Do we really need a Senate?

[Book of Jeremiah]

* Not to mention presidential elections are now officially over! Obama isn't going anywhere! MARK MY WORDS!

-Jeremiah

 

[R.C. Christian]

There is peaceful yet civilly disobedient way to address this and that is by blocking the senate with people. Thousands and thousands of people just sitting there refusing to obey. They'll bring out their shock troops, their tanks, their dogs in a show of force but that is the only way I can think of to get a point across short of a coup.

 

[StevenC]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

Would it be safe to assume that you want to do away with the senate because of republicans?
If so do you realize that the republicans control the house and can pass bills fairly easily?
If you get what you want Obama would be spending the rest of his presidency vetoing bill after bill. How would that be for you?

 

[regent]

Forty-nine states have a two-house system for their state, the one state that has only one house is Nebraska.

 

[rightwinger]

* Not to mention presidential elections are now officially over! Obama isn't going anywhere! MARK MY WORDS!

-Jeremiah

President for Life?

I like it

 

[Sallow]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

It's sort of our "House of Lords".

But yeah..it kind of makes no sense. Anyone can be a Senator. Would make more sense if there were a requirement of some kind..like a master's degree.

 

[candycorn]

Yes we do. The entire point of the constitution is limiting the government’s powers and one key to that is the separation of powers. Combining the senate with the house only serves to consolidate that power.

Now, I would agree that one KEY job that the senate was supposed to fill has been obliterated and that is yet another problem that we face today. The entire point of the senate was that they were to represent the states interests and not the general people’s interests. The house was for the people, the senate was for the states. When we passed the 17th amendment, that entire concept was ruined and it lead to the current setup that we have now with the states being little more than extensions to federal power, not competing interests like they are supposed to be. This is more examples of divided powers coalescing. IMHO, that is really bad for the nation as a whole.

Here we are, 101 years after its ratification, and people such as yourself are now wondering what the senate is even for. Very unfortunate.

The highest power/purpose of the Senate is to pass laws and debate merits of legislation. Currently, it's doing neither. What you said has some truth; much like a car's primary purpose is to get you from point A to point B without being beholden to schedules or routes such as a subwar or bus. But the main idea is conveyance...the Senate is out of gas.

The House could easily fulfill the role the Senate is performing on it's better days.

And I don't need to remind anyone that the party I most closely identify with--the Democrats--are in charge of the body I see as useless and the opposite is true of the body in which I place my faith as being representative of the people; such as it is. It's f'd up too by the way.

 

[candycorn]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

The Senate was established as an equalizer for rural colonies who feared that an urban majority would cram things down their throat. (Same story with the electoral college which is also slightly skewed to provide more representation to rural citizens).

(for example Alaska, Delaware Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Vermont have only one U.S. Representative - but they have two senators).

So it depends on where you stand on that. If you are a rural voter, you probably like the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College (in principle anyway, if not this specific Senate) and if you are an urban voter, you probably resent the over representation of rural voters.

As for your assessment of dysfunction - it seems to me that the U.S. Senate has some rules (41 senators can block measures) that might address that issue a little better than desolving the Senate altogether. As a general rule, I'm very skeptical of radical, knee-jerk changes.

Well, I can't comment on the "what if's" in the Senate--if it didn't have Rule A or Rule B--but you're right, if it changes internally my opinion may change.

 

[Oddball]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

The Senate was established as an equalizer for rural colonies who feared that an urban majority would cram things down their throat. (Same story with the electoral college which is also slightly skewed to provide more representation to rural citizens).

(for example Alaska, Delaware Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Vermont have only one U.S. Representative - but they have two senators).

So it depends on where you stand on that. If you are a rural voter, you probably like the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College (in principle anyway, if not this specific Senate) and if you are an urban voter, you probably resent the over representation of rural voters.

As for your assessment of dysfunction - it seems to me that the U.S. Senate has some rules (41 senators can block measures) that might address that issue a little better than desolving the Senate altogether. As a general rule, I'm very skeptical of radical, knee-jerk changes.

Well, I can't comment on the "what if's" in the Senate--if it didn't have Rule A or Rule B--but you're right, if it changes internally my opinion may change.

Thanks for admitting to the class that you're a pure hack.

/thread

 

[candycorn]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

Impossible to do away with from a pragmatic standpoint.

I invite you to consider life without the Senate, the House sends a bill to the President; He vetoes it; then the House over-rides the veto or it dies. Sounds like government to me...

Consider today's reality. The House sends a bill to the Senate. Scumbag Harry Reid wads it up and tosses it into the garbage can. The President gets on the TV and urges the Congress to get to work on a bill he can sign....

Meanwhile, farm bill dies; student loan rates double; too big to fail banks are bigger than ever in some cases;

 

[nodoginnafight]

The Senate is disfunctional because the Republicans are filibustering EVERYTHING!!!

judicial nominees, executive appointments, even selecting reconciliation members to pass a damn budget!!!!!!!!!

Good thing democratics were above such chicanery when Chimpy Bush was prez.

Oh, wait.....

This is correct. The highest number of cloture motions filed in any two-year period is 139 in 2007-2008 when Bush junior was president. Second is 137 in 2009-2010 (Obama) and third is 115 in 2011-2012 (Obama). The 4th highest total is 82 when Clinton was president. Prior to 1971 no more than 7 were filed in any two-year period.

Easy to see that instead of a drastic measure undertaken in extreme circumstances - it has just become one more partisan ax.

 

[candycorn]

Maybe if the Republicans stopped filibustering every fucking piece of legislation, every judicial nominee, every executive appointment, the Senate would be more functional.

The Dems do the same thing...thwart, complain, fillibuster...

 

[candycorn]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

Why not get rid of the Senate, The House and do away with elections all together? Shred the Constitution and the Bill of Rights while you're at it too.

You've got Obama ruling by executive order - bypassing the three branches of government.

You've got Obama ignoring Constitution and Bill of Rights repeatedly.

You have fixed elections such as the one we witnessed with Al Franken and we are about to witness part 2 with Wiener getting in the same way. Keep counting those votes until Obama's guy gets installed.

The truth? It's a deception to continue to have a Senate, a House, A constitution, bill of rights and election system when the reality is all of this became obsolete the moment the communists installed King Obama. He is so obvious - look at how he involved himself in the Zimmerman case and is now trying to overthrow the verdict of a jury!

Truth is when a verdict comes down? I accept it. Whether I agree with it or not. This is common sense and the law of the land - both of which Obama admin would prefer Americans toss out the window!

- Jeremiah

Take your meds.

 

[Defiant1]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

It's sort of our "House of Lords".

But yeah..it kind of makes no sense. Anyone can be a Senator. Would make more sense if there were a requirement of some kind..like a master's degree.

You just hate our country and what it stands for.

Is there anything about our country that you like? excepting the free handouts.

 

[candycorn]

There is peaceful yet civilly disobedient way to address this and that is by blocking the senate with people. Thousands and thousands of people just sitting there refusing to obey. They'll bring out their shock troops, their tanks, their dogs in a show of force but that is the only way I can think of to get a point across short of a coup.

Share youre meds with this dumbass too.

 

[candycorn]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

Would it be safe to assume that you want to do away with the senate because of republicans?

No, the way the Majority Leader of either party acts is the reason I want to do away with the Senate.

If so do you realize that the republicans control the house and can pass bills fairly easily?

Good, that is what they are supposed to do...pass legislation

If you get what you want Obama would be spending the rest of his presidency vetoing bill after bill. How would that be for you?

A sign that the government is working...the legislative branch is trying to turn the wheel one way and the President is trying to turn it the opposite way. Currently we have a ship where the Legislature is not even on the Bridge and the President is demanding they take the wheel so they can turn it in the same direction.

 

[candycorn]

Forty-nine states have a two-house system for their state, the one state that has only one house is Nebraska.

Well, in Texas they meet for what, 90 days every 2 years? Hardly a carbon copy of the bicameral system we see in Washington.

If you're using that as and example, consider that the legislatures in Minnesota, Arizona, Florida, etc.. also aren't able to put their State on Auto-Pilot while they do nothing (more or less) and have their treasury just print more money to cover whatever wasn't funded.

 

[candycorn]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

It's sort of our "House of Lords".

But yeah..it kind of makes no sense. Anyone can be a Senator. Would make more sense if there were a requirement of some kind..like a master's degree.

Not to me; talent isn't the issue in my book. The rules of the Senate are such that it guarantees zilch gets done if there isn't a super majority. When there is a super majority, you can't count on anything getting done then either.

Why have the body at all; just let the 438 members of the House craft bills, sent it to the White House and let the White House appoint conferees and tell the House what would pass. Or veto it outright....

 

[Cookie]

If we over-turned the 17th amendment to the Constitution and returned the appointment of Senators to be decided by the state, not the general public, you would understand the need for them much better. We'd also have a much better run givernment. Progressives messed up the way our givernment was designed by the founding fathers.

Having a state legislature appoint senators smacks of cronyism and elitism. The direct election of senators seems a lot more in keeping with the ideals of democracy to me.

But that's just MHO.

Well, the original concept was that the Senate would be an elite set of individuals that represented the interests of the states since they would be appointed by the governor or the legislature of the state. These individuals were the original "think tank" and sort of a balance to the Supreme Court in conceptualizing the finer points of Constitutional law. If you educate yourself about what the 17th amendment really did to this country, you'll see that the direct vote of Senators resulted in an unreal surge in federal spending. It resulted in lots of cronyism, lobbying and special interest pork being added to bills coming out of Congress.

 

[Jarhead]

For the life of me, I can't understand why the Senate is even there. It's role could easily be assumed by the House, of which, the people have much more control.

The Senate is totally disfunctional, totally useless, and I think we would be much better off without the body.

It's sort of our "House of Lords".

But yeah..it kind of makes no sense. Anyone can be a Senator. Would make more sense if there were a requirement of some kind..like a master's degree.

Really?

You believe one who is "book smart" would ALWAYS be a better choice than one who is "life experience" smart?

We have 435 lawmakers for a reason. We have 2 houses for a reason. We have the three branches of government for a reason.

It allows for checks and balances. It allows for a "rogue" lawmaker without any serious repercussions to the country. It allows for diversity in thinking.

You know...all the stuff you seem to not care about.

Funny...I bet you cared about it before 2009!