Does anyone else agree that we need to abolish the Senate?

[Stoic]

I'm serious. The Senate was introduced by the wealthy, elitist "founding fathers" to keep a check on those Dirty Fucking Hippies(tm) also known as the citizenry to protect the rich and wealthy from the excesses of "the mob" (read your Federalist and anti-Federalist Papers). While it's true that a Democratic majority in the Senate kept the Republican majority in the House in check, it also kept the Republican excesses from frightening the voters who would have more quickly turned out the bastards.

Even if the Democrats gain a majority in the Senate, perhaps that magical number 60, does anyone think there won't still be enough Corporate Democrats and DINOs still left to monkey-wrench our attempts to turn back the clock on the last 12 years?

I think it was John Adams who expected a Constitutional Convention every 20 years or so until we fine tuned the Constitution and got the damned think right.

I think it's time we stopped a handful of rich old men (and women) from getting in our way to fixing one of the most corrupt political systems that has ever existed on this planet.

[Richardo]

1. No. Next question.

[Nimrod2005]

2. Yes, let's do that.....nt

[Zensea]

3. Only people I tend to ignore

like I try to ignore buzzing flies.

[bluestateguy]

4. If it wasn't for the Senate, most of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America would be law

As would oil drilling in ANWR.

The problem isn't the Senate. It's the perversion of Senate rules allowing for unlimited debate to a point where filibusters are used all the time. That was never the intent of the filibuster. Filibusters should be rare.

[wyldwolf]

5. No.

[tnlurker]

6. It would be better if they still appointed the senators

From the state legislatures. When the amendment(17th) passed that provided for the direct election of senators it became much easier to bribe/buy/blackmail 67 people then to bribe/buy/blackmail enough state legislators to influence the Senate. I think Big money backed that change in the early 20th century and they have been reaping the rewards every since.

[Kelly Rupert]

10. Yeah, corruption was so much better

in the Gilded Age, when party machines picked Senators :eyes:

[tnlurker]

11. I wasn't saying

That there wasn't corruption then. There was plenty of corruption post Civil War up until 1913(and before I'm sure) when the 17th amendment was passed. It just became easier to be national in scope with it's passage.

[Kelly Rupert]

17. The Gilded Age was, hands down,

the most corrupt period in Congressional politics. Party machines picked candidates, and money controlled the machines outright. Flagrant bribery was commonplace, at the state and national level--there was no accountability whatsoever. This was the age of Tammany Hall, after all. The biggest reason the 17th Amendment was passed was to decrease corrupt influence on Congress. Claiming it was a tool of big money--which opposed the amendment tooth and nail--is ironic.

Now, we have more corruption, but through a combination of gerrymandering, hot-button-issue voters, and, well, simply because the government has more money and power to play around with. Corruption happens in spite of--not because of--direct elections.

[bunkerbuster1]

13. Zell Miller agrees!

And he's batshit crazy!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38251

[onenote]

14. revisionist history.

First, one of the main reasons that direct election of Senators came about was corruption in the process by which state legislatures elected Senators (and, for the record, anyone who thinks state legisltors are hard to bribe/buy/blackmail has a particularly poor knowledge of history). The process of using state legislatures to elect senators was suffering from systemic problems by the time the 17th Amendment was passed. In fact, nine cases alleging bribery in the state legislature's selection of a senator were brought before the Senate between 1866 and 1906 and there other allegations of bribery and intimidation. According to the Senate webiste, another forty-five deadlocks occurred in twenty states between 1891 and 1905, resulting in numerous delays in seating senators. In 1899, problems in electing a senator in Delaware were so acute that the state legislature did not send a senator to Washington for four years.


As for the claim that "Big money" backed the change from state legislature's electing senators to popular elections (stop and think about how illogical that sounds), consider that it was the Populist party that first included the direct election of senators in its party platform and that it was, one state initiated changes on its own. One of the big proponents of direct election was William Randolph Hearst, whose papers ran a series of articles in 1906("The Treason of the Senate") attacking the election of senators by state legislatures, claiming they were in the pocket of industrialists and financiers.

Meanwhile, a number of states had begun experimenting with direct election, led by Oregon which used a state referendum to choose Senators. By 1912, around half of the states picked their senators through some form of direct election process.

[tnlurker]

15. Thanks

I stand corrected then.

[Sparkly]

7. Are you a supporter of Gravel, by any chance?

:crazy:

[onenote]

8. you want to stop a handful of rich old men and women....

elect some poor young men and women.

[Kelly Rupert]

9. No. That's all. n/t

[bunkerbuster1]

12. First things first. The Electoral college goes...

then we work on what I agree is an anti-democratic holdover from colonial days.

We should make the Senate into some kind of defanged House of Lords, where geezers can debate issues but not actually gum things up for people doing the real work.

[cobalt1999]

16. Absolutely not

You're playing the same bullshit game the republicans do. Change the rules to get what you want politically. Want the senate to be more liberal? We just need to vote for more liberal senators. Abolishing an elected house of government because you don't like the make up of it is well...dumb.

[Stoic]

21. No, I'm not playing any bullshit game.

We're brought up to believe that the US has the "greatest democracy in the world" but that is bullshit. The structure of our government is there to keep direct democracy out of the hands of the people. And changing the structure of government is not "dumb" if the purpose is to make government more responsive to the citizenry and more flexible to correct problems and failures. Why do so many people think that the moment they signed off on the Constitution that they turned around and etched it in stone.

[Igel]

18. No.

Between the House and the Senate--at least in principle--two different kinds of majorities are required, majorities with non-identical views. It makes it harder for a single majority to push its views onto a minority, and presumably makes the minority on the receiving end smaller.

One idea behind a liberal democracy (sensu lato) is minority rights.

One kind of majority is strictly numerical: The representatives from a majority of the people need to vote 'aye'. The other is geographical: Representatives from a sufficient number of states, regardless of population, need to vote 'aye'. It makes it less likely that one group will be consistently marginalized: When that happens it's almost a given that their rights and privileges will suddenly be deemed unnecessary.


It also spreads the approval process for legislation over time. There have been numerous times I thought legislation passed by the House was good, but by the time the Senate got around to debating it I knew more (or considered what I knew in a different light) and was glad when the Senate nixed it (or was sad when the Senate passed it).

[AZBlue]

19. Not just no, but Hell No!

[William769]

20. No.

Sorry you hate Democracy.