Poll: What’s the best way to reform the Senate?

[Damocles]

For various reasons, countries around the world and throughout history have used varying methods to select lawmakers to populate their legislative chambers.

Ancient Athens famously used sortition, a practice of governance by assemblies of randomly selected citizens. Some societies use appointment, such as the contemporary upper house of Oman. Renaissance-era Britain provided the blueprint for many modern representative democracies, using mainly elected members of the House of Commons.

Whatever their method of selection, each of these societies attempted to use different mechanisms to solve a problem: how best does a society represent and balance different competing interests that all need attention in the affairs of state?  In this post, I will address three possible methods of constituting an upper house - appointment, election, and sortition - and discuss advantages of each relative to the others.

This debate is particularly relevant in the United States, with current calls for reform of the United States Senate. I believe that we should all have an intellectually honest and thorough conversation about all the possible reform options available to us, and in order to secure the best possible outcome, we must not limit ourselves to mechanisms only familiar to us. Without further adieu, let’s give an overview of each mechanism.

Option 1: Appointment.

Appointment is the practice of an appointer - for example, the current head of state - granting a seat to an appointee by fiat. The appointment may last for life, or for a set term length, or at the pleasure of the appointer. There may be laws governing the appointment process, regarding who may be appointed, who may originate the recommendation for the appointments, whether the appointer is bound by the recommendations, etc.

Option 2: Election.

Election is a common method that involves people casting votes for their preferred candidate, in a competitive environment. Elections may be direct, as in the modern US Senate, or indirect, as in the modern French Senate. They may represent a specific region of the country, as in Switzerland, but they may also have a national mandate. They may also represent a specific community, for example in Belgium, where Flemish, French, and German speaking communities all elect different senators.

Option 3: Sortition.

Sortition is the practice of randomly selecting members from the entire citizen body that has reached the age of candidacy. Think of this as a lottery system, in which every citizen is eligible. Sortition may be done entirely randomly, but it may also be stratified with basis in sex and age and region of residence, to give specific accommodation to those demographics.

Now that common definitions are established for each of the three mechanisms, let’s examine the relative advantages of each against the other.

Advantages of appointment over election.

What’s right is not always popular. Once appointed, an appointed upper house member has no re-election campaigns to run or resources to seek out, making them less prone to accepting bribes or engage in corrupt bargaining. They can have a much longer-term view of how the policies enacted will impact the country, without worrying about the next election cycle.

Advantages of appointment over sortition.

Any appointment will likely undergo an incredibly strict vetting process. After all, when the stakes are this high, it’s critical that the appointer choose an appointee that has the requisite qualifications. Random chance doesn’t offer you that flexibility to select for able and quality lawmakers with the skill set required for good governance.

Advantages of election over appointment.

Elected members of the upper house are more easily held to account, since there is a direct method to punish those members who enact or support policies that their electorate dislikes. There is always a method for a challenger to emerge or otherwise take the seat, which is not possible with an appointment. That person either has to die or age out before you can replace them.

Advantages of election over sortition.

Elected members are more likely to have the requisite experience and skills required to govern. Getting elected in a competitive and contentious election is no mean feat, and is much more amenable to produce an upper house with the qualifications to debate sensitive topics of state, such as ratification of foreign treaties.

Advantages of sortition over appointment.

You can’t guarantee that the appointments won’t be manipulated or controlled or politicized for partisan advantage. When you’re simply rolling the dice and drawing names from a list, you’re much less likely to pick someone who’s easily corruptible or would be willing to kiss up to the establishment as would be required with an appointed member.

Advantages of sortition over election.

The vast majority of people don’t have the energy, money, resources, or time to run any kind of election campaign, let alone one for the upper house. Having some members of the upper house that are randomly selected ensures that there’s some normal, everyday people in the room that can provide a strong check against billionaire special interests who finance the election campaigns.

Closing thoughts.

With these three options on the table - appointment, election, and sortition - it’s easy to see why the reform path for the United States can go any number of different directions. We should consider these options and combinations thereof to have a more complete picture of all the wild, different paths that it could take.

What do you think? Should a reformed Senate be appointed, elected, or sorted? Should it use a combination of two of the methods? Or should it use all three? I’m sure you have lots of opinions on this, so I’m sure many would like to read them.

[AndyHogan14]

I would just strip the Senate of most of its power and make it an advisory body. Judicial and cabinet confirmations would move to the House and the Senate could be overruled by the House (maybe with something like a 55-60% vote). I am fine with how senators are currently selected, but if the body becomes more ceremonial, then it may make sense to repeal the 17th amendment and go back to senators being appointed by state legislatures.

[Koharu]

Elected by each state's legislature.

Y'know, like the Constitution was originally written. Would sure help with getting money for campaigns out of the equation, at least for the Senate. It would also require citizens to actually pay more attention to state-level elections and politics, which is hugely important for how the country is supposed to work.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

And while we're fixing that, let's get rid of forcing the electoral college to not do their job or go to straight popular vote without the electoral college. What we've got now is not at all what was intended. The electoral college was designed to save us from someone like Trump, but the state requirements on the electors meant they couldn't do their job. So if states are just going to force electors to vote exactly as the state did (or whatever conditions they place), there's no reason for the electoral college. Either we're voting for electors or we're voting for president. Not this stupid halfsies thing.

[Damocles]

And while we're fixing that, let's get rid of forcing the electoral college to not do their job or go to straight popular vote without the electoral college. What we've got now is not at all what was intended. The electoral college was designed to save us from someone like Trump, but the state requirements on the electors meant they couldn't do their job. So if states are just going to force electors to vote exactly as the state did (or whatever conditions they place), there's no reason for the electoral college. Either we're voting for electors or we're voting for president. Not this stupid halfsies thing.

You may be interested in reading about how Finland’s electoral college functioned prior to 1982. That was an electoral college of 300 members, which met in Helsinki, and deliberated over several days who should be President. It functioned using proportional representation to determine its composition, and exhaustive ballots to progressively eliminate candidates, until one candidate achieved a majority of electoral votes.

[Frodo]

Repeal the 17th amendment -but it needs to be part of a package of other electoral/constitutional reforms.  You can't do it piecemeal.  

[Tekken_Guy]

I think it should be kept as is. Senators are supposed to be accountable to the people, not state political insiders. The median state is quite a bit to the right of the country, so adding some new states like DC and Puerto Rico could give it more equilibrium.

My main solution is that the house should have more power in judicial and cabinet nominations. Maybe they could have the exclusive power to remove them.

[Idaho Conservative]

I think it should be kept as is. Senators are supposed to be accountable to the people, not state political insiders. The median state is quite a bit to the right of the country, so adding some new states like DC and Puerto Rico could give it more equilibrium.

My main solution is that the house should have more power in judicial and cabinet nominations. Maybe they could have the exclusive power to remove them.

already has equilibrium, because red states elect dems more than blue states elect republicans.  Sadly, the left has more loyal voters.

[darklordoftech]

Abolish and rename the House “the Senate” for the sake of Star Wars jokes.

[jimrtex]

Abolish the Senate and make all federal legislation subject to referendum, requiring popular national majority, and popular majority in majority of states.

[jimrtex]

Elected by each state's legislature.

Y'know, like the Constitution was originally written. Would sure help with getting money for campaigns out of the equation, at least for the Senate. It would also require citizens to actually pay more attention to state-level elections and politics, which is hugely important for how the country is supposed to work.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

One reason for the 17th Amendment was that senate elections were corrupting state legislative elections.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were for the purpose of influencing the elections to the Illinois legislature.

In 1876, Congress had agreed to have a commission with equal Republicans and Democrats, and the most-fair-minded SCOTUS David Davis to serve as the deciding vote in determining which electoral votes to count (there were several states with two sets of returns). Democrats in the Illinois legislature elected Davis as US Senator, hoping that would gain favor for Tilden. Davis instead resigned his Supreme Court seat to immediately become senator, and the next SCOTUS justice was a Republican.

At the time of the Bill of Rights, one amendment would have been to reduce senatorial terms to one year, and also have term limits (these would have not been total service but so many years within a certain period). The senators would have been more like emissaries from the state.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The only major change I'd make is have ex-Presidents be given a lifetime Senate seat. It gives them something relatively harmless to do, and in the case of most ex-Presidents, it would be a net positive.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Abolished, obviously. If not that, then get rid of the state equality in representation. It may have been a necessary compromise in 1787 in order to get the small states to join the union to begin with, but it has long since passed the point where it was still justifiable.

[RJ]

I'm not so sure the procedure for choosing senators is the problem as much as it is the lobbying system or the way the two giant political parties roll over everyone and everything. Follw the money and you'll find the problem(s).

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

3 senators per state, so there’s one up every two years. Then, nationwide popular vote for the Senate by party. Divvy up the 50 seats for that year by party, with one state getting one senator. The state with the highest popular vote for a party gets a senator of that party on down the line until a party reaches its proportional number of seats. Not sure how you’d pick which party got which state in the event of a really lopsided vote (as in one party winning a lot in the popular vote, but few states). Figure a minimum threshold of 2% to be able to get seats. Popular vote for primaries to determine who would represent each party in the Senate.

Each state still has an equal number of senators, the off-year senate issue is fixed, and the senate would represent the popular vote.

This would go along with the Wyoming rule in the House so that the Electoral College didn’t boost the small states too much from adding a senator to all states.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Give DC 2 Senators it will equalize and give the bigger states a better advantage over smaller states

[Lincoln Republican]

Senators limited to two terms.

[QAnonKelly]

I'm partial to the idea of just turning into something like the House of Lords where there's no real power involved.

[Koharu]

Senators limited to two terms.

No. Not unless we completely get rid of lobbyists. Term limits for the legislative branch spreads out knowledge and makes us more dependent on unelected people writing laws. Term limits in the legislature don't fix anything.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Abolish the filibuster and otherwise leave the Senate as is (once DC has been added as a state and thus gotten its two Senators); this isn't hard.

[emailking]

Abolish the Senate and make all federal legislation subject to referendum, requiring popular national majority, and popular majority in majority of states.

You want people to go the polls to vote on Post Office names and extending expiration dates in existing bills?

Congress passes hundreds of laws a year, it's mostly just extremely mundane.

What about emergency bills like disaster relief? You couldn't organize a referendum in time.

What if one year no realistic spending bill can get a majority because people think the government spends too much?

[jimrtex]

Abolish the Senate and make all federal legislation subject to referendum, requiring popular national majority, and popular majority in majority of states.

You want people to go the polls to vote on Post Office names and extending expiration dates in existing bills?

Congress passes hundreds of laws a year, it's mostly just extremely mundane.

What about emergency bills like disaster relief? You couldn't organize a referendum in time.

What if one year no realistic spending bill can get a majority because people think the government spends too much?

Let's assume there would be an election each month. For the last 10 full congresses (106th-115th) there were 4171 bills passed, or 417.1 per congress, of 17.38 per month.

That's manageable. If there were complaints about all the bills to rename post offices, I'm sure that there could be a more manageable system devised. Remember that everyone of those bills is there simply to show that the representative can get a bill passed.

There could be an urgency clause with a 90% super-majority to allow an emergency bill to go into effect without a referendum.

If a majority of the people think that Congress is spending too much, Congress is spending too much.

An alternative would be to eliminate federal taxes, and levy taxes on the states on a per capita basis, subject to approval by a majority of the states with a majority of the people.

[emailking]

If a majority of the people think that Congress is spending too much, Congress is spending too much.

Not necessarily. People don't know any better.

[jimrtex]

If a majority of the people think that Congress is spending too much, Congress is spending too much.

Not necessarily. People don't know any better.

In a democracy, the People inherently know best.

[MarkD]

What if I don't agree with the premise that the Senate needs to be reformed? There should be an option for that too.

[emailking]

If a majority of the people think that Congress is spending too much, Congress is spending too much.

Not necessarily. People don't know any better.

In a democracy, the People inherently know best.

Well Congress are part of the people. It's a matter of opinion no matter how you slice it. But Congress has expertise and experience in forming national budgets.