Should the Senate Be Abolished?

A recent editorial in the Washington Post made an interesting argument for a radical change in government that conservatives could find worth pondering as it might possibly help their cause. The notion in question? Abolishing the U.S. Senate.

As radical an idea as this seems, there are actually sound reasons for doing so — namely to put a hard check on the growing imperial power of the presidency. As the editorial points out, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, the power of the White House has grown as Congress has become more divided, more partisan and more deadlocked than ever before.

Presidents have continued to issue more executive orders, with Barack Obama signing more than 225 of them so far in his seven and a half years in office. Where Congress has demonstrated an inability to get things done, the president has picked up the slack.

But why the Senate? In order to answer that question, it’s worth going back to look at the original purpose of the upper chamber of Congress — namely, to provide a counterbalance to the representative powers of the House.

When the Constitution was originally written, Senators were not directly elected by the people — they were chosen by state legislatures. In this way, state governments could have just as much representation as the populace, and they could check the balance of the federal government over states’ rights at the same time.

But with the passing of the 17th Amendment, which established direct election of Senators by voters, all of that changed. Now both houses of Congress are directly elected, and that means more conflicts, more partisanship and more nasty public spats.

As opposed to the Senate taking a more thoughtful, considered look at legislation passed by the “hot-button” House, more of the House’s partisan tendencies have crept into Senatorial conduct and debates. Even worse, the pace of the Senate is still slower than that of the House, and partisan politics haven’t helped things.

While Congress argues, the President acts. The two Congressional houses rarely work well together — they have enough trouble as it is avoiding dysfunction within themselves.

Some people have claimed that one could simply repeal the 17th Amendment and try to restore more of the original balance that the Founding Fathers intended in the Constitution. But as the Post editorial points out, this might not be enough to negate today’s politics, which move ever so much faster than they did when the nation’s founding document was written — even at a state level.

It’s true that the Senate still performs one of its most basic functions — providing a check on the power of the House. But today, this is the opposite of what’s needed — the crafting and passing of legislation needs to be sped up, not slowed down.

Because of Congressional conflicts, appropriation bills become combined into omnibus all-in-one spending measures that must be passed, shot down or ultimately vetoed. Politically, it becomes harder to hold things up over small parts of a spending measure, so uglier compromises are made and more showdowns occur with the president, which, in turn, leads to more executive orders.

Some observers might argue that Senate rules, such as the filibuster, should simply be changed or abolished. But that likely would not be enough; instead, by eliminating the upper chamber altogether, the House would become all-powerful and not be held back by its counterpart that too often thwarts its will and tries to impose its own.

Of course, something would have to be done about the extreme gerrymandering confronting today’s House, which exacerbates its already-severe partisanship.

But as it stands today, the President, being just one person, can move ahead with more speed and more deliberateness than the stately club of 100, which likely feels more powerful than it really is much of the time.

Because the president is only one person, he (or she) will unilaterally make unpopular decisions that often will please less than half the population. The tendency toward tyranny continues to grow, and under Hillary Clinton, this progression would undoubtedly gather speed.

Of course, such a radical proposal stands very little chance of becoming reality. But if current trends continue, it may become more of a potential topic for discussion in the country as Washington slides from disapproval toward vilification.

~American Liberty Report


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