Should the Senate and House have different and separate responsibilities in terms of policy

[T Wolf]

decisions? I have been thinking this for quite a while, but after after watching the "sausage-making process" of this HCR effort, it seems more vital.

With the bullshit and dealing that goes on, greatly increased when trying to reconcile bills produced by each chamber, it seems to me that the process is designed to (a) give too much influence to too few Congress critters; (b) allow monstrosities like this bill to be so complex that no one is happy and the powerful wind up getting their wishes fulfilled; and (c) allow those who "speak for us" to basically do whatever they want, without regard for the wishes of the governed.

An interesting book by Julian Jaynes has some insight, in a weird way, to the bizarre manner in which our Congress "works" its magic.

"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" posits that the separate hemispheres of the brain, once they started to "link up", led to our mental advancement (and the origin of "consciousness" with the loss of unknown "voices in our head" (interpreted sometimes as the gods) speaking to us.

Our bicameral Congress suffers from the separation of the bodies. The House, more reflective of the country as a whole (that proportional representation thing) almost always comes out with versions of bills that are more "progressive" while the Senate, overloaded with small-state cretins is usually more regressive in its approach to policy. Each chamber thinks that it, alone, speaks for the people who elected it. And each imagines that the voices coming from the other chamber are foreign and unknown. So, it is obvious that trying to get the two to agree on anything is like someone with a split-personality talking to themselves, unaware that he is arguing with himself.

My solution is to have the Senate handle "national" issues that impact the nation as a whole. This would primarily (or exclusively) consist of foreign relations issues. If the country is to go to war, let the Senate decide. The House would be tasked with handling "domestic" issues. Being more representative of the population, it theoretically would arrive at policy decision that more of us agree with.

The system as it exists now may have been a good idea in the 1700s, but in today's world, does not work at all.

This is not a perfectly clean solution, but it might help.

The alternative is just to eliminate the Senate. Simple. Clean. And resulting in a more representative government.