Anand Giridharadas - How to save the Senate

[Celerity]

A conversation with former Senate insider Adam Jentleson on the purpose of the institution where change goes to die, what the founders would think of the filibuster, and three ways to reform the body

https://the.ink/p/how-to-save-the-senate



It all comes down to the Senate.

Will former President Trump, impeached for a second time, be convicted and thus barred from higher office — and hopefully, therefore, from our phone push alerts? Will millions of people get meaningful Covid relief or milquetoast? Will President Joe Biden get to leave his own generational imprint on the federal judiciary, as did his predecessor? Will the many American maladies that the present plague found and fed on — the co-morbidities of this great fading — be addressed and overcome? It all comes down to a bizarre and archaic and in many ways unjustifiable institution known as the United States Senate. Like the sea shanties thing, it is a phenomenon that shapes all of our lives, whether we like it or not, whether we realize it or not. And the wild part is that no one understands a thing about it. People pretend to know how the Senate works. But they don’t know. I would bet there are some senators who don’t entirely know.

So today at The.Ink, we’re addressing this problem head-on by bringing you insider wisdom from the (probably very musty) rooms where it happens. Adam Jentleson once served as deputy chief of staff to the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, witnessing the deal-making and obstructionism and change-killing up close. He now works for an anti-corruption organization called Democracy Forward. And he has written a new book whose title and subtitle speak for themselves: “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.” The other day, I asked Adam to do me — and all of us — a favor. I would ask him some of the stupid questions we might be afraid to ask about this strange institution that shapes our lives, and he would answer.



“Debate used to be used to persuade. Today it is used to obstruct”: a conversation with Adam Jentleson

ANAND: OK, I’ll bite. What is the United States Senate, and would we have to invent it if it didn’t exist?

ADAM: The Senate is the upper chamber of Congress, the more elite body. It’s a product of the great compromise at the constitutional convention, where the delegates created a two-chamber legislature. The big debate was how to allocate representation in Congress and whether the small states should get as much power as the big states. The compromise they reached was that, in the House, states would be represented proportional to their population. House districts average about 700,000 people in size, so states with more people have more districts and, therefore, more seats. California, which has 39 million people, has 53 House districts, while Wyoming, which has about 600,000 people, has one House district. But as a concession to the small states, in the great compromise, the delegates created this second chamber, the Senate, where every state would have the same number of senators — California and Wyoming each get two, along with every other state.

The funny thing is that James Madison, often regarded as the chief architect of the Senate and frequently cited by conservatives, absolutely hated this compromise. At the convention, Madison went off on his fellow delegates, giving a long speech about how this compromise created enormous injustice. At that time, the biggest state was about ten times larger than the smallest states. So if Madison hated it then, he would really hate it now that the biggest state is seventy times larger than the smallest state. This compromise creating the Senate barely eked by. It passed by one vote.

ANAND: Do you think we’d be better off with a unicameral legislature — in other words, with just the House of Representatives?....

snip

[hlthe2b]

1. "Would we better off with a unicameral legislature -- in other words, with just the House?" OMG

We'd be better off with IQ and psychological exams for those running. (and no, I don't think the best education is predictive, but the ability to reason, regardless of formal education, is. There are some psychological traits that frankly should be avoided as well).

[FM123]

2. Such a great article at the Ink! So worth the entire read.

*What stood out to me in this article about abolishing the filibuster:

ANAND: There is talk now of abolishing it. One fear is that, if it’s abolished, when the shoe is on the other foot, Republicans may be able to do really bad things with greater ease. Do you credit that fear at all?

ADAM: I understand it’s a real fear, but it’s misplaced. It’s unwise for Democrats to shortchange themselves on accomplishments now in the hopes of forbearance from Mitch McConnell in the future. Pulling our punches now will mean that we fail to reform our democracy and get climate change under control, for starters. Then, when McConnell is back in power, he will chuckle and nuke the filibuster himself the first time it serves his interests.

Coming up short now is, in a way, the worst of all worlds, because Republicans will just go nuclear themselves and pass all the stuff we’re afraid of later. And instead of implementing change when we had the chance, and preempting much of the bad stuff they want to pass, we will have failed to move the line.

The idea behind a mild approach is that we’re preserving a defensive tool, but the problem with that strategy is that Republicans can get rid of that tool when they want to, the next time they’re back in power. It’s shortsighted.