Should the United States Senate be abolished?

[MillennialModerate]

No. I think the founders were brilliant to set up a system in which both treated every state equally but also gave the population significant weight also. The tricky thing is when the constitution was written the states were far diffrent from each other and the fact is the differences between the states are no longer as consequential.

However I do think there are plenty of reforms needed to make the entire system better. And to put safe guards in that prevent the near disaster we just endured back in January. Since they expand beyond the Senate if someone wants to move the post that’s fine:


1. Selection of Presidential nominees

A. Establish a uniform system of picking party nominees for all parties.

**With a setup that is roughly this**
• Primaries begin in February;
• Primary days over the course of 3 months;
• Delegates awarded by primaries represent 98% of convention delegates
allowing party leaders to break races of razor thin margis; order of state
primaries elected based on closrless of result in previous election)

2. Selection of President (options)

optionA. Abolish, Presidential election becomes popular vote
optionB. Popular vote winner receives EV equivalent to 5% of the otherwise total
optionC. Retain current system; would be fairer with changes to House/Senate makeup

**Remaining reforms will assume continuation of Electoral College**

3. Confirmation of President (options)

A. State can’t change means of electoral allotment AFTER votes cast

B. In case of electoral college tie: House and Senate
take combined individual vote; winner is POTUS

C. Congress meets to confirm electoral college results as currently
[•] If VP refuses to preside, speaker may do so; If leaders of Congress refuse to call confirmatory joint session then Presidential canidate may appeal to SCOTUS for confirmatory ruling which would be held within 48 hours of request
[•] IF both chambers vote to not accept states electoral votes then Supreme Court meets next day to confirm that the reason for denying electoral votes was legitimate
[•]If deemed to be a partisan move - SCOTUS can override congresss denial of electoral votes thus officially certifying next POTUS
[•]Congress can only override SCOTUS veto by meeting the next day and 75% of each chamber overriding



4. Reform of the United States Senate:
A. Each state is awarded 3 Senators, one for each cycle
B. PR awarded statehood, DC awarded 2 Senators (as a compromise)
C. Fillibuster is reformed: [45% required to FB, must all be present; bill can only be fillibustered for 2wk]


5. Reform of the United States House of Representatives

A. Add 210 seats to House; give DC seats proportion to its population
(lock number in, reset to same population % every 50yrs)
B. Ban partisan gerrymandering

6. Voting rights

• At least 15 days of early voting including the final T, W, Thu, F, S, Su before Election Day
• States have option of Voter ID (with reasonable substitutions allowed)
• Unintentional wrong precinct votes must be counted
• Number of drop boxes and/or polling locations by county must be allocated based on population
• States that allow mail-in voting must require two signatures and ID verification
• Option to register to vote must be given when registering car/ certifying marriage ..similar occurrences

[Xing]

It should be at least altered, but similar to the Electoral College, it won’t happen unless it stops benefitting Republicans.

[Del Tachi]

No, but we should expand the House to include voting representation for D.C., overseas territories and Americans citizens living abroad. 

[GregTheGreat657]

Yes.

Wyoming should have no congressional representation, at all.

Then they should pay lower taxes compared to other states.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

You can’t make the Senate proportional, or substantially change its make-up, even by constitutional amendment.  It’s the one thing that the constitutional specifically says cannot be changed, except essentially by unanimous consent.

Probably the most realistic way to truly reform the Senate is just to gradually erode or remove its powers, kind of like the UK did with the House of Lords.

[Progressive Pessimist]

In an ideal world yes, alongside numerous other reforms, but it is far from the simplest or most practical option.  For now the best options to make the Senate more representative of the country is to abolish the filibuster and admit DC and Puerto Rico as states.

[Nyvin]

You can’t make the Senate proportional, or substantially change its make-up, even by constitutional amendment.  It’s the one thing that the constitutional specifically says cannot be changed, except essentially by unanimous consent.

Probably the most realistic way to truly reform the Senate is just to gradually erode or remove its powers, kind of like the UK did with the House of Lords.

I always thought a great improvement to the current system is an amendment that allows the House to override Senate decisions with a 55% vote in favor.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Of course not how would it be abolished you need a Constitutional Amendment and we can't even get one for a Direct Election of Prez ELECTION DUE TO R STATE LEGISLATURE IN MI, PA and WI

[MarkD]

We should abolish the Senate, yes. But it will never happen.

Why not?

Would that not require a 2/3 majority of states?

No, it would require all 50 states. It says, in Article V of the Constitution, that no state shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent. So either abolishing the Senate or making any change to the Senate in which the states no longer have equal representation could only be adopted if it were ratified by all 50 states.

[Yoda]

Trump won Montana by just under 100K votes, Wyoming and North Dakota by 120K each, South Dakota by 110K and Alaska by 36K. While that's only 15 electoral votes (soon to be 16), it's still 10 Senate seats, 9 of which are held by Republicans. And it would take less than 500K to swing all of them. Bear in mind that as recently as 2014, Democrats held 5 of these 10 seats.

Meanwhile, Biden netted nearly 2 million votes out of LA County, 480K from Alameda, over 400K from Santa Clara, over 320K from San Francisco and over 500K each from Manhattan and Brooklyn. He won California by over 5 million votes and New York by just under 2 million. It would also help if they were able to get it together in Florida and North Carolina.

Point is that Democrats seem to just be running up the score in safely blue states. Don't hate the game just because you've lost the ability to win.

Democrats just won the game in the last election. The Presidency and both houses of Congress. They don't hate the game b/c they can't win, they hate the game b/c it's rigged to help the minority party hold power over the majority, which is inherently undemocratic and a literal slap in the face to the majority of voters. The only party trying to change the game b/c they can't win is the party passing laws to criminalize giving someone standing in line to vote a bottle of water.

[QAnonKelly]

Maybe not outright abolished but heavily re-worked into a proportional system or into something like the German upper house or the House of Lords in the UK where it has no power.

[brucejoel99]

We should abolish the Senate, yes. But it will never happen.

Why not?

Would that not require a 2/3 majority of states?

No, it would require all 50 states. It says, in Article V of the Constitution, that no state shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent. So either abolishing the Senate or making any change to the Senate in which the states no longer have equal representation could only be adopted if it were ratified by all 50 states.

Of course, somebody in favor of just 3/4ths for ratification could try to garner courts to accept a legal argument that, if the Senate is being abolished, then no state would technically be "deprived" of its "equal suffrage" in the Senate since the Senate would literally no longer exist, but whether they'd be successful in being able to do so is obviously another matter.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It can't be Abolished without a constitutional Amendment

[chalmetteowl]

Trump won Montana by just under 100K votes, Wyoming and North Dakota by 120K each, South Dakota by 110K and Alaska by 36K. While that's only 15 electoral votes (soon to be 16), it's still 10 Senate seats, 9 of which are held by Republicans. And it would take less than 500K to swing all of them. Bear in mind that as recently as 2014, Democrats held 5 of these 10 seats.

Meanwhile, Biden netted nearly 2 million votes out of LA County, 480K from Alameda, over 400K from Santa Clara, over 320K from San Francisco and over 500K each from Manhattan and Brooklyn. He won California by over 5 million votes and New York by just under 2 million. It would also help if they were able to get it together in Florida and North Carolina.

Point is that Democrats seem to just be running up the score in safely blue states. Don't hate the game just because you've lost the ability to win.

Democrats just won the game in the last election. The Presidency and both houses of Congress. They don't hate the game b/c they can't win, they hate the game b/c it's rigged to help the minority party hold power over the majority, which is inherently undemocratic and a literal slap in the face to the majority of voters. The only party trying to change the game b/c they can't win is the party passing laws to criminalize giving someone standing in line to vote a bottle of water.

why shouldn't the minority party have a lot of power? the electoral vote last November wasn't a landslide and came down to a few thousand votes in a few states, the popular vote wasn't a landslide, the Senate is like 51-49, the House is like 221-213. Republicans still have more state governors, and they own state legislatures. The only thing I would say Democrats own is the mayorship of our major cities

i could see your perspective more if Trump and Republicans had truly gotten their asses whooped last November.

Gridlock is a feature and not a bug of the system... It ensures that the status quo doesn't change that much quickly

[Yoda]

Trump won Montana by just under 100K votes, Wyoming and North Dakota by 120K each, South Dakota by 110K and Alaska by 36K. While that's only 15 electoral votes (soon to be 16), it's still 10 Senate seats, 9 of which are held by Republicans. And it would take less than 500K to swing all of them. Bear in mind that as recently as 2014, Democrats held 5 of these 10 seats.

Meanwhile, Biden netted nearly 2 million votes out of LA County, 480K from Alameda, over 400K from Santa Clara, over 320K from San Francisco and over 500K each from Manhattan and Brooklyn. He won California by over 5 million votes and New York by just under 2 million. It would also help if they were able to get it together in Florida and North Carolina.

Point is that Democrats seem to just be running up the score in safely blue states. Don't hate the game just because you've lost the ability to win.

Democrats just won the game in the last election. The Presidency and both houses of Congress. They don't hate the game b/c they can't win, they hate the game b/c it's rigged to help the minority party hold power over the majority, which is inherently undemocratic and a literal slap in the face to the majority of voters. The only party trying to change the game b/c they can't win is the party passing laws to criminalize giving someone standing in line to vote a bottle of water.

why shouldn't the minority party have a lot of power? the electoral vote last November wasn't a landslide and came down to a few thousand votes in a few states, the popular vote wasn't a landslide, the Senate is like 51-49, the House is like 221-213. Republicans still have more state governors, and they own state legislatures. The only thing I would say Democrats own is the mayorship of our major cities

i could see your perspective more if Trump and Republicans had truly gotten their asses whooped last November.

Gridlock is a feature and not a bug of the system... It ensures that the status quo doesn't change that much quickly

Good God where to start with this...

The electoral vote was the same margin that trump won by in '16, which he and his supporters regularly called a "landslide". It did not come down to "a few thousand votes in a few states." Biden's margin of victory in the states that put him over the top ranged from the same as trump's (20K Wisconsin) to 10x larger than trump's margin (150K Michigan) in those states in '16. He also flipped two states that went to trump by 5% in '16. The popular vote wasn't a landslide?!? Biden won by 7 million votes, a 5% margin of victory. That's about as close to a landslide as you can get in modern American politics.

"they [republicans] own state legislatures"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

I'm not impressed that republicans in, for example, Wisconsin, get something like 46% of the vote and 64% of the seats. That's an illegitimate majority and an injustice to the voters of that state.

Republicans have not gotten more votes than Democrats in the Senate since 1998. Democrats represent something like 40 million more Americans than republicans in the Senate. The only reason republicans have a shot at retaking the House next year is gerrymandering. No one, literally no one, expects them to actually win the vote. That is why they, as the minority party, should not "have a lot of power." In a democracy, power should be granted by the electorate, not drawn with funny lines by politicians.

[Nyvin]

Trump won Montana by just under 100K votes, Wyoming and North Dakota by 120K each, South Dakota by 110K and Alaska by 36K. While that's only 15 electoral votes (soon to be 16), it's still 10 Senate seats, 9 of which are held by Republicans. And it would take less than 500K to swing all of them. Bear in mind that as recently as 2014, Democrats held 5 of these 10 seats.

Meanwhile, Biden netted nearly 2 million votes out of LA County, 480K from Alameda, over 400K from Santa Clara, over 320K from San Francisco and over 500K each from Manhattan and Brooklyn. He won California by over 5 million votes and New York by just under 2 million. It would also help if they were able to get it together in Florida and North Carolina.

Point is that Democrats seem to just be running up the score in safely blue states. Don't hate the game just because you've lost the ability to win.

Democrats just won the game in the last election. The Presidency and both houses of Congress. They don't hate the game b/c they can't win, they hate the game b/c it's rigged to help the minority party hold power over the majority, which is inherently undemocratic and a literal slap in the face to the majority of voters. The only party trying to change the game b/c they can't win is the party passing laws to criminalize giving someone standing in line to vote a bottle of water.

why shouldn't the minority party have a lot of power? the electoral vote last November wasn't a landslide and came down to a few thousand votes in a few states, the popular vote wasn't a landslide, the Senate is like 51-49, the House is like 221-213. Republicans still have more state governors, and they own state legislatures. The only thing I would say Democrats own is the mayorship of our major cities

i could see your perspective more if Trump and Republicans had truly gotten their asses whooped last November.

Gridlock is a feature and not a bug of the system... It ensures that the status quo doesn't change that much quickly

A lot of this is only due to gerrymandering and geographic advantage for Republicans.   In Michigan for example the Democrats actually won the State House popular vote in 4 out of 5 elections this decade, but never achieved a majority.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

It should be at least altered, but similar to the Electoral College, it won’t happen unless it stops benefitting Republicans.

The electoral college benefitted Democrats in 2004, 2008 and 2012.