Is the US Senate an inherently unrepresentative institution?
In the US, each state gets two Senators no matter how many people reside in that state. California with tens of millions more people than Alaska gets two Senators and Alaska gets two Senators. How exactly is that representative?! How is the Senate ever going to reflect the will of the people?! The same question can be applied to the electoral college. Also, an amendment to the Constitution has to be ratified by two thirds of the states, which makes it nearly impossible to change the Senate, not to mention that it would never get the needed votes in the Senate itself as the Senators from the small states would never go for it. The House of Representatives is also unrepresentative due to gerrymandering and the right wing judges who uphold this unconstitutional practice. Voters are supposed to choose their representatives. Politicians are not supposed to pick their voters!
Will the US ever be representative given these institutional flaws?
Or do you really believe this is a democratic representative system?
Or do you think democratic representation is overrated?
Thank you for your consideration.
Will the US ever be representative given these institutional flaws?
Or do you really believe this is a democratic representative system?
Or do you think democratic representation is overrated?
Thank you for your consideration.
Comments (157)
This goes back to my point about politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around. Also because of money in politics.
Quoting Coben
Agreed. Winner take all elections are also a flaw of the Constitution.
Quoting Coben
This goes way back to the 1870s when right wing judges declared corporations as having the rights of persons, and then made much worse by the Citizens United case this century.
People who criticize the government (our government, your government...) forget what the purpose of government is, per Karl Marx. The government is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie (rich people, businesses, land owners, etc.). It is not there to guarantee YOU or ME happiness. If you are well fed and content with your life, then thank your lucky stars.
The House represents the people, the Senate represents the states. That's because America is a union of states.
Quoting Maw
The US government was never meant to be entirely democratic. It's a representative republic with a Constitution and an unelected Judicial Branch.
America is not a religion. America is a nation of people. Invoking Ancient Athens is a straw man against what I was calling for. The electoral college was meant to protect property owners and slave owners. The Senate was meant to protect the elites of the states instead of the general citizenry. Your religious attitudes toward the Constitution clouds your judgment.
@Bitter Crank, yes my belly is full, thank goodness. Forgive me for wanting a government that functions for more people instead of the elites.
@tim wood, you’re either ignorant or an asshole.
Forgive my empassioned OP, but I have very strong views on government.
I know the history quite well. It appears that you don’t. I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you’re just ignorant.
Huh?
1) an amendment to be ratified requires three-fourths of the states’ approval; it’s two-thirds in ( of) Congress.
2) “impossible” seems an odd adjective since the current method of direct election was, in fact, eagerly changed and welcomed by the senate, following the antecedent and original process of state ( legislature) elections.
Of course it was never meant to be entirely democratic as it was constructed by slave-owners who subsequently only allowed property owning white men to vote. With time, we extended suffrage. When a state with 500K people has the same representative power as a state with 11M that's extremely undemocratic and should be abolished. There is no valid justification for the existence of the Senate. What does it even mean to "represent the states" as opposed to "the people"? Does land have a say in policy?
Quoting tim wood
Absolute jabberwocky.
You’re right. It is 38 states that have to ratify it. Misspoke.
It would be nearly impossible to change the structure of the Senate. This is so because it would hurt Republicans, the same reason why Republicans make it harder for people to vote. So, yes, it is NEARLY impossible.
My thoughts exactly, but I prefer the Wisconsinite term “hogwash.”
The father of the constitution, Madison, would disagree. He offers multiple valid justifications for the senate in The Federalist Papers 62 and 63.
Personally, I think he struck gold when espousing the notion of its deliberative mode, by virtue of six year terms, as a tool to counterbalance the frenzy and passions of the hour.
If you want to quote someone, just highlight the text and click the “quote” link. Then they get a notification that you responded to them. :smile:
Madison was trying to ensure the rights of the gentry, the small minority of people of which he was one.
I believe six year terms is okay, but one representative body with four year terms would be better.
oh ok
First, thanks for the quote tip.
Secondly, you say changing the senate structure would be nearly impossible since it would hurt the republicans. I’m sorry, but demographics nationally refute your proposition.
The original process for senate elections was via state legislatures. The GOP currently controls 30 of them; maybe 31. Around there. Those numbers will little change in short course.
Thus, there is an exceedingly valid reason for the GOP to change the current structure-i.e., to return to state elections as a more secure means of being elected.
I don’t understand your argument to refute my claim. I’m talking about the current state of politics in this country.
If the Republicans could gerrymander and suppress the vote enough to get the needed ratification, they would. As it stands now, their methods only work so well.
Your claim was that changing the senate ( structure) is nearly impossible since it would hurt the republicans.
Well, allow me to simplify how current political demographics refute your claim: if changing the senate structure serves to benefit the GOP- as it surely would (due to current demographics) were it changed to its original process- then why would it be nearly impossible for republicans to change it?
I believe this comment is the source of confusion. My point is that the republicans would have to do very little to hold onto their senate power inasmuch as they, unlike the democrats, could offer an amendment to have the states elect the senate (ors). There’s no impossibility in the least to their doing that.
Demographics are their friends, their road to victory. They control the state legislatures by a vast margin. If you dislike the GOP, you best hope the current structure remains status quo.
Yeah... well, don't we all.
[quote="Noah Te Stroete;313321"]State governments are redundant and only serve to further divide the nation.
I don't understand your animus toward the states. Most countries subdivide themselves into provinces, states, counties, or some such. There are benefits: One big one is that states and federal government have separate, delegated and reserved, powers.
In a varied population, states can carry out collective government closer to the wishes of a smaller number of people than can occur on the national level. 5 million Wisconsinites vs. 300 million Americans. A number of states, across the northern part, are populated by people who ore or less LIKE the state, and invest the state as a vehicle of the collective will. The state is the means by which they achieve better education, health, and general well-being than other states do.
The states across the south have disliked the state from the get-go. They didn't like other states, and they didn't trust their own state. Breaking things down further, they didn't trust their county governments or city governments either. They saw the state as interference in their private prerogatives to do whatever the hell they wanted to do. As a consequence of this attitude, their stats on health, education, and generally well-being suck.
The states are free to experiment. Nebraska has a single legislative house (unicameral). Some state constitutions are better guarantees of individual liberties than the national constitution. States can legislate as they see fit on matters where they have precedence over the federal government. Voting laws vary. Minneapolis recently began ranked voting (first choice, second choice...)
NO system of government is perfect. Ours is improvable, but it isn't a total disaster, either.
Of course. The state governments are redundant because there are already county and municipal governments. Some states are better than others, and this all boils down to tastes ultimately, but if we got rid of them, then maybe we would have more influence over the federal government, and getting rid of or reforming the Senate would go a long way to making the government more accountable to the people. This is, of course, my preference, and it’s not up to me.
Shame on you! I am an American and you are bordering on calling me unAmerican. I’m sure you’ve read “A People’s History of the United States” and “ The Untold History of the United States.” I suppose you’re an historian , too. I’ve only read six US history books and taken two history classes in college, so I suppose as an historian you’re better qualified than me.
Yes. I do. What about it? Unless it’s based on racial or equal protection (5a/14a) type issues, partisan gerrymandering is a mundane political issue condoned by the constitution; congress can use its elections clause if they don’t like its results.
In any case, what’s gerrymandering have to do with republicans and the near impossibility of their changing the senate structure?
As to the balance of your post, you’re building a scaffold of non sequiturs.
yes corporate personhood is another horror. and the fact that corporate charters are no longer seen as priviledges that can be revoked. Conservatives along with liberals should be horrified at this change in the way corporations are viewed. Conservatives right off the bat since it goes against precautions put in by the founders, men who were nto just concerned about big government, but also bit private, having seen what things like the East India Company were capable of.
Go back and read the progression of what I said, and come back when your reading comprehension improves.
Quoting Reshuffle
Gerrymandering as used by Republicans is based on race and socioeconomic class. Gerrymandering as the Republicans use it is only condoned by the Constitution because of right wing judges and justices.
Its representative of state governments, which is its purpose. If the US wants to be more democratic, then changing the nature of states so that a senate is no longer needed would be the step to take. Remember that states vote to ratify amendments after they're ratified by the House and Senate.
States are an important unit of government in the US since it's foundation. That's why it's a union of states.
Are we playing let's ignore history because we don't like the current party in power?
History of oppression is what favors the Republicans.
And what does that have to do with how the US government is structured? Republicans didn't exist at the foundation, and if you go back far enough, they were the party wanting to abolish slavery.
They currently have a majority in the Senate and occupy the presidency, but that can change over a couple elections. It's always going back and forth between the two parties that matter.
Lol, you think the job of a representative democracy is to represent governments.
I knew you would bring up Lincoln. Lol. That’s when Republicans were more progressive and the Democrats were racist. Check your history.
I’m talking about the CURRENT Republican Party. They have benefited greatly from oppressive policies, whether current or from the history of right wing judges.
The Senate represents the states, so yes in that case. Are you talking about in theory?
Okay, but what does that have to do with the Senate as an institution? Control of the Senate will swing back to the Democratic party in time.
This entire thread is supposed to be about theory. History came up as a confusion of the intent of the thread. People here invoked history as if people didn’t make poor decisions way back when. That’s the religion of America that I was talking about.
Doesn’t matter because the majority party in the Senate needs 60 votes, something that is very rare in recent history. Given that each state gets two Senators regardless of their populations and gerrymandering and voter suppression, the will of the people isn’t being done.
It justifies the state as a fundamental unit of government in addition to the Federal government. That's the whole point of the United States of America. Maybe someday the citizens of enough states will want to remove that unit and then the Senate becomes unnecessary.
That’s my point!
It was originally intended to protect small states from the dominance of the big ones.
That was the purported argument. The reality is that it protected slave plantation owners from the more populated cities of the North.
So you're saying if there wasn't an institution of slavery, there would have been no senate? That the founders created the senate solely on behalf of the slave holders?
The way I look at it is that if the EU formed a similar union of state countries, then a Senate would be a way for smaller European countries to offset the major influence of countries like Germany, otherwise, Germany and France are dominating policy.
No
No, there are reasons for it to exist which have to do with the US being a union of states. Maybe the need for state governments will change someday.
I’m not telling Europe how to run itself. The US states were never countries, though.
Quoting Marchesk
That’s exactly the reason for the Senate and the electoral college.
Yes
You may as well argue that because The Soviet Union was a union of Soviets, that it's political organisation was well justified.
Fine, it's not democratically representative of the population. That's the House. Next question is whether all political institutions should be democratically representative, since the implicit tone of the OP is that the Senate being undemocratic is bad.
You’re absolutely, unequivocally correct. People get bogged down in US history likes it’s beyond reproach. Not only is it a religious stance, but it has nothing to do with the OP. It’s a distraction.
That's not what I recall. I guess we can google some historical analysis or use the Founders words to settle this.
So the OP seems to be arguing that undemocratic political institutions are bad. That would be more appropriate for a philosophical discussion than arguing over history or politics.
That’s no good. They talked about protecting minorities from majority rule. They were talking about slave owners. You have to read between the lines.
I didn’t want to argue about history. I got sucked into it. This was supposed to be a political philosophy thread.
So what would be the ideal setup of the US government? Abolish the Senate and the House takes over both roles. Abolish the Electoral College. Get rid of the states ratifying amendments.
Would that work?
Then next would be updating the Judicial Branch. Federal judges run for election and have to be approved by the House when nominated for SCOTUS?
A country supposedly founded on inherent freedom for all persons (initially white men) suggests that these free people aren’t truly free if the government isn’t accountable to them. I don’t believe that the Senate is accountable to the majority of the US population.
The question of the OP is in the title. Seems like we both agree the answer is in the affirmative.
Then it's not much of a philosophical discussion.
Not as it stands now.
It doesn't seem like the current president is either. He can get voted out next election, but so can senators.
And the of course there is the influence of corporations and special interests. Successful elections require money.
The US government has a lot of features that are intended to protect the country from mob mentality. Yes, they're anti-democratic. Pure democracies don't usually last very long.
Or the argument is that being anti-democratic is bad full stop, so we need to try a more pure form of democracy, which doesn't stop with abolishing the Senate. But the mob rule would need to be addressed.
If the Senate has a tendency to squash bad legislation, then it's protecting the people from the government. Since the senate is usually made up of older, experienced politicians, it has potential value.
Pretty sure the UK’s is older.
It’s pretty crazy that Mitch can just refuse to hear bills passed by the House.
No
Also, the Isle of Man.
http://www.oldest.org/politics/democracies/
Not all continuous though.
Why do you say that? If you count the Cromwell years as a break in government then the UK’s has been continuous since 1660.
Sorry, I thought Tim had mentioned that the US has the world's oldest in-use constitution. He said something else.
Last try: the current demographics with respect to state legislatures are such that republicans control the vast majority of them. Plain fact.
Accordingly, the republicans would benefit by altering the current senate election structure (direct election) were it returned to its original process ( state election.) I’m sorry if you can’t grasp this simple concept.
The rest of your commentary is noise and not worth extra bandwidth.
No shit. They need 38 state legislatures and 67 Senators. I already said this.
I’m dead serious. I also have my grandfather’s burial flag, a picture of my grandpa when he was a sailor, and a picture of my nephew in his Marines uniform on my mantle.
“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”
This is certainly true.
So why not just get rid of representatives and go with straight democracy using the internet? We vote on everything. Majority rules.
I have a personal preference for leadership only because ordinary people don’t have the time to research domestic and foreign policy. Representative government is in a better position to tackle complex issues just because it’s their sole job. However, I do think there should be some national referendums on domestic issues, like marijuana legalization, for example. Also, outlawing gerrymandering that focuses on race and socioeconomic classes. They did this in Michigan.
Right, the senators are elected by the people, but the Senate is not representative of the state populations. This is more of an issue today than near the founding of the country because the Federal government has become more powerful and the state governments less so.
Exactly. I’m glad we arrived at the same conclusion. The electoral college and gerrymandering practices where politicians pick their voters are also unrepresentative.
Yes.
I agree with you on gerrymandering, but I'm on the fence about the Electoral College, because once it's done away with, the candidates will focus much more on the large population areas.
Maybe instead the States could split their electoral votes based on percentages instead of winner take all.
This makes sense to me. Great idea!
Yes, this would inevitably lead to more political parties, I think, and so the party heads would be President. Or, the President need not be the head of the party that gets the most votes. I’m not sure which would be better.
Now, Marchesk, Noah, and @StreetlightX (if he were American) need to author new Federalist papers. :grin:
In Massachusetts, there are effectively no counties anymore. They still exist but have very little to do and very little authority. There is no unincorporated land in Massachusetts. All land is located within the boundaries of the 351 cities and towns. Municipality sizes vary from 700,000 to a less than 100. The State government (actually, Massachusetts is a Commonwealth not a state, whatever that means) is the one unifying governmental force within the Commonwealth. Massachusetts has very different politics, demographics, and way of life than many other states. I don't want the portions of the government which are closest to home to be run from Washington.
My views on state governments being redundant are not strongly held. I could go either way.
That’s because the southern plantation states had a smaller population than the more urban northern states. The electoral college was a bone thrown to the southern states so they would ratify the Constitution.
No, I am not daft. The southern plantation states had a lot of slaves which counted as 3/5 of a person each (another bone thrown to the South). Are you ignorant?
I made it clear that the Senate is set up to be ludicrously undemocratic, and not reflective of the voting population. Has nothing to do with the fact that Republicans currently control it. You simply don't have a sound argument justifying it's modern day existence, because there is none.
Tim,
I appreciate your input on this thread.
A question for you if you have insight on the topic. The 17th Amendment gave us popular vote for the US Senate. Like the incorporation of the Bill of Rights, via the 14th Amendment, binding states, it appears to me that the 17th reflects an erosion of federalism. Is there any evidence of any countervailing force? Do you see any evidence of a counter to this trend?
The argument is that the states exist as a fundamental political unit of organization making up the US. You don't have to like it, but it is a reality. Also, it's not the only part of government which is not representative of the population. The US wasn't setup to be a democracy first and foremost. It is a republic where the representatives get voted in.
This isn't even an argument!
If you think the US Senate shouldn't exist, then you have to deal with the reality of the states as well, since that's the reason for the Senate existing.
That's how dumb you sound.
True that the politicians do this. Also true that I wish for a better system despite politicians’ collective hypocrisy.
Not when the lines are clear.
As you should.
Ah, yes. The bane of common law.
My apologies for making the question opaque.
I appreciate federalism for a certain liberty (allowing each state to vary its obligations and prohibitions to the interests of its citizens) but also for the experimental component (50 'petri dishes' to suss out a more effective solution to governance).
There seems to be a trend away from federalism in this country. The Incorporation of the Bill of Rights is perhaps the more obvious of my two examples. The 17th Amendment, to my mind, also erodes the premise of the state as a sovereign territory. Prior to learning of the history of the 17th Amendment and how Senators used to be elected, it did seem to curious to me that we had two houses, whose members were both elected directly by the People.
My question was along the lines of whether a movement to repeal the 17th Amendment has ever gained any momentum. My suspicion is that the structure that existed prior to the 17th can never be regenerated, if only because the direct election represents a power that the People will never give up.
Perhaps this is the natural evolution of governance, a hierarchy tending to the concentration of power at its center, rather than its distribution to the nodes.
I don't take the premise cited (in the article) for the ratification of the 17th Amendment on faith any more than I buy the argument of those opposed to the EC that it was the tool of slave holders. Finding (via Google searches) historians that share evidence without regard for an agenda is not a trivial thing.
That’s akin to holocaust denial, like denying that the founding fathers were slave holders. You don’t have to buy it. It’s a fact.
This is religious bullshit. Pardon my French, and God bless you. I don’t agree with what you’ve said, but I will defend to the death of me your right to say it.
The prostitution of the commerce clause ended any pretense of federalism. It’s DC’s ( congress’s) plenary instrument for making all things it’s own business.
Oh, wait....there’s those right-wing hobgoblins who sit on the bench and dare to curtail, like platonic guardians, the abuses of the commerce clause (e.g. US v. Lopez). Not to mention their haste to jurisprudentially trumpet the Tenth Amendment. “Damn states-righters” is what they must be, KKK types hiding in plain view wearing those black-as-white robes.
Or maybe they just don’t trust the federal government.
Incidentally, the incorporation of the BOR ( most of it) via the 14A was less a manifestation of federalism being eroded than it was a legal angle by defendants to challenge state prosecutions and abuses of civil rights. John Bingham, author of the 14a, envisioned his section 1 clause as a way to accomplish precisely that-granting civil rights protections to all men ( especially blacks, then still de facto slaves, despite the 13A.)
Bingham’s interest wasn’t to grant the feds more, or the states less, power; his principal concern was to erode the Black Codes and to provide equal protection to all of his fellow citizens.
I disagree.
I can't see this conversation leading anywhere useful.
Exactly! You can’t even bring up anything in politics with conservatives without them invoking the founding fathers, as if conservatives know what the fathers would say if they lived in the here and now. This isn’t 1787!
That was then (1787). This is 2019. If you had read my comments in this thread, then you’d know where I stand.
I’m not saying our forefathers got everything wrong. What they got wrong was leaving so much power to the individual states, the electoral college, and the structure of the Senate, which overwhelmingly favors the powered elites over the vast majority of citizens.
Furthermore, winner take all elections resulted in a forever two party system, which leaves out the viewpoints of a lot of people. This was another mistake.
In conclusion, the forefathers were wise in that their was nothing like our government in the world at the time, but they shouldn’t be deified as they made many mistakes.
I would have one house of Congress with representatives based on equal districts of population with four year terms. Then actual people would be represented and not land. The states already have their own governments, so they don’t need to be equally represented in Congress which is currently the case with the Senate. That’s the first thing I would change.
Of course it is. This is a philosophy discussion. We’re discussing theory.
My posts on this thread are meant to understand perspectives on the evolution of our state. I respect the principles of federalism in as much as a tendency towards a monolithic state with increasing power vested at the center lacks a certain 'ethical efficiency', measured as how the set of obligations and prohibitions map to the customs and standards of the region and group of people under its jurisdiction.
Federalism, from this perspective and as an ideal, respects standards and customs distinct to regions and groups of people (states) and is reflected by variance within constitution and law. As an additional benefit, the avoidance of a monolithic governance structure insulates against political 'disease' analogously to genetic variation protecting against blight in trees.
I don't intend to demean your passion on the topic. For me, however, I limit my topics of inquiry on this forum to those that I can consider dispassionately. I prefer not to raise my objections over things like Kelo v. New London as that is recent and, for me, is as much visceral as cerebral. I'm trying to consider the philosophy of the matter more than the politics of it. Treating the changes we experience as the moving of tectonic plates.
Quoting JosephS
If we look at the trend of our governance over centuries, where is it leading?
Within our federal government, it appears the judiciary absorbs power as the legislative diminishes. The judiciary, however, sees Originalism gaining ascendancy. In as much as originalism, as opposed to a living constitution, ostensibly binds the court more narrowly to the text, it can be perceived as a smaller and shallower ripple countervailing the ascendant power of the courts.
Do we see any larger waves on the horizon or is the cementing of federal power better perceived as a one-way crystallization of hierarchy -- a sedimentary, unyielding compression?
Thank you for your references to John Bingham. I will look up his name.
What you mention of federalism is more its residue than its design. Federalism, like separation of powers and checks and balances, is about securing the people’s sovereignty and reaffirming the consent of the governed.
The framers began-and ended-their journey of establishing our republic with the threshold concept of “We the people...” Those words and those which followed in the COTUS both underscored an effort to 1) shape our individual states into a collective body ( E pluribus unum) and 2) create a limited government.
Recall, the mission of the revolutionary moments cca. 1776-1778 was to extricate a horde of radicals from tyranny and oppression in the form of a King. Once accomplished by using guns and might, those same radicals took intellectual pains to establish liberty in perpetuity by dividing all pockets of power in their (our) seminal republic.
Federalism ( inter alia) was thus born.
“Do we see any larger waves on the horizon or is the cementing of federal power better perceived as a one-way crystallization of hierarchy -- a sedimentary, unyielding compression?”
That concern is too deep for me. My only reply is to say that my life, and the lives of those I know most, are intertwined with government more locally than nationally ( I.e., state vs. feds) to the extent there’s any serious intercourse at all. I pay taxes, I salute the military, I obey the laws.
That reassures me that we haven’t yet been devoured by The DC Leviathan and, in a more apposite sense, reassures me that federalism still retains its political soul.