There Are 100 People in America With Way Too Much Power

[Nevilledog]

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Seth Masket
@smotus
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Intrigued by @jbouie’s proposal: Make the Senate an appointed body again, with powers only to amend (not introduce or veto) legislation.
Senator Joe Manchin is one of them.
nytimes.com
Opinion | There Are 100 People in America With Way Too Much Power
Here’s how to put them in their place.
9:41 AM · Jul 24, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/opinion/senate-power-amendment.html?referringSource=articleShare

No paywall
https://archive.ph/JN7qG

Toward the end of my Tuesday column on the Senate, I gestured toward the idea of making it into something like the British House of Lords, which has limited power to veto legislation or make policy. Most democracies with bicameral national legislatures have done something similar, empowering their lower, popular chambers and weakening their upper chambers.

The Canadian Senate, for example, acts mainly as a council of revision, amending legislation that comes out of the House of Commons. It can reject legislation, but it rarely exercises that power. The Australian Senate has much more power to block legislation from the House, but the chamber is more democratic than its American counterpoint in that it is apportioned by proportional representation.

The United States stands alone with a Senate that is powerful enough to grind the entire legislature to a halt. You could end the filibuster, of course, and that would improve things, but it would take a constitutional amendment to do any root and branch reform of the Senate.

Let’s say that amendment was on the table. What would it say?

What I would write is simple. I would repeal the 17th Amendment, returning the election of senators to each state legislature, and restoring the federal nature of the chamber. But to compensate for the end of popular election of senators, I would also strip the Senate of its power to introduce or veto legislation.

*snip*

[brooklynite]

1. Pointless

If you could pass a Constitution Amendment, you could pass a Constitutional Amendment that would be far more effective.

It isn’t possible.