give it up kid, you are out of your league
Should the U.S. Senate be abolished?
- Thread starter Chris
- Start date
Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
- Aug 27, 2008
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The U.S. Senate was setup so every state had equal representation with two Senators each. If you feel that's unfair today because some states have more people and some less then you need to realize the Senate wasn't meant to represent the people, that's what the House is for. The Senate was supposed to represent the interests of the state. The way to resolve that issue would be to repeal the 17th amendment and go back to the way it's supposed to be.
- Thread starter
- #123
Exactly.
WRONG
as usual you are a ******* moron
txlonghorn
Senior Member
- Mar 9, 2009
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The balance is all wrong as is.
- Thread starter
- #127
LET'S ABOLISH THE WORLD'S GREATEST DELIBERATIVE BODY.
By Dylan Matthews
I hesitate to self-promote too shamelessly on Ezra's turf, but I have a new piece up at Campus Progress building on a guest-post I wrote here a few months ago. Basically, I want to get rid of the US Senate, and asked a number of constitutional law experts how one would go about doing that. Long story short, no one agrees on anything, least of all about whether the Senate is even capable of being abolished. An excerpt:
Sanford Levinson, a professor at the University of Texas law school and author of Our Undemocratic Constitution, thinks a Senate-abolishing amendment would not violate Article V. “The lack of any suffrage at all for any state would meet the formal requirements of "equal suffrage" (i.e., none for anyone),” he said. Daniel Farber, a professor at UC Berkeley, agrees, and argues that equal representation may not even be required. “One of my former colleagues once suggested to me that the Senate to which the equal representation cause refers no longer exists because of the 17th Amendment, providing for direct representation of Senators,” he recounts.
Opinions are not unanimous, however. Michael Dorf of Cornell Law School thinks Article V rules out this means of abolishing the Senate. “My view is that this would indeed require unanimity,” he explains. However, even if Article V precludes such an amendment, this raises another question. What if, before passing an amendment abolishing the Senate, another amendment passed removing the “equal suffrage” clause from Article V? Such a change would remove any impediment to abolishing the Senate, but the question remains of whether it would be legitimate.
Dorf doubts that it would be, and thinks the unanimous consent of the states would be needed, just as with abolishing the Senate through a single amendment. Levinson thinks the question is ultimately one of politics and not Constitutional interpretation. “My own view is that if the country were ever sufficiently outraged by the Senate to support an Article V amendment that was able to gain 2/3 support in Congress and then ratification by 3/4 of the states, no court would (or should) dare to block it on constitutional grounds,” he says. Larry Kramer, a constitutional law expert at Stanford Law School, agrees, but is not as confident in his prediction as Levinson. “It’s just not a question as to which there is a ‘right’ legal answer. There are legal arguments on both sides,” he explains, “But as with many or most constitutional issues, law and politics are inseparable and it would be a political resolution, with legal arguments as part of the rhetoric.”
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
By Dylan Matthews
I hesitate to self-promote too shamelessly on Ezra's turf, but I have a new piece up at Campus Progress building on a guest-post I wrote here a few months ago. Basically, I want to get rid of the US Senate, and asked a number of constitutional law experts how one would go about doing that. Long story short, no one agrees on anything, least of all about whether the Senate is even capable of being abolished. An excerpt:
Sanford Levinson, a professor at the University of Texas law school and author of Our Undemocratic Constitution, thinks a Senate-abolishing amendment would not violate Article V. “The lack of any suffrage at all for any state would meet the formal requirements of "equal suffrage" (i.e., none for anyone),” he said. Daniel Farber, a professor at UC Berkeley, agrees, and argues that equal representation may not even be required. “One of my former colleagues once suggested to me that the Senate to which the equal representation cause refers no longer exists because of the 17th Amendment, providing for direct representation of Senators,” he recounts.
Opinions are not unanimous, however. Michael Dorf of Cornell Law School thinks Article V rules out this means of abolishing the Senate. “My view is that this would indeed require unanimity,” he explains. However, even if Article V precludes such an amendment, this raises another question. What if, before passing an amendment abolishing the Senate, another amendment passed removing the “equal suffrage” clause from Article V? Such a change would remove any impediment to abolishing the Senate, but the question remains of whether it would be legitimate.
Dorf doubts that it would be, and thinks the unanimous consent of the states would be needed, just as with abolishing the Senate through a single amendment. Levinson thinks the question is ultimately one of politics and not Constitutional interpretation. “My own view is that if the country were ever sufficiently outraged by the Senate to support an Article V amendment that was able to gain 2/3 support in Congress and then ratification by 3/4 of the states, no court would (or should) dare to block it on constitutional grounds,” he says. Larry Kramer, a constitutional law expert at Stanford Law School, agrees, but is not as confident in his prediction as Levinson. “It’s just not a question as to which there is a ‘right’ legal answer. There are legal arguments on both sides,” he explains, “But as with many or most constitutional issues, law and politics are inseparable and it would be a political resolution, with legal arguments as part of the rhetoric.”
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
Oddball
Unobtanium Member
You'd need a Con-Con to abolish the Senate, you mental Lilliputian.
Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
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Why? Repealing the 17th amendment makes far more sense than that.
- Thread starter
- #130
Assuming the House and Senate each own 50% of the legislative branch, a voting district in Wyoming has nearly 10 times the representation than a district in California. Across the US, a vote cast in a lightly populated State has greater value than a vote cast in a highly populated State. “All men are (supposed to be) created equal.” Federal law imposes itself equally on every American. Because of this, every vote cast on the federal level should carry equal value. We achieve this ideal when we cut the Senate out of the federal government and give the entire legislature to its rightful owners, the House of Representatives.
Defenders of the status quo claim that citizens from lightly populated States need the Senate for protection against unwanted "Big State" legislation. This is a false assumption because the divisions in government are along ideological lines which have nothing to do with the size of States. Within our House, the people of California speak with 53 very different voices. Not with one voice, 53 times louder than Wyoming. A large portion of these Californian voices have more in common with the voice from Wyoming than they do with the voices from their own State. There is no "Big State" agenda, unanimously backed by the Representatives of California and Texas, but blocked by the Senate in order to protect smaller States. Such an agenda does not exist.
States do not even have power in the House of Representatives, the People do. People choose the Representative they believe will best serve their individual interest, not their State’s interest, if one even exists. No State has sway in the House; so when we abolish the Senate, large States will be unable to abuse powers which they do not possess. The Senate was not created to look out for small States. It serves a very different minority.
The super rich, and their puppets, own the Senate because the amount of money required to run a successful Senate race dwarfs the amount required to run for the House. In order to launch a Senatorial campaign, corporate money must be sought. Potential Senatorial candidates are first screened by the concentrations of private power. After this process, the public gets the chance to choose among the corporate nominees. So Senators, emerging from the highest tip of American capitalist society, naturally look out for the interests of the opulent minority.
abolishthesenate.org
Defenders of the status quo claim that citizens from lightly populated States need the Senate for protection against unwanted "Big State" legislation. This is a false assumption because the divisions in government are along ideological lines which have nothing to do with the size of States. Within our House, the people of California speak with 53 very different voices. Not with one voice, 53 times louder than Wyoming. A large portion of these Californian voices have more in common with the voice from Wyoming than they do with the voices from their own State. There is no "Big State" agenda, unanimously backed by the Representatives of California and Texas, but blocked by the Senate in order to protect smaller States. Such an agenda does not exist.
States do not even have power in the House of Representatives, the People do. People choose the Representative they believe will best serve their individual interest, not their State’s interest, if one even exists. No State has sway in the House; so when we abolish the Senate, large States will be unable to abuse powers which they do not possess. The Senate was not created to look out for small States. It serves a very different minority.
The super rich, and their puppets, own the Senate because the amount of money required to run a successful Senate race dwarfs the amount required to run for the House. In order to launch a Senatorial campaign, corporate money must be sought. Potential Senatorial candidates are first screened by the concentrations of private power. After this process, the public gets the chance to choose among the corporate nominees. So Senators, emerging from the highest tip of American capitalist society, naturally look out for the interests of the opulent minority.
abolishthesenate.org
Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
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This ignores the fact that the House was setup to represent the people and the Senate was setup to represent the states by being appointed by the states. Again, there's no reason to abolish the Senate, just abolish the 17th amendment.
and there is a good reason for that
- Thread starter
- #133
There is no need to represent the states.
The government should represent all the people equally.
The Senate violates that ideal.
Therefore, it should be abolished.
Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
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Why not? It was the individual states that created the federal government, not the people as a whole. Of course they should have a voice in the federal government.
Oddball
Unobtanium Member
You're the ideal candidate for weeding out from the voting pool, for your rank ignorance of the republic.
- Thread starter
- #136
I disagree.
The Senate violates the ideal in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal."
The Senate creates a situation where "some men are more equal than others."
This is wrong.
Oddball
Unobtanium Member
Wow.....Just wow!
And to think that you openly and proudly put this mental midgetry on display almost every day!
Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
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If we repealed the 17th amendment your criticism would no longer be valid, even though I would say it's not valid now. If you were true to your argument you would be calling for the abolition of the House because there is disproportional representation between the states there, not in the Senate. New Mexico only has three representatives in Washington, as opposed to Ohio which has 18. But that's, of course, the purpose of the House, to represent the people as opposed to the state.
- Thread starter
- #139
I disagree.
The representatives of the national legislature should be elected by the people according to the ideal that each person's vote has equal value.
Oddball
Unobtanium Member
Then you disagree with the basic premises of the republic, which is as close to intellectual honesty as you have ever come, tovarich.
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