Senators (1 Viewer)

roleTE="Roofgardener, post: 198307, member: 361"]
Are you sure ? The UK version of The Senate is the House of Lords. Originally this was entirely unelected, and manned by Hereditary Peers. I think this was an essential compromise to get Parliament into existence ?

In more recent decades it has become somewhat more 'representative', in that 'normal' people have been elevated to the House - the so-called 'Peoples Peers'. However, they are appointed, not elected.

However it should be born in mind that the House of Lords functions in an entirely different way (apart from its composition) to the US Senate. The House of Lords is a revising chamber. It reviews new laws, and in effect asks parliament to 'think again' if it doesn't like a new law. However, Parliament is Supreme. The House of Lords can DELAY legislation, but if Parliament is determined, it cannot - unlike the US Senate - actually stop the legislation from ultimately being enacted.

In many ways it works on tradition and precedent. The HoL rarely rejects government bills, nor forces parliament to use its Witchy Powers to force legislation through. It's a bit like The Queen. In theory, she could reject a Parliamentary bill and refuse to sign it into law. But by precedent, she never does.

Incidentally, and drifting off-topic... did you know that The Queen - in law - can dissolve the UK Parliament ? Again, she has never used this power except at Parliaments bidding. But.. can you imagine.. one boring day at Buckingham Palace after a few Gin-and-Tonics....

Queen: I'm bored. Shall we do it, Phillip ?
Prince Phillip: Nooooo.. we shouldn't...
Queen: Oh go on.. lets...
Prince Phillip: Oh, alright then.
Queen: I say... you ... flunky.. get me the Price Minister on the phone...
Queen (picking up phone). Hello ? Is that Boris Johnson ? It is ? Excellent. < giggles> I just wanted to let you know that I've just dissolved your government ? Why ? I was bored Oh Mr Johnson, no need to swear Oh.. he's hung up.
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Actually, the House of Lords legislative power was once far greater and more influential than merely existing as a revising, mostly symbolic organ. It could outright reject and prevent any form of legislation and policies if its entirely rich, aristocratic, unelected landed peers didnt like a certain party. By the late 19th-early 20th century, Britain's long-smouldering sharp class-and-sectarian divide in terms of large working-class interests demanding changes being stifled by powerful, landed aristocracy who hated and despised Liberal Party proposals to alleviate misery and degradation of working-class families, improving working conditions, wages, social security and injury insurance schemes inspired by Bismarkian-Germany. Then there was also the Liberals support for female suffrage movement, which by 1910, due to frustrations at the slow pace of change, started adopting radical more militant tactics to attract media attention to their cause, as well as the Irish Home Rule debate, which honestly, some British historians have argued was such a heated, divisive topic if World War I hadn't broken out when it did, it might've led to another second English civil war-type scenario. Ireland, instead suffered a brutal civil war after WWI, that essentially partitioned the country and left a volatile, uneasy less-then-sturdy coexistence since then that's periodically blown up and exploded into violence, assassination attempts, bombings, and murders from both Provos IRA and Ulster Defense League.

The 1910 election was dubbed, "Peers vs. The People", and Liberals framed the contest as a decision between allowing their party to legally introduce, argue and try to pass legislation without unelected HOL peers continually rejecting and obstructing their policy proposals out of spite without empathy or concern for overwhelming mass populace of British population and Empire. The parliamentary elections were a landslide for the new governing Liberal party of Herbert Asquith and his quiet, reserved, but determined Foreign Secretary, David Grey. Afterwards, the new Liberal regime pretty much dissolved a great deal of the legislative powers of the HoL into the merely symbolic purpose it has now.

Saintman2884 said:

Roofgardener said:

Are you sure ? The UK version of The Senate is the House of Lords. Originally this was entirely unelected, and manned by Hereditary Peers. I think this was an essential compromise to get Parliament into existence ?

In more recent decades it has become somewhat more 'representative', in that 'normal' people have been elevated to the House - the so-called 'Peoples Peers'. However, they are appointed, not elected.

However it should be born in mind that the House of Lords functions in an entirely different way (apart from its composition) to the US Senate. The House of Lords is a revising chamber. It reviews new laws, and in effect asks parliament to 'think again' if it doesn't like a new law. However, Parliament is Supreme. The House of Lords can DELAY legislation, but if Parliament is determined, it cannot - unlike the US Senate - actually stop the legislation from ultimately being enacted.

In many ways it works on tradition and precedent. The HoL rarely rejects government bills, nor forces parliament to use its Witchy Powers to force legislation through. It's a bit like The Queen. In theory, she could reject a Parliamentary bill and refuse to sign it into law. But by precedent, she never does.

Incidentally, and drifting off-topic... did you know that The Queen - in law - can dissolve the UK Parliament ? Again, she has never used this power except at Parliaments bidding. But.. can you imagine.. one boring day at Buckingham Palace after a few Gin-and-Tonics....

Queen: I'm bored. Shall we do it, Phillip ?
Prince Phillip: Nooooo.. we shouldn't...
Queen: Oh go on.. lets...
Prince Phillip: Oh, alright then.
Queen: I say... you ... flunky.. get me the Price Minister on the phone...
Queen (picking up phone). Hello ? Is that Boris Johnson ? It is ? Excellent. < giggles> I just wanted to let you know that I've just dissolved your government ? Why ? I was bored Oh Mr Johnson, no need to swear Oh.. he's hung up.

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Actually, the House of Lords legislative power was once far greater and more influential than merely existing as a revising, mostly symbolic organ. It could outright reject and prevent any form of legislation and policies if its entirely rich, aristocratic, unelected landed peers didnt like a certain party. By the late 19th-early 20th century, Britain's long-smouldering sharp class-and-sectarian divide in terms of large working-class interests demanding changes being stifled by powerful, landed aristocracy who hated and despised Liberal Party proposals to alleviate misery and degradation of working-class families, improving working conditions, wages, social security and injury insurance schemes inspired by Bismarkian-Germany. Then there was also the Liberals support for female suffrage movement, which by 1910, due to frustrations at the slow pace of change, started adopting radical more militant tactics to attract media attention to their cause, as well as the Irish Home Rule debate, which honestly, some British historians have argued was such a heated, divisive topic if World War I hadn't broken out when it did, it might've led to another second English civil war-type scenario. Ireland, instead suffered a brutal civil war after WWI, that essentially partitioned the country and left a volatile, uneasy less-then-sturdy coexistence since then that's periodically blown up and exploded into violence, assassination attempts, bombings, and murders from both Provos IRA and Ulster Defense League.

The 1910 election was dubbed, "Peers vs. The People", and Liberals framed the contest as a decision between allowing their party to legally introduce, argue and try to pass legislation without unelected HOL peers continually rejecting and obstructing their policy proposals out of spite without empathy or concern for overwhelming mass populace of British population and Empire. The parliamentary elections were a landslide for the new governing Liberal party of Herbert Asquith and his quiet, reserved, but determined Foreign Secretary, David Grey. Afterwards, the new Liberal regime pretty much dissolved a great deal of the legislative powers of the HoL into the merely symbolic purpose it has now.

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Indeed Saintman. This sort of 'fudging' was what spared the UK from the horrors of the French Revolution. Instead of executing all our aristocrats, we gradually reduced their authority and influence over a period of decades, and ended up with a pretty decent democracy, without the need for an Emperor Napoleon. (though you could argue that we had an earlier version of him in the shape of Oliver Cromwell).

Just to return to the point; as I (dimly) understand it, the purpose of the Senate was to give each individual state a say in governance, and avoid a 'tyrany of the majority' which can arise from a purely populist-vote Congress ? We don't have such a mechanism in the UK as - with the marginalisation of the Dukes - we don't really have an equivalent of the States, and our 'democracy' was in a much more primitive state than that created by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, which really was one of the most remarkable document every created. (second only to the 'gardening expert' books by David Hessayon).

So I'm not sure your desire for a 'UK Parliamentary System' would necessarily be an improvement over what you already have ?

Posted in the abortion thread
======================
…..The details should be familiar by now.

The Senate gives two votes to every state, so 40 million Americans in California, most of them Democrats, get the same representation as 580,000 Americans in Wyoming, most of them Republicans.

That is then levered into the electoral college, which is why the past two Republican presidents took office despite having lost the popular vote.

That (plus unprecedented ruthlessness in refusing to allow a Democratic president to fill an open seat) gets you a conservative Supreme Court supermajority — appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, confirmed by GOP senators who represent a national minority — enacting a conservative legal revolution the public never asked for…….

The concept of the Senate has always been a joke. To my knowledge, no other Western Democracy has set up their legislature in such a way.

Optimus Prime said:

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It's not ideal, but there already is a more equitable distribution in the House. The Senate is set up this way to prevent more populous states from bullying smaller states into doing something they might disagree with. Essentially you'd have California, NY and Texas running the country.

DaveXA said:

It's not ideal, but there already is a more equitable distribution in the House. The Senate is set up this way to prevent more populous states from bullying smaller states into doing something they might disagree with. Essentially you'd have California, NY and Texas running the country.

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I agree with this. I see what the founders were trying to do.

But the problem is that the House is no longer representative of population because its number of members was frozen years ago. So where it used to be that every so many people had a representative, now that number is higher in some states and way lower in rural, less populated states.

So the House is also now skewed toward more rural and less populated states. They need to change that, imo, back to the way it used to be so that the House is truly representative again.

With the filibuster, you could have the 20 least populated states (whose total population is less than California) hold up legislation. So you can have about 12% of the total population essentially veto anything.

I realize we're not technically a democracy, but I think we're further removed from democracy than the founders intended when they set up the Republic.

DaveXA said:

It's not ideal, but there already is a more equitable distribution in the House. The Senate is set up this way to prevent more populous states from bullying smaller states into doing something they might disagree with. Essentially you'd have California, NY and Texas running the country.

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Actually, what you'd have is a more representative government running the county.

Tell me, why don't we make states compete for residents, they way that companies have to compete for customers (or the way they're supposed to). Maybe that will make States better, when they realize their relative power is tied to their populations. At least so goes the argument for everything else in capitalism (which is our ethos and model as a country).

coldseat said:

Actually, what you'd have is a more representative government running the county.

Tell me, why don't we make states compete for residents, they way that companies have to compete for customers (or the way they're supposed to). Maybe that will make States better, when they realize their relative power is tied to their populations. At least so goes the argument for everything else in capitalism (which is our ethos and model as a country).

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Yea, just take the abortion issue.

They love to say, "well move to a state that allows it", so that just makes the power of those states even more disproportionate.

We could eventually end up with 20 white supremacist states with a total population of 1 million, preventing anything from getting done.

It's not that unlike what Putin was hoping to do with Ukraine, but setting up a couple of Russian satellite provinces in Ukraine with veto power.

MT15 said:

I agree with this. I see what the founders were trying to do.

But the problem is that the House is no longer representative of population because its number of members was frozen years ago. So where it used to be that every so many people had a representative, now that number is higher in some states and way lower in rural, less populated states.

So the House is also now skewed toward more rural and less populated states. They need to change that, imo, back to the way it used to be so that the House is truly representative again.

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I think the top number is fixed but the proportions are periodically adjusted based on census figures. I do believe the top number can be adjusted if needed though. I don't recall the procedures for it though.

samiam5211 said:

With the filibuster, you could have the 20 least populated states (whose total population is less than California) hold up legislation. So you can have about 12% of the total population essentially veto anything.

I realize we're not technically a democracy, but I think we're further removed from democracy than the founders intended when they set up the Republic.

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It's a challenge, but it's worked to varying degrees of success for 200+ years. You have to find a way to get 60 votes on board. And even those 20 states aren't monolithic. Some have one of each party. As do some of the other 30 states. You have to find a way to build enough of a coalition to get something passed. If you can't, you keep trying and tweaking until you can.

DaveXA said:

It's a challenge, but it's worked to varying degrees of success for 200+ years. You have to find a way to get 60 votes on board. And even those 20 states aren't monolithic. Some have one of each party. As do some of the other 30 states. You have to find a way to build enough of a coalition to get something passed. If you can't, you keep trying and tweaking until you can.

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I know you've been paying attention, Dave. So what are your thoughts on a situation like we have now where such a task it flatly impossible?
We're at a place where one party is doing its level best to shut down a President's ability to fill mundane positions in his own Administration.

Taurus said:

I know you've been paying attention, Dave. So what are your thoughts on a situation like we have now where such a task it flatly impossible?
We're at a place where one party is doing its level best to shut down a President's ability to fill mundane positions in his own Administration.

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I don't know. They can change the rules to make Presidential appointments filibuster proof like it is currently with SCOTUS nominees and leave the rest as is.

That said, you risk giving the Republicans a lot of power if they regain a Senate majority. It might come back to bite them. Easier said than done.

DaveXA said:

It's a challenge, but it's worked to varying degrees of success for 200+ years. You have to find a way to get 60 votes on board. And even those 20 states aren't monolithic. Some have one of each party. As do some of the other 30 states. You have to find a way to build enough of a coalition to get something passed. If you can't, you keep trying and tweaking until you can.

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The filibuster hasn’t been around for 200 years, especially in its current form.

If the confederacy had been able to use the current form of the filibuster, we probably wouldn’t have had a civil war, and we’d still have slavery.

samiam5211 said:

The filibuster hasn’t been around for 200 years, especially in its current form.

If the confederacy had been able to use the current form of the filibuster, we probably wouldn’t have had a civil war, and we’d still have slavery.

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Possibly. But then, our country isn't exactly the same as it was back then either. I'm not saying the filibuster is good or bad. I think it depends. But removing it can have it's own unintended consequences.

DaveXA said:

I think the top number is fixed but the proportions are periodically adjusted based on census figures. I do believe the top number can be adjusted if needed though. I don't recall the procedures for it though.

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I found a good representation of the difference between some of the states:
“In the century-plus since the number of House seats first reached its current total of 435 (excluding nonvoting delegates), the representation ratio has more than tripled – from one representative for every 209,447 people in 1910 to one for every 747,184 as of last year.”

MT15 said:

I found a good representation of the difference between some of the states:
“In the century-plus since the number of House seats first reached its current total of 435 (excluding nonvoting delegates), the representation ratio has more than tripled – from one representative for every 209,447 people in 1910 to one for every 747,184 as of last year.”

U.S. population keeps growing, but House of Representatives is same size as in Taft era

The U.S. House of Representatives has one member for every 747,000 or so Americans – by far the highest population-to-representatives ratio of any developed democracy.

www.pewresearch.org

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It seems that that's purely a function and result of population growth. The proportional representation is similar, but each representative represents more people. That said, I think the bigger issue with the House is less proportional representation and more about heavy gerrymandering in many states which skews that representation. It's an interesting topic though. I'm definitely open to revamping our legislative branch. The devil will be in the details tho.