Democratizing the Senate
Joe Weinstein
jweins123 at hotmail.com
Tue May 7 10:54:21 PDT 2002
>From the start and indeed by constitutional design the US Senate has served
not to exemplify newer ideas of republican democracy but rather continuity
with ancient and indeed oligarchical concepts, notably that of the Roman
Senate.
But there are good reasons not to focus reform efforts on abolishing the
Senate or on converting it into essentially a smaller copy of the US House.
First, bicameralism has sometimes saved USA federal laws from being carried
away unicamerally by fads and self-serving excess. Right now, the House
seems even more ready (if that's possible) than the Senate to pass giveaways
to greed, all rationalized as being needed for the war on terrorism but in
fact having the opposite effect: namely weakening of the social and
environmental basis of defense which the country will need for ultimate
success in any struggle - including anti-terrorism.
Second, the US Senate happens to be about the right size. James Madison
made the point that a body of about 100 members is just big enough to
prevent 'factionalism' (petty, obstructionist cliques), and yet small enough
to get business done while enabling individual members to be heard to and to
have influence. (Of course, just being the right size doesn't mean that the
US Senate has to be constituted the way it is now, so read on.)
A third reason is perhaps most important. Many of us here in the USA - at
times I among them - view states as anachronistic and meaningless
encumbrances to creation or efficient operation of a homogeneous US society.
However, constitutionally the USA is a federation - to be sure a fairly
tight federation - of states. Some of the states used to be separate
nations, and indeed some of the states (like California, Florida, Texas,
Alaska and Hawaii) could credibly now be. (What helps for this are factors
like large area, geographic isolation, and border lands which are relatively
impassable or thinly settled.) Maybe federalism in the USA still has an
important and useful role, if only to provide a credible model for the rest
of the world.
Inherently, a federation of equal states does not jibe with notions of
'democracy' which call for representational power proportional with
population (or some other given attribute of the states). But, as vehicles
for true democracy, most alternative proposals are just as problematic as
the status quo. For instance, where's the great democracy these days in
p.r. for PARTIES and thereby de facto the cliques who control them?
Joe Weinstein
Long Beach CA USA
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