Finally, the world notices that no Senate is good Senate

This blog has panned the the Canadian senate, along with the Argentine, Brazilian, and Philippine ones. And we have not spared the American one, either! We blasted the American senate not only because of it has godawful stupid internal rules but because it is fundamentally undemocratic. In fact, we went so far as to calculate what the U.S. Senate would look like if you retained the 100-person membership but allocated Senators the way we did Representatives. Short result: California gets 10 senators. New York and Texas get six. Florida gets five. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois get four, and you can click the link for the rest.

Given that, it is nice to see the New York Times finally catching up! Read the article. The Senate is fundamentally undemocratic and perverts our politics. Abolishing or reforming it is long overdue.

Unfortunately, the Senate is the one thing that the Constitution of the United States says cannot ever be reformed. It’s right there in Article 5: “[Amendments become part of the Constitution after ratification by ¾ths of the state legislatures or special state conventions] provided ... that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Oh well.

Comments

[Eric Moore]

Amendments not specifically prohibited:

Add a third house of the legislature, and transfer all of the senate's powers there.

Add a third house of the legislature that is co-equal with the senate, such that a bill needs to pass the house and either the senate or the third house

Constitutionally mandate that the senate only needs a 1/3 affirmative vote to pass something already passed by the house.

Add constitutional provisions to allow states to split into separate states that are still free federate their local services and governments within the boundaries of the old state, then split all the states up along congressional district boundaries.

Pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the senate from passing bills that allocate monies to projects in particular states except in direct proportion to the population of the state.

Repeal the 16th amendment, increase the senate to 400 senators (8/state), allocate federal taxes to the states directly the way the framers intended, but proportional to their number of senators, with of course, a provision to allow them to consent to senatorial representation proportional to their population. Montana *could* keep it's 8 senators, if it wanted.

[Richard Grabman]

I would take a more radical approach. There's nothing sacred about geographical representation (Bolivia, for example, elects their Senate by ethnic identity) and the technology certainly exists to allow for proportional representation.

Define a dozen or so areas of voter interest (labor, agriculture, defense, and so on) with voters able to select from a slate (either regionally or nationally) four or five people to represent their varied interests. Receiving four or five ballots (one for each interest sector) doesn't mean a candidate couldn't appear on more than one ballot (say, running to represent labor or agriculture. It would mean that there was a Senate that theoretically had people who had an interest in the same things voters have interests in, and who might bring the voter's concerns to public issues. Considering farm interests or environmental issues when discussing the defense budget wouldn't be such a bad idea (and I can't see how it would make things worse).

Then again, maybe just go with a House of Lords made up of CEOs.