Beware of a Senate without the Filibuster rule.

[kennetha]

The Senate is already a joke of an institution when it comes to democratic legitimacy.

But imagine how much more of joke the Senate would be if there were no more filibuster.

You might think well shouldn't "the majority rule?" Why should "the minority" be able to block "the majority" via the filibuster. And at first blush that might seem a reasonable proposition.

But think about it a little more. Even now, 25 states, with 16% of the population, elect half of the Senators between them. That means that if there are close elections in those 25 states, half of the Senate can be elected with the votes of a mere 8% + 1 of the American people.
And it's going to get worse pretty quickly, as the "heartland" hollows out and the coastal areas become even more densely populated.
In particular, by 2040, the 35 smallest states that elect 70% of the Senate will contain just 1/3 of the total population. That means that in 20 years, just 16% of the people will be sufficient to elect 70% of the US Senate.

Eliminate the filibuster, and you will have a situation in which the Senate "minority" ... which may actually represent a large majority of the actual population ... can do nothing to stop the Senate majority ... which may actually represent a small minority of the actual population -- from doing whatever it wants.

De Tocqueville, Mill, and others worried about the "tyranny of the majority" within democracy. But as bad as a tyranny of the majority may be, surely the tyranny of the minority is much, much worse.

Bottom line ... we've simply got to alter, and I mean radically, our outdated Constitution. America will not survive a demographic shift in which 2/3 of the people in the 15 largest states collectively have less than half the power of the 1/3 that occupy the 35 smallest states. Mark my words.

But in the mean time, it would be absurd to abolish the filibuster so that the Senate "majority" can simply ride roughshod over the Senate "minority."

[DetlefK]

1. Here's a solution. But it would require a constitutional amendment.

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

In the Upper Chamber in Germany, each State has 3 to 6 "Senators", roughly proportional to the population but not exactly proportional.

[kennetha]

2. We desperately need a constitutional amendment

But equal suffrage in the Senate is explicitly exempt from the normal Amendment procedure.

No state shall be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent, says the constitution!