Our party controls about 59% of the lower house, 60% of the upper house, and the Presidency. Yet it now appears the most likely health reform this Congress will offer is non-universal, non-single payer, might not have so much as a non-profit pubic option offered alongside the existing private plans, and won't even have as much authority to negotiate prescription drug prices as Wal-Mart does.
One reason for this is that so much of the process of crafting a reform bill has been controlled by Senators with conservative leanings from sparsely populated states (Max Baucus and Kent Conrad being the two most obvious examples). And once a bill is finally crafted and submitted to both Houses, it will be Senators like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Tom Carper of Delaware who will determine not just whether any reform will happen, but whether any votes are cast.
The Senate has a long history of preventing or even walking back reforms. Some even claim it's the body's greatest virtue that it de-energizes the government from taking action when change is perceived as necessary by the people.
I would like to offer a different opinion: I think the United States Senate, as Constitutionally crafted, may have been one of the worst ideas the Framers ever had.
To be clear: I understand perfectly well that the creation of the Senate was seen as a political necessity in 1787. Less populous states like Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, North Carolina, and Delaware were all afraid that they would be drowned out in a national government where legislative power was apportioned based on state population size, and it's likely that they would have voted not to ratify the Constitution without being given a mechanism whereby each state enjoyed some form of equal representation.
I happen to think the compromise crafted by Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman, known as the Connecticut Compromise (or, more commonly today, the Great Compromise), was not the best way to achieve this.
To begin with, let's focus on one critical fact about the Senate: it's the one aspect of American government that can be tinkered with but, at its core, cannot be Constitutionally abolished. Article V (governing how the Constitution can be legitimately amended) sets two prohibitions on amendments: no amendments regarding slavery can be ratified before 1808 (moot now save as a historical footnote), and there can be no amendments denying each state equal representation in the Senate.
Why such an iron rule? Was there some great philosophical reason to structure the Congress as a bicameral system with one House controlled by the states, giving each member equal power?
The sad answer is no--this was a compromise made entirely for political expediency and not political economy or efficiency. As best I can tell, it wasn't even sold to the public that enthusiastically. Take, for example, Madison's description of the Senate's membership selection in Federalist 62:
The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right, that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have a proportional share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an equal share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation. But it is superfluous to try, by the standard of theory, a part of the Constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result, not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable." A common government, with powers equal to its objects, is called for by the voice, and still more loudly by the political situation, of America. A government founded on principles more consonant to the wishes of the larger States, is not likely to be obtained from the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former, lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and, instead of indulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous consequences which may qualify the sacrifice.
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger. But as the larger States will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser States, and as the faculty and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it is not impossible that this part of the Constitution may be more convenient in practice than it appears to many in contemplation.
When the best defense of a Constitutional provision that James effin' Madison can offer is "well, let's look on the bright side," you know that something is probably not as good as it should have been.
The timeline of the Constitution's drafting and debates lends even more support to the notion that the Senate was created more as a means of getting something done than getting the right outcome. The Federalist Papers, and the now-lesser known but (at the time) likely more important State House Yard Address by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, were first presented to the people in October of 1787, but the Connecticut Compromise was drafted in July of that year--it was three months after the measure was decided upon that the delegates went out to pitch it (and, as Madison demonstrates above, even that pitch was half-hearted at best). Wilson's defense of the Senate was really two-fold: the first point was that, though an anti-democratic by-product of political wrangling, it could only really slow the government down, rather than promote by itself anti-democratic reforms; the second point was simply that it guaranteed the importance of state legislatures because it was those state houses that would choose Senators (this point obviously became moot with the ratification of the 17th Amendment, and was arguably moot upon drafting Article IV, which guarantees each state a "Republican Form of Government").
Wilson's closing lines, when read in light of a critique of the Senate or of America's acceptance of slavery, contain a glaring error that must be chalked up to rhetorical excess. He ended:
"If there are errors, it should be remembered that the seeds of reformation are sown in the work itself and the concurrence of two-thirds of the Congress may at any time introduce alterations and amendments. Regarding it, then, in every point of view, with a candid and disinterested mind, I am bold to assert that it is the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world."
This clearly overlooks the two prohibitions included in Article V, or at least presumes them to be unimpeachably correct. But it's very difficult to candidly say that the two most contentious issues of the ratification debate were easily corrected, when it is clear they were meant to be writ in stone.
Of course, my criticisms are pebbles tossed at giants from over two centuries of distance, but it is worth considering that there may have been a better alternative available to create a consensus for ratification. In Article II, when describing how the President and Vice President were to be chosen, the Constitution stipulates that close elections tossed to Congress would be settled in votes taken by state, with each state having a single vote. A similar provision requiring votes on matters of Presidential appointments, issues pertaining to slavery, ratifications of treaties, and impeachment resolutions could have sufficiently protected the interests of smaller states while not binding our country to a self-interested anchor.
What is certain is that the creation of the Senate, and the subsequent expansion of the power of each individual Senator to slow or block action, has proven in many cases to be a high hurdle for progress and liberty to overcome. Before we achieve health reform, elections and campaign finance reform, education reform, or any of the other reforms necessary for our country to continue to operate as efficiently and equitably as possible, we may need to continue the project begun with the Seventeenth Amendment, and reform the Senate.