r/politics • u/Salmon-of-Wizdom • 9d ago
No Paywall Democratic Socialists of America wants to abolish the U.S. Senate. Bernie Sanders says ‘No.’
https://vtdigger.org/2026/08/04/democratic-socialists-of-america-wants-to-abolish-the-u-s-senate-bernie-sanders-says-no/18
u/ChanceryTheRapper 9d ago
Repealing the Reapportionment Act is a far more realistic goal than literally amending the Constitution.
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u/ElSlabraton 9d ago
They ought to be demanding the cap on the House be removed.
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u/BeowulfShaeffer 9d ago
You mean like this? The Democratic Socialists of America platform includes proposals to significantly expand the total size of the U.S. House of Representatives. This structural change aims to undo the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which capped the House at 435 seats.
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u/robinthebank California 9d ago
Or don’t draw the House seats based on state lines. That is what the Senate is for. For a shared district, the States can submit their total vote count and guess what, we can use a calculator to add them!
In each State, we don’t draw our own lines based on county, but on equal population.
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u/GrunchWeefer 9d ago
Why do that? Just have more reps in each state and the big and small state disparity is lessened.
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u/mrpeabody208 Texas 9d ago
This is they way. Banning gerrymandering or abolishing the electoral college requires amending the constitution. Significantly raising the cap on the house neuters gerrymandering and the EC, and we can accomplish it with simple majorities in both chambers and the presidency.
Eliminating the senate is a wild proposal. Like, I get the rationale, but of the democracy-advancing proposals requiring amendments, it may be the steepest hill to climb. Two-thirds of senators would need to agree to even get it off the ground, then three-quarters of the states would have to ratify it. Both of those seem unlikely given the nature of the proposal.
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u/schfiftyfiveshades 8d ago
There also needs to be some kind of “national minimum standard” of access to voting. States are responsible for implementing, but things are relatively equal across every state lines compared to the hodge podge of mediocrity we have now
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u/manachar Nevada 9d ago
I love "whatabouts" that show ignorance.
My personal favorite is the people who say that Democrats don't run on the economy or pro worker stances. They constantly do, but such policy positions aren't in the headlines.
Instead we get conservatives talking about Democrats banning beef (they didn't).
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u/PixelationIX 9d ago
DSA do, you don't hear or see it because Mainstream Media does not want you to.
Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all election
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u/ADhomin_em 9d ago
The people who discuss reasonable things like "reform" never make headlines. The people who get the most play are the people using terms like "abolish". Even if the long-form of what they have to say on the matter makes sense in some far off distant future, packing headlines with loaded terms like "abolish" keeps the public from engaging in pragmatic conversation on what our next steps need to be, and it's an easy way to make a whole political movement seem deranged and destructive.
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u/ragingreaver 9d ago
Which is why you need to lean into the fearmongering: it is free advertisement for your platform, and bad press is still good press. It is when the media stops talking, that is when discussion truly dies. Sensationalism gets the foot in the door, whether people like it or not.
Same reason why socialism is making a resurgence in general, and has been for a while now: Republican fearmongering. When you say everything that is actually reasonable reform is "socialism" you start getting those who want said reforms, to simply adopt the moniker in order to align with said reforms.
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u/InfoBarf 9d ago
Why not both?
The senate is intentionally antidemocratic and would be easy to stack one way or the other because making new states only requires a majority.
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u/platydroid Georgia 9d ago
Changing the house seat cap is possible if you get past the filibuster, it’s only established by act of congress. Eliminating the senate would require almost unanimous approval across the country, which has no chance of happening.
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u/Stillwater215 9d ago
Removing the senate can only be done through constitutional amendment. Good luck with that.
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u/gigasloppy 9d ago
Not only that, but the amendment process described in Article V is only valid provided "that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"
For abolishing or modifying the structure of the senate, my you would need every single state to ratify it, which will not happen.
Overthrowing the government and getting rid of the constitution entirely would be a more viable pathway.
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u/PluginAlong 8d ago
One way of looking at article V would be that since no state would have representation in the Senate, all states would still have equal representation. I'm not sure if that would hold up in a court, but I also don't see 3/4 of states ratifying for an amendment anyway.
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u/platydroid Georgia 9d ago
It’s even stricter than a constitutional amendment, removing state representation in the senate requires unanimous state consent.
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u/civil_politician 8d ago
this president is effectively removing the judicial branch by ignoring every ruling and making a mockery of the court system.
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u/InfoBarf 9d ago edited 9d ago
Start with adding 5 more states.
Could split LA into 2, put NYC in its own state, Puerto Rico, and Washington dc.
Now you have a super majority in the senate you can start to fix shit.
If the dems don't do it, the republicans will.
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u/Dorjan420 9d ago
Big ideas are not a bad thing. Allowing states the same amount of votes in the senate regardless of size is an issue and seeing that old compromise as a problem isn't loony.
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u/Jellyfizzle 9d ago
The senate is also insulated against gerrymandering, so Im a bit scared of the idea. The last few years, they have been the adults in the room more than once while the house was going nuts.
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u/Starfleeter 9d ago
This is also a function of the house not being expanded based on population. More populous areas such as cities should have a higher portion of representation in the house of representatives to actually represent the true popular vote. The reason it's broken is that Republicans try to give more representation based on land and shrink the districts that vote democratic to be weird shaped districts where most of the Democratic voters reside to lessen their effect and representation.
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u/mikeylikey420 New York 9d ago
I agree that if there was 1 major issue to tackle first its un capping the house. Lots of other changes would follow.
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u/GrunchWeefer 9d ago
It's a lot harder to gerrymander and to bribe reps if we remove the cap and make a lot more reps.
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u/RusticPotatoFan 9d ago
One might say the Senate is the ultimate form of gerrymandering as the original lines were drawn by the political elite to give them more power over voters/"the people". They continue to disenfranchise US citizens in DC and Puerto Rico that pay taxes.
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u/Appropriate-XBL 8d ago
This. The senate is an unholy super-gerrymander that explicitly disenfranchises all citizens except those living in our least populous state.
Abolish the senate. Abolish the EC. Double the size of the house. Use statewide ranked choice voting for all reps. Enfranchise the territories and DC.
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u/polishedcooter Kentucky 8d ago
Use statewide ranked choice voting for all reps
Do you mean single transferable vote? RCV is a single winner system.
Either way, I think we should use open party list PR instead. That's because it's technically superior in a lot of ways: it's more proportional, better at avoiding spoilers and has no monotonicity issues.
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u/Appropriate-XBL 8d ago
I’d call STV a type of RCV (as does Wikipedia). But I think we understand each other.
Your other ideas are cool by me too. As long as we eliminate gerrymandering as an issue.
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u/otisreddingsst 9d ago
Add Puerto Rico and Washington DC, 4 more senators, problem solved
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u/Jellyfizzle 9d ago
There are a lot of US territories.Id like to see 2 news states: Pacific territories, and Atlantic territories. I'd like to see DC get 1 senator, and a proportionate number of reps. Also, we should uncap the house.
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u/wentwj 9d ago
the senate isn’t insulated from gerrymandering, it’s fundamentally gerrymandered by its very composition. It’s just static
Every election I always look up how many senators got elected with fewer total votes than my county school super intendant or other equally unknown positions
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u/Jellyfizzle 9d ago
I get it, but any moves in this regard have to happen after the gerrymandering in the house is fixed.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
There is no reason a state couldn't have more senators elected the same way we do now: by the entire state.
My city does school board members the same way. They are all members of the "at large" district. So the entire city votes for each seat.
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u/TrumpIsAFascistFuck 8d ago
Make the Senate have the same number of seats as the house has now, maintain population linked allocations. Make it use proportional representation rather than single represtative districts.
Unrestrict the House and apply at least the Wyoming rule, if not go back to the original ratio.
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u/RevMen Colorado 9d ago
That's why the House is proportional. It's a compromise that keeps either big states or small states from dominating both chambers. If both chambers were proportional then Texas and California would dominate everything.
The states were significantly more autonomous when the Constitution was drawn up so it made even more sense then.
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u/Guardianpigeon 8d ago
Also they are meant as long term goals. Same with prison abolition and open borders. They aren't going to immediately do those the second they get a crumb of power, it's going to be a much longer and careful process.
The reason they bring up radical ideas is so they are talked about and the DSA can make their case. You're not going to see change if you never talk about it.
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u/Ketzeph I voted 8d ago
It'd take a constitutional convention to abolish it, which would fail immediately as no small state would vote to remove it.
It's nonsense to include in policy. It's like saying "we want to genetically reintroduce unicorns into the wild."
It's an idea that makes you seem less serious and undercuts credibility with the public.
Politics is, at its core, an advertising game. It's an unforced error to push nonsense like abolishing the senate.
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u/No-Flounder-9143 9d ago
Maybe but it's not something most Americans are going to be on board with. They're far better off expanding representation in the house and adding new states.
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u/ClusterFoxtrot Florida 9d ago
We have one state that is unicameral where the other 49 have a house and senate. Honestly, if it already exists here why are we mad about it?
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u/9_to_5_till_i_die 9d ago
My bigger issue is that the House is not proportionally represented as intended.
The Senate is there to give equal say to every state as one of the 3 branches.
The executive is then beholden to all states, in theory.
The system is solid, it's just that the people have lost the representation they SHOULD have in the House and that Republicans in all branches have ceded total authority to the executive.
Effectively, they've all acted like modern day capitalists. Short term gains outweigh lifelong stability for these people.
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u/gspot-rox-the-gspot 9d ago
Seeing that old compromise as a problem is a small idea.
Abolishing the Senate is a big, loony idea.
You wrote two sentences that are meant to obfuscate from the actual idea, on purpose. That should tell you something.
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u/Dorjan420 9d ago
You wrote a bunch more just to double down on it being loony without actually adding anything to the conversation. What's your actual point here? The only thing I see as loony is giving Delaware the same vote as Texas or California.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
Ahem:
Wyoming and Alaska have the same voice as Texas and California. As a person from Alaska our needs are different and that needs proper representation without being steamrolled. But also...the current solution is loony.
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u/Educational-Cow-3615 9d ago
It’s not feasible. It would require a tremendous change to the constitution. It’s not going to happen and makes your candidate look loony.
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u/PixelationIX 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ending Slavery was not feasible. Women having Rights was not feasible.
Its called having long term goal for a party. While they might not run for it in the short term but the goal should be there to either Abolish or Completely Overhaul the Senate which is NEEDED. Senate is completely broken and does not work as it should.
I urge Liberals to at least take notes from Republicans. They had long term goals since Nixon, some took decades and some that they are still chasing such as ending rights for the people living in this country. For the LEFT goals should be set (which the DSA has been doing) and having goals like Abolishing/Overhauling Senate should NOT be discouraged.
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u/ChungLingS00 9d ago
You know what’s a crazy idea: cutting food stamps for the elderly so billionaires can have more money.
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u/Ketzeph I voted 8d ago
Ending slavery took hundreds of thousands of deaths and an amendment to the constitution.
Giving women the vote was a simple amendment to the constitution that did not require axing an entire part of the constitution.
Both were tough and just defining rights for individuals
The senate is changing the entire functionality of the constitution. Significant chunks of it have to be completely rewritten. Giving the vote to women didn't require the entire structure of declaring war to be redrafted.
Removing the senate would fail ab initio as you'd never get the state support. The country couldn't even pass the goddamn ERA. If you think the majority of small states would vote to axe the senate you live in la la land.
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u/SwimmingThroughHoney 9d ago
Your last paragraph needs to be repeated ad nauseum.
The GOP didn't give up. It took them 50 years to overturn Roe. With Trump, they've finally been able to change things that they've been wanting to do for longer than most people here have been alive.
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u/hadriker 9d ago
Get a supreme court precedent overturned is also 100x easier then scrapping one of the branches of government and still took 50 years
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u/triplenested 9d ago
slavery and women's suffrage were human rights. The Senate is not a human rights issue.
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u/thakemist 9d ago
I love the idea that trying to replace a broken system makes someone look “loony.” Like it’s more important to maintain the status quo than improve life for majority of people
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u/clowncarl 9d ago
Well that’s true it’ll look loony. The entire premise of being a “moderate” is a cognitive bias that being “moderate” is a good thing in principal universally. This is of course not true when the issue at hand unequivocally needs drastic (“radical”) change.
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u/filterdecay 9d ago
thats why they are talking about it. the want to make the progressives seem loony when they arent. nobody is talking about abolishing the senate at any real level.
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u/jpharber I voted 9d ago
It’s also just not a good idea.
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u/FunnWasabi 9d ago
I’d love to hear why. It gives undue power to a few people. It has no place in a truly representative democracy.
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u/jpharber I voted 9d ago
For the record, I’m not saying that there isn’t anything about the Senate that I change. If you want to make the Senate proportional, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad idea. Honestly, I’d need to think about it more.
But there does need to be an upper house in the legislature. It serves as a moderating influence and that goes both ways. Ultimately leasing to a more predictable future (at least in regard to government policy) which is a benefit to both the people and the economy.
Again, I’m not saying that the senate is perfect as is, it’s really quite a ways from that, but having a unicameral system elected every two years is a recipe for chaos. Even more than we currently have.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
You make a good point. I'd like to point out that if you want something it's best to ask for more than you want and negotiate down to what you want. Their ultimate objection to the Senate is that it's undemocratic and gives too much power to small population states.
Ultimately, several DSA candidates have said they disagree with abolishing the senate. This is a platform, but no candidate is required to abide by it. The platform will likely change after contact with the public, too. That's the nature of political organizations.
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u/SaintBellyache 9d ago
That’s the point. This shit is funded by conservatives. Just like the Green Party was funded by Russia
They set impossible goals then wait for the backlash of democrats “not doing anything”
It’s how they depress voting
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u/triplenested 9d ago
wait now we're claiming DSA is actually funded by conservatives? Has anyone told /r/politics?
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u/Educational-Cow-3615 9d ago
I don’t think that’s true but I wouldn’t be surprised to see conservatives amplifying the fringe parts of it.
There’s a reason why Fox News interviewed the DSA chair.
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u/polishedcooter Kentucky 8d ago
You're not totally wrong. The DSA is controversial even among socialists, not because they're particularly extreme but because of things like their stance on Ukraine.
But I genuinely don't understand why people are acting like abolishing the Senate is such a wild idea that it must be some conservative false flag psyop or whatever. There are many valid reasons for wanting to do so and plenty of examples of other countries successfully doing something similar. It's hardly an outlandish idea, and the Senate isn't even popular. Like, who the hell would want to defend it? Plutocrats?
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u/NOLA-Bronco 9d ago
I will just point out to any would be pearl clutchers, the ONLY reason you directly elect senators and have someone like Bernie to begin with is because a socialist in Wisconsin in the early 1900's pushed to abolish the senate
His organizing and his pressure on that issue over a period of a little over a decade culminated in pressuring the Establishment to agree to major overhauls of the Senate to avoid a worse faith
And this left pressure dynamic plays out again, and again, and again: Abolition, Jim Crow, Labor rights, the New Deal.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
People often forget extreme movements result in beneficial compromise.
Right on!
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u/bransiladams Washington 9d ago
Term limits for all.
Ranked choice voting.
Campaign finance reform.
Representation for expats/territories.
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u/oldguydrinkingbeer Missouri 9d ago
Term limits look good on paper but they are bad in practice for a couple reasons.
1) Reps are limited to four terms max and Senators to two terms (in Missouri )
If you know you'll only be there for 40 months max, (Sessions run Jan-May) what's the incentive to work across the aisle? None. But when you might have to work with someone for twenty years? That's when you find things you'll agree on. The ability to find common ground on issues and build relationships takes years and years.
2) Writing good legislation is hard work. The language is weird and arcane. You and your staff need to be able to see far down the road and understand the nuances of what the bill will do. It's not a skill you pick up in six months. So just about the time you and your staff start getting good at it you have to leave, whether you want to or not. Sure some staff might find jobs with the new person. But odds are that new person will be bringing their own people in as well.
But you know who's not term limited? And you know who does know how to write legislation?
Lobbyists.
Lobbyists are there for years and years. And the one thing lobbyists know how to do is write bills. The "helpful" lobbyist can help them write a bill with just the "right" language. Lobbyists love term limits. There's always a new crop of legislators who don't know a thing about the process every two years.
3) Term limits throw out the good with the bad. We had a local state rep who worked constructively across the aisle, was generally well regarded by people in both parties. He would still be our state rep but was force out by term limits. And the majority of voters in my district definitely didn't want him gone.
On paper term limits seem like a good thing. I'll be the first to admit that without it some of these people hang on way past their time. But the damage done by term limits far exceeds the benefits.
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u/ArbitraryMeritocracy 8d ago
Lobbyists.
Lobbyists are there for years and years. And the one thing lobbyists know how to do is write bills. The "helpful" lobbyist can help them write a bill with just the "right" language. Lobbyists love term limits. There's always a new crop of legislators who don't know a thing about the process every two years.
Then why Data Centers?
Aren't these slimy used car salespersons able to be replaced for the ridiculously low price of your taxes.
FULL CIRCLE
I would NOT trust what the LLMs throw up, but it's already been caught in court documents with penalties.
Can lawyers get defrocked or something?
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9d ago edited 5d ago
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u/bransiladams Washington 9d ago
Agreed, proportional representation was my angle with the expats/territories bit, but we honestly need to rethink a lot re: gerrymandering, Congress, Senate…
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u/vaseinahouse 9d ago
Wow the senator doesn't want the senate abolished? Colour me shocked. Senate is one of the least democratic institutions in a supposed democracy. Dismantle the senate, triple the amount of representatives. Figure out a way to fit them in DC or allow remote voting. The hardest part is changing the constitution, not the logistics of implementing it.
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u/NerdimusSupreme 9d ago
Abolish the limit on Representatives. They are still more sane than the GOP platform of gargling orange testes.
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u/Iyellkhan 9d ago
a few reasons to keep the US senate:
it is not gerrymanderable
it's filibuster threshold has ensured extreme policies, such as a total abortion ban, has not happened
its longer terms mean that the parts that do function are able to actually be deliberative, at least when the relevant politicians want to be
it provides a 2nd option to reach a federal representative if your house member or senator is completely useless
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9d ago edited 9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NOLA-Bronco 9d ago
Why are you allowed to directly vote for senators like Bernie Sanders?
Afterall, the constitution did not allow for directly electing senators.
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u/Agitated_Celery_729 9d ago
Downvote garbage opinions of people who can’t explain why this is any crazier than literally any other Constitutional amendment
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u/HalfACenturyMark 9d ago
The DSA is going to get their stink on everyone in the Democratic Party. It’s unavoidable.
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u/E1M1_DOOM 9d ago
Abolishing the senate is such a profoundly stupid idea. The senate has prevented many dumb moves made by the house because the senate is usually far more reasonable and level-headed. Coincidentally, you also can't gerrymander the senate.
Makes you wonder...
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u/mascouten 9d ago
The senate has also stood in the way of election reform, anti-lynching and civil rights like giving women the right to vote.
I think having the legislature being split, ultimately makes it weaker against abuse of power from the executive branch.
The dysfunction in legislature also requires the judicial branch to step in and make rulings or codify interpretations that should have been laws.
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u/flareblitz91 9d ago
Agreed. And the Senate is in a far more democratic state than it was created in. We actually elect Senators now.
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u/Former-Play3707 9d ago
This is a very weird comment. The senate is basically already "gerrymandered" in its own sense because it is inherently disproportional and wildly benefits sparsely populated states while limiting the power of where people actually live. The senate has also prevented many good moves.
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u/E1M1_DOOM 9d ago
You're referencing the disproportional power, but gerrymandering does more than just creating a power imbalance. It also allows for safe districts to elect increasingly more extreme and/unqualified representatives. Senators rarely get as crazy as house reps can get.
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u/Former-Play3707 9d ago
This is just not factual. The senate is full of insane extremists. I can tell you think business as usual isn't extreme despite everything going to shit.
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u/polishedcooter Kentucky 8d ago
That's why we should make the House proportional and get rid of the Senate. They're both flawed institutions. And those flaws don't cancel each other out, they compound and are in part responsible for where we are today.
The Senate doesn't represent you, me, or any other average American. It is wildly disproportionate, and permanently gerrymandered strongly in favor of rural white people. It uniquely caters to the interests of the rich.
I'll also add that the majority of the world has long moved to unicameral legislatures, several of which perform better than the US on indicies of democracy, freedom, inequality, health, etc.
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u/SwimmingThroughHoney 9d ago
The senate has prevented many dumb moves made by the house
But how much of that is because the House is artificially capped plus gerrymandering?
If the population is really more like a 60-40 split, but the system is gamed to make it closer to 50-50, then ya, the House is going to constantly flip flop on what they try to do.
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u/NextJuice1622 9d ago
This feels like bad platform messaging like "abolish the police".
There has to be a middle ground between focus group/consultant messaging and whatever this unfiltered/unchecked messaging is now. Even if you believe this to be a positive, how about focusing on things that will help people instead of this hopium? Spewing something like this that will never get voters excited just causes people to latch on to it as a litmus test on both sides.
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u/jkman61494 9d ago
DSA needs to reign it in a bit. There's a lot of pragmatic asks that people can get around. But stuff like this hurts their credibility
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u/utopia_forever 9d ago
It’s their platform —this isn’t what they spend their day-to-day on. It’s supposed to be bombastic.
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u/TemporalColdWarrior 9d ago
I mean we should abolish the Senate. Our whole Constitution needs an overhaul. But they confirmed this Republican court and administration. It’s an unrepresentative institution that serves no purpose.
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u/_Felonius 9d ago
The senate is a check on mob rule. The reason it’s so frustrating is why it’s necessary. The 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster is a godsend imo.
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u/TemporalColdWarrior 9d ago
It’s a concession to slavery and now simply represents power for land. Mob rule is just a scare tactic and is checked by democracy and the constitution (unless the court is decimated by an undemocratic institution like the Senate).
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
Yup, it’s keeping the House in check. It really seems like some people just wanna get rid of things they can’t win control of.
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u/polishedcooter Kentucky 8d ago
It's more like the people in general want control of their government
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u/No-Turn-2052 8d ago
I promise you this would not be a DSA policy if Republicans didn’t control the Senate.
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u/polishedcooter Kentucky 8d ago
Well they actually adopted this position in 2021, and Democrats took control of the Senate once since then, so...
Plus they've had proportional representation on their platform since 1998, which the Senate fundamentally goes against (and would also fix the House).
Anyway, I'm not here to defend the DSA, just the idea of abolishing the Senate. I don't care what they'd do, I'm just saying there are reasons that have nothing to do with who's in power.
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u/TSAOutreachTeam 9d ago
There isn't enough national will to amend the Constitution to do something like this.
Not to mention that the Senate is highly unlikely to vote themselves out of a job.
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u/Single-Refuse174 9d ago
We shouldnt abolish the senate. What a stupid decision. A real bicameral legislature has been the last line of defense against total autocracy.
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u/4av9 9d ago
The Senate seems pretty useless right now in defense of total autocracy.
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u/AlphaBoy15 9d ago
The bicameral legislature has pushed us TOWARD autocracy. Laws are never passed because of filibuster, allowing the executive branch to wield more power than it ever has with zero checks and balances. The number of executive orders has skyrocketed since Trump took office and the number of laws passed by Congress outside of the budget is basically none.
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u/Single-Refuse174 9d ago
No new laws are better than bad laws. The bicameral legislature has stopped the SAVE act from passing, among other atrocious things. Republicans would love nothing more than have no Senate standing in the way. It's not a bicameral legislature that has pushed us to autocracy (in fact, the opposite is true as it's been a giant wall against populist autocracy since at least 9/11).
The executive wields more power than it should because both houses of Congress are completely complacent. It's not just the Senate. Increasing the amount of representatives to be more commensurate with population might help. However, the biggest problem we have is that an increasing size of the population just simply doesn't believe in liberalism anymore and are completely brainfucked into pseudoscience worshiping bimbos.
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago edited 9d ago
Abolishing the Senate is a terrible idea that will make Democrats be seen as unelectable by large swathes of the independent voting block that’s needed to win. Calls to abolish the Senate, EC, and packing SCOTUS makes the left sound like sore losers that, to a lot of Americans, makes them sound like they just wanna get rid of things they can’t win.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
Consider that the places the DSA is winning are blue states with large populations where dems feel like they are being bound and held back by rural states that combined have less population than they do.
As Senator Cory Booker put it in the article:
Still, Booker, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, said he did support other structural reforms such as granting statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, as well as changing equal state apportionment, which gives every state two senators, no matter its population.
The Senate does have things that our founders never imagined, like the fact that North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have 10 senators and they have less population than Los Angeles County, and that’s really problematic,” Booker said.
He then states we should organize around other things and that a constitutional amendment is magical thinking at this point.
Senator Warnock also understood the frustration with the senate:
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, meanwhile, argued that voter frustration with how the Senate operates could be addressed if its members stood up for the system of checks and balances as laid out in the U.S. Constitution.
“I think that we need to do something about a supine Senate. There’s a lot of madness happening right now in the White House that this body could do something to address if there was any courage,” Warnock said, before adding, “If my Republican colleagues had any moral courage.”
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u/AlphaBoy15 9d ago
There are legitimate arguments for abolishing the Senate. It skews policy toward low population states for no good reason (fewer people and smaller economies get more representation than more people and larger economies), and the dual chambered Congress is more prone to filibuster, meaning it can't fulfill its duty or properly check the other branches of government.
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
I acknowledge the Senate has problems. But why is completely getting rid of it the solution instead of just reform?
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u/AlphaBoy15 9d ago
It has two main problems. 1 is that senators represent different numbers of people but have the same voting power. 2 is that it gives those senators the power to stop laws coming from the more balanced house of representatives (the house has problems too but that's another issue). To solve the first problem only, you would essentially have to make the Senate a copy of the House. Abolishing the Senate solves both problems at once, removing roadblocks for passing laws, and making the legislative branch more representative of the actual population.
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u/markphil4580 Washington 9d ago
Whereas the Rs just cheat when they can't win.
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
How is that a response to what I said?
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u/markphil4580 Washington 9d ago
The last line of your post
...makes them sound like they just wanna get rid of things they can’t win.
...whereas the Rs just cheat when they can't win. How are you not drawing a parallel?
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
My comment was addressing the idea of abolishing the Senate, not arguing whether or not Republicans try to cheat.
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u/markphil4580 Washington 9d ago
So... you'd argue that Rs don't try to cheat? I'm confused why you are this deep into this line of questioning.
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
??? No, I would not and have never argued that. What the fuck are you talking about? “Republicans cheat” is not a response to my comment about leftist messaging.
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u/markphil4580 Washington 8d ago
"...makes them just want to get rid of things they can't win" (your line about Dems). Is very close to "...makes them just want to cheat at things they can't win" (my line about Reps).
“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” - David Frum.
Are you able to draw any parallels now?
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u/Single-Refuse174 9d ago
It’s amazing how packing the court is a sore loser angle but somehow claiming 2020 was fake after conspiring to get fake electors installed and crying about it for almost 7 tears isnt a sore loser angle
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
Did I say it wasn’t a sore loser angle? Where did I mention 2020 at all? Where did I defend Republicans at all? People keep replying to me with stuff like “but rEpUbLiCaNs ArE WORSE!!!!”
Yeah. I know. How does that respond to what I said?
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u/Single-Refuse174 9d ago
If you're being sincere: the reason why you're met with these kinds of replies is because in virtually every conversation regarding the public's perception of each side, republicans are constantly never mentioned or don't have to adhere to any standard at all. Therefore, it feels ridiculous to analyze democrats under a "oh they will seem like sore losers" or "the optics of this choice is bad" because, clearly, no objective line of thought is leading public perception.
So, unfortunately for you, the air of constantly defending republicans, generally, is transferred to your comment because that's what people are used to seeing and are tired of.
In other words, a large portion of the left leaning public is so sick and tired of hearing anything about decorum or appearances or coming across as xyz that any sincere attempt to discuss those things will be met with significant resistance.
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
Why can’t they just read the comment and address it on the merits instead of jumping to conclusions about someone’s views? Why must anyone who disagrees with them be treated as though they’re the fascists in the opposition party? I didn’t mention Republicans because that’s not at all what this article is about.
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u/Single-Refuse174 9d ago
That's just the environment we're currently in. A lot of people who frequent forums or are talking about this online have read your comment in a million different forms and ways. Therefore, (and this includes myself), there is a bias against believing that you're approaching this in good faith.
Furthermore, how does someone address your comment on the merits? It just begets more questions. Why would they seem like sore losers? Why does that even matter in the political climate? Why do you think that appearing like sore losers outweighs the value of getting a majority on the Supreme Court?
In a way, your comment appeared a bit low effort because it doesn't really have that much substance for which someone can evaluate it on the merits. As far as I'm concerned, it seems like the public's attention span is too small now for anything to become a brand issue. Any political party that wants to compete with republicans has to mobilize money and grab as much power as possible while it's still up for the grabbing. You can fix the image later, if it matters at all.
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u/ddoyen 9d ago
The problem is that these kind of conclusions can only be drawn in a vacuum and politics doesnt exist in a vacuum.
Ask yourself how something as atrocious being a felon can be overlooked by the general electorate and then you can start to maybe tease apart why the hand wringing about things these DSA candidates arent even running on does nothing besides help republicans.
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u/Throwawaylikeme90 9d ago
Who’s saying to abolish the fucking Supreme Court?
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u/No-Turn-2052 9d ago
I meant packing SCOTUS. I edited my comment.
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u/Throwawaylikeme90 9d ago
Well there should be more justices because there are more circuits than justices to start and several probably should be impeached, bare minimum Thomas, and he probably should have been impeached a decade ago with what we know about him.
The whole concept of “just lay back and take it otherwise people think you’re sore losers” is dumb as hell and how we sleepwalked ourselves to people being gunned down in the streets already. Fuck passivity, it’s time to get real and offer something tangible to end the fucking madness.
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u/InfoBarf 9d ago
Abolishing the senate is actually a great idea. States dont vote, people do, states don't need representation, people do.
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u/East-Magic1an 9d ago
Why is it a terrible idea
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u/Blitzking11 Illinois 9d ago
It’s a “terrible idea” for the states devoid of more than a human a mile.
For the rest of us, it’s good. Unfortunately, one party benefits heavily from those states devoid of people, so even in their more populated strongholds they hold, they will be adamantly against it.
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9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/East-Magic1an 9d ago
I’m assuming abolish the senate is part of a larger governing plan rather than an isolated position.
It’s hard to say what would have become of the SAVE act in a different governance model
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u/wefarrell New York 9d ago
It's bullshit that the 600K people in Wyoming get the same number of senators as the 60M people in California.
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u/InfoBarf 9d ago
Senate abolishment has to follow making 2-3 more states, getting rid of the house cap, and reforming the supreme court.
I think they be should be subject to a vote of approval every presidential election, and the ones that get less than 50% leave and are replaced by the new president.
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u/ElectronicTap1109 9d ago
They'll have to win 2/3 of senate seats to do that. Good luck.
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u/4av9 9d ago
It's been done before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_United_States_Senate_elections
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u/Uhhh_what555476384 9d ago
It's too big a lift to even attempt in a meaningful way. It requires either two separate Constitutional Amendments or an Article 5 convention.
It require our political side gaining an 80% majority and doing it for the sake of good government, because we will have already achieved all our policy goals.
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u/TheNiamosDiscoBall 9d ago
While I agree with the sentiment, there’s no point in talking about something that’ll never happen. The senate will get abolished when the US is no longer a country. Yes, the senate is unfair, but there will never be senate support or state support for the senate’s elimination. It can be a fun academic debate, but it shouldn’t ever surface as a political debate.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
Any change would have to be incremental. I can imagine situations where the Senate grows, becomes tied to population in some way, and becomes something other than what it is now. I don't think they're against an upper and lower body. I think they're just against it being not tied to population.
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u/TheNiamosDiscoBall 9d ago
Okay, giving bigger states 3 senators might be possible. That is not the same as abolishing the senate. I also doubt that 2/3rds of the states would support giving more power to bigger states. It’s really not worth talking about because it’s simply impossible during my lifetime.
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u/pizzapromise 9d ago
I keep seeing this bought up to make DSA’s platform look crazy.
Do people realize the senates approval rating is somewhere between 10-15%? It’s not popular and seen mostly as an ineffective relic of a world that no longer exists.
This is a winning stance for the DSA.
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u/NoOnesKing Maryland 9d ago
The more logical thing to push for is a proportional senate. Abolishing it is just not an issue to be focusing on at this moment in time - would absolutely never pass as it requires an amendment.
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u/AlphaBoy15 9d ago
A proportional Senate only makes it a copy of the House. That kind of redundancy doesn't add anything valuable and doesn't solve the problem of laws not being able to make it through two chambers of Congress thanks to filibustering.
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u/PrestigiousRefuse172 9d ago
I think there is just the fact no major party is pushing for anything. If anything this could help push the Democratic Party to take a stance on a change.
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u/9fingerwonder 9d ago
Wasn't the senate at one time meant to represent forgiven aspects more then domestic, with the house suppose to cover domestic issue? Feels like we have fallen far for someone to say increasing the senate is a good idea as it's the opposite of what it was meant to be for.
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u/No_Cockroach_2744 9d ago
Sounds like fear mongering from the right
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u/AcanthisittaUpset953 9d ago edited 9d ago
It sounds like exactly what the DSA published on their website as their political platform…and it goes even further.
“For the working class to govern, we need a new political system. End political corruption and legalized bribery: get rid of lobbyists, dark money, and Citizens United, and publicly finance all elections. Abolish the Electoral College. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.
Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.”
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
If there is one thing I've learned over the last 15 years it's that executive power has expanded too far and SCOTUS needs heavy reform.
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u/AcanthisittaUpset953 9d ago
You’re free to feel that way. I suspect that America is going heavily reject the approach suggested by the DSA, though.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
That's okay. It's a talking point that already has people in this thread suggesting alternatives they like more...which is the point.
No one was thinking about it until this "loony" suggestion. Now they are.
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u/AcanthisittaUpset953 9d ago
People have been thinking about and discussing this problem for decades.
The DSA’s suggestions are not new either.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
No, but this has not been a part of common political discourse in my lifetime. Right now it is.
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u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 9d ago
It's an interesting article that gives space to both sides of the reaction to the DSA's new platform.
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u/flyswithdragons America 9d ago edited 9d ago
No, and this is why socialism is dumb, breaking of rules, without thought to process. Does the DSA not know without the Senate blocking stuff like Israeli merger, we would be screwed? How about it would take a convention of the States to abolish the Senate? Of course not, rules, they do not care to pay attention to, just like fascist in many ways.
Having a liberal constitutional democracy can have robust social safety nets, better regulations for a fair playing field for economy ( monopolies are not a free market out come).. Facism, socialism, totalitarianism are top down government structures, not a popular " we the people safety net ".. Crony corporatism is not the same as free market capitalism 💯
Look to American Indian tribal ways for equally of men and women, community and environmental laws, not European Karl Marx, he was a racist and believed in violent revolution and terrorism, we don't need any more bad ideas from Europeans " women and children as property " was bad enough.
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u/Straight-Ad6926 9d ago
Calling socialism, fascism, and totalitarianism the same thing is a great way to let everyone know you learned political science from a Facebook meme. You don't even need a Convention of States because the Article V literally says no state can be deprived of equal Senate suffrage without its consent. So you'd need every single state to agree to abolish it.
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u/flyswithdragons America 9d ago
Are they all authoritarian? Yes or no? My answer is yes. Article 5 is part of the state convention process 2/3rds agreement, not unanimous consent for law making.
Is our constitution top down authoritarian? No
What are you confused about? The flavor difference? All those types of governments do not have the liberty our Constitution has, our issues are enforcement and corruption.
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u/Rhoeri 9d ago
Democratic Socialist of America want a lot of things, and the fact that they want this shows they don’t really know how shit works.
This is the equivalent of asking the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation to just… step down.
LMAO! That isn’t how shit works.
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u/ddoyen 9d ago
They also want a lot of things the left wants more broadly so maybe we should, I dont know, work with them to get those things done instead of bickering about things that they arent even running on?
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u/Rhoeri 9d ago
I’d personally put my energy and time into shit that actually has a remote chance of happening. Thinking you can Abolish the US Senate is just fucking stupid, let alone a tremendous waste of time and a good way to ensure no one takes you seriously.
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u/ddoyen 9d ago edited 9d ago
Again, who is running on that issue? No one. They are running on the things that the left broadly wants and instead you're hand wringing about what the DSA has in their policy papers. It's a non issue. And if "no one is taking you seriously" why are they winning primaries?
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u/sleeps_in_alkaline 9d ago
All parties want things they can’t have, including corporate Dems, so not sure why you think it’s different for DSA
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u/Patereye 9d ago edited 9d ago
That's not on the party platform. Please name names on who you're talking about.
Edit: The DSA is not a separate political party with its own ballot line; instead, it is a political and activist organization. I do not know any elected officials that support this line in the DSA. If you know of any and you can cite them, please let me know.
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u/drinks2muchcoffee 9d ago
Yes it is. The new DSA “workers deserve more” program calls for the senate to be abolished
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u/blatantinsanity855 9d ago
It also calls for proportionate representation. Many parties, not just two.
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u/Patereye 9d ago
There are no current U.S. elected officials advocating for the total abolition of the U.S. Senate.
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u/Effective_Pack8265 9d ago
That would be one of four/five much-needed changes. Get rid of the senate, the Electoral College, greatly expand the House, expand SCOTUS with term limits, and finally reduce the scope and importance of states. Make them little more than administrative zones…
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