a law that says "the Patriot Act may not be repealed," whereas the law itself may be repealed regularly.

The point I made is that the American people revere the constitution, right or wrong, as well as the "founding fathers," who were very motley a crew.

And basically, you can rewrite the whole thing in a single amendment and still argue that the constitution hasn't formally been abolished or replaced.

[sirshack]

52. I'm not finding a whole lot to agree with you on....

The spirit of the Constitituion hasn't been obeyed since Reconstruction? So what? That doesn't mean you should sell it out wholesale. It's a looter mentality: I shouldn't loot, but everyone else is looting and the police aren't stopping it, so I'll loot.

And I would still disagree and argue (and again, I think I'd agrue quite well) that a move such as abolishing the Senate essentially negates the entire Constititution, and that it probably can't be done without abolishing the Constititution itself.

But maybe I can swayed, if you'll humor me with this: You're a member of the Senate who wishes to introduce an amendment to the Congress. What Constitutional articles do you cite?

[ibegurpard]

21. Too bad you weren't alive back in 1776

You could've told those dummies who set up our system a thing or two.
:eyes:

[redeye]

24. 2003 isn't 1776

What was true then - people had state loyalties, rarely if ever moved among states, and had a strong sense of regionalism - isn't true today. In 1787, I might've supported msot of the constitution; today, I think that almost everything in it needs to be rewritten.

[ibegurpard]

28. Of course it isn't

But abolishing the check of equal representation for each state in the senate leaves open the very real possiblity of tyranny by the majority. Pure democracy can be every bit as tyrannical as a dictatorship.

[redeye]

31. Excuse me?

Now, we have something worse than a possible tyranny of the majority - namely, tyranny of the minority. Besides, there's a way to ensure that neither can happen: constituionally protected civil liberties.

[ibegurpard]

33. No, tyranny of the minority would be if both the house and senate

were composed of equal numbers of representatives from all states. As it is, one is a check on the potential for abuse on the other.

[redeye]

34. Democracy 101

Democracy is based on two concepts: rule of the majority and rights for the minority. The former is achieved via a legislature and an executive elected by the majority of the people - which the Senate doesn't comply with - and the latter is achieved via civil liberties that ensure that the majority won't trump the minority.

Oh, and by the same token, the Senate could've been proportional to the square of a state's population, in order to prevent the, say, 43 smallest states from trumping the 7 largest in the House. It goes both ways, as you see.

[sirshack]

36. Democracy 102

Democracy is "trumping the minority".

[Zardeenah]

22. Proportional voting...

Or whatever it's called (Plurality?) would go farther to making sure we had a representative government. If we didn't have a winner take all system for elections, 50.1% wouldn't be able to dominate 49.9% of the population (2000 election, for example). We'd have soooo much more choice, and 3rd parties would have more of a chance to participate (since they wouldn't just be spoilers). Gore would be in the White House with a landslide if we counted votes this way, I bet.

I think the Senate helps keep the "union of equals" ideal alive for the US, but the House could use more representatives. I say, keep it like it is, but restrict "riders" on bills, add more House members, and enact plurality rules for elections.

Susan

[redeye]

26. Right about PR...

...and I think that PR in the House is more important than either abolishing the Senate (or at least changing it to districts of roguhly equal population - if the House has PR) or abolishing the electoral college.

Anyway, I think that the Senate doesn't really keep a union of equals, mainly because a) the USA is not a federation anymore but a nation with a national rather than state identity, b) many states don't reflect population views - goobergunch has a map of new state boundaries somewhere on the net, c) the government should be ruled by the people, not by lower-level government, and d) the Senate prevents the 9 most populous states from dominating the 41 others even though they have slightly over 50% of the population of the US, but it easily allows a minority, the other 41 states, to dominate the majority.

[Tansy_Gold]

41. an assumption?

You wrote --

"the Senate prevents the 9 most populous states from dominating the 41 others even though they have slightly over 50% of the population of the US, but it easily allows a minority, the other 41 states, to dominate the majority."


I think you're assuming that the 9 most populous are a bloc always opposed to the 41 others, but I have a feeling that isn't true. Teh frequency with which votes in the Senate recently have been 51/49 or something close to it suggests that there are other divisions at work that have nothing to do with the population of the states.

Like abolition of the electoral college, major changes to the structure or operation of the Senate would require a constitutional amendment. In effect, such an amendment would require that the "small" states voluntarily give up their "power." I don't think that's got a reasonable chance of happening any time in any of our lifetimes.

[redeye]

43. You're aboslutely right...

...I was simply using teh most extreme example possible. One of my arguments against the Senate is that it discriminates on the basis of state, and that by the same token there might be 6 Senators for every 6-year age group, 10 for every race (white/black/asian/native/hispanic/alaskan/pacific islander), or so on, actually.

[greekspeak]

25. My main problem with the system

There is a cap on the number of representatives. Thus, as the nation grows larger in population, we get less and less representation. For instance, in Missouri, though the population has continued growing, we have been for the last several decades loosing representatives. To me, the Legislative branch is slowly morphing into a virtual oligarchy. I think we need to remove the cap and have a fairer representation.

[redeye]

30. I guess you're right...

...on the people:rep. ratio. The problem, however, is that you can't do it in one legislature, because, for example, keeping a ratio of 30,000 voters per representatives requires increasing the House to 3,300 members. You can do it with specialized legislatures (I have a thread named Specialized Legislatures in GD somewhere on the back pages that outlines the idea of SLs), though.

[ButterflyBlood]

42. I like a bicameral legislature, but the Senate does cause problems

especially since things like judicial nominees are approved through it, rather than the House, which would make more sense. I like the state legislature solution where Senate districts are also based on population like House, but that has no chance of happening.

[redeye]

46. I wouldn't have too many problems with a bicameral legislature...

...as long as the House was elected without districts and te Senate in large single-member districts of roughly equal population. The situation in most states today, of a bicameral legislature where the only real differences between the two houses are size and term, is very inefficient. If you read my http://leftist.i8.com/constitution.html">constitution proposal, you'll see how I implement that bicameral idea.

[ShaneGR]

45. Yeah, lets just get rid of the constitution too

Who needs it.

[redeye]

47. I sincerely agree...

...but I still don't see how abolishing the Senate leads to abolishing the constitution (which, mind you, isn't a very bad thing considering the age and condition of the current constitution).

[JNelson6563]

48. checks and balances

the Senate needs to stay.

Considering a Dem majority in the Senate for a while is all that stood in the way of complete BFEE control, interesting you should make this assertion.

Julie

[redeye]

51. Doesn't matter

I suppotr the political system that represents the people the best, not the one that helps the Democrats the most.

[ibegurpard]

53. Your system doesn't represent the people the best.

It puts the people that populate sparsely populated areas completely at the mercy of the major population centers. I would agree with you if BOTH branches of were composed of equal numbers of representatives from each state regardless of population but that is not the case.

[redeye]

55. Five things

1. I said that I was intending to do that and not to incerase Democratic participation.

2. Major population centers aren't monolithic, and neither are rural areas.

3. Equality between states and not people doesn't represent people but land; it's natural for a democracy to have its power centers where there are many people.

4. If rural areas bond with conservative cities like Dallas and Houston and Cincinnati, then they can dominate NY and LA at times.

5. Why states and not race? Black, Hispanic, Asian, and native American people are now at the mercy of whites. People aged 18-30 are at the mercy of those aged 30+. And so on...

[jagguy]

49. it works FOR you when your enemy is in power

its supposed to be difficult to get anything done.
its importent to have one chamber not be population bound
its just the way it needs to be

leave things be

[redeye]

50. Why?

It seemsalittle udnemocratic for a legislative chamber to be based on arbitrary borders an not on population.

[MaverickX]

54. it'd take a constitutional amendment...

To get rid of the Senate. Britain doesn't have a unicameral legislature. They have the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

[redeye]

57. The House of Lords has very little power

Hence, Britain has a practically unicameral legislature - ditto Canada that has unelected Senators.

[MaverickX]

59. I know very little about Parliamentray politics..

But it seems like our Senate is alot more organized than the House.

[Blue_Chill]

56. I disagree

Urban sprawl is a big problem in some areas that many people resist. Abolishing the senate would punish those states that resist such growth.

I would never support that.

[redeye]

58. Why?

A person is a person regardless of what state he lives in. And states that combat urban sprawl will only have fewer people if that combat leads to people fleeing to other states. In many states the opposite is true, because they have cities on the borders of other states, so trying to get people back from the suburbs to the cities will actually help them (Ohio, Illinois, and NY come to mind).

[MaverickX]

60. you have to remember..

America is a federal government not a national government and we need to take state's into consideration when forming national laws. The Senate is supposed to give states a check on federal power.

[redeye]

62. Federal?

Since Day One it's been considered a single nation for international purposes. There are no state identities anymore, so it's pointless to try and preserve states' rights. I would rather have the people check federal power instead of intermediate agencies, really.

[MaverickX]

64. well it's a balance

Between state and national power. I'm completely in favor of preserving state identity within the bounds of the Constitution.

[redeye]

65. Which state identity?

This of Colorado, a rectangle? This of California, with its West Coast/Valley+Sierra Nevada tensions? NY's, with its downstate/upstate divisions? Alabama's, which is all too similar to Mississippi's?

[MaverickX]

66. lol...ok not state identity...

But state jurisdiction and governance.

[redeye]

67. In Germany...

...the constitution outlines very clearly what the federal jurisdiction is, what the state jurisdiction is, and what the combined jurisdiction is. That sounds like a pretty good idea, especially since state governments have no say in senate elections anyway; the tenth amendment is extremely vague anyway.

[Blue_Chill]

61. Come to Northern VA

And tell me that the sprawl isn't bringing more and more people into the area. I could get to DC faster on foot in the morning then waiting in traffic.

Cities would = representation if all was based solely on population. The larger the urban areas within your state the more reps in DC. Without a Senate to balance it out you run the risk of politicians ignoring a states objection if it doesn't have a large population.

For example think of nuclear waste. Imagine is the goverment wanted to decide where to put it. Now imagine North Dakota trying to say no.

[redeye]

63. ND can't say no now anyway...

...and besides, the States will become irrelevant with Senate abolition, so they'll have neither the incentive to increase nor to decrease their population. And anyway, states like VA and states like IL and OH balance each other out, and moreover, since the fight against sprawl is best done in the inner city's state, VA won't be able to do much anyway.