I disagree. I'm all in favor of having a bicameral legislature. However, I would reform it.
I don't see a reason for an upper house. I don't think that, say, Wyoming, or Rhode Island, should have equal influence on Supreme Court appointments or foreign policy as a state with a much larger population; it's unrepresentative, and it would conflict with your following opinion on proportional representation, imo, which I do support fully.
I think 'state's rights' become obsolete with the railroads and telegraph; it was pretty much a necessity when travel was long and arduous and slow, but not so much when the transportation and communications network expanded and sped up. It turned the U.S. into 50 feudal cabals. We would be much better off if those provincial governments were reduced to 12 or 14; most of the population still lives east of the Mississippi, so it would be more efficient, reducing the number of governmental bodies.
Most regions these days are already combining into special regional interests groups for any number of issues, like transportation authorities, water authorities, urban planning, etc., etc, and state government is just an unnecessary layer that can be reduced to regions with more or less common interests that are already forming ad hoc authorities anyway. Doing away with them would merely be acknowledging the new realities of a modern country, and would also facilitate proportional representation.
Even with keeping a Senate, it would be better if there were only maybe 24 of them to watchdog.
Having so many divisions only made it easier for special interests like railroads and utility monopolies to corrupt those state govts. and play them off against each other as they do today, fighting over the division of pork and earmarks. Reducing the number of governments would make it harder to do that, and easier to watchdog and correct.
What I would want is to change it so that the House of Representatives is no longer based on single-member districts. Instead, each state would be granted their usual number of seats. Then these seats would be divided up for proportional representation via election. That way, each Representative represents the members of their party in their state.
Yes, a more parliamentary system would indeed be great.
Senators would be elected via a two-round system in which those who get the top 2 pluralities go to the second round election.
I would opt for an 'at large' type of set-up than a separate Senate, but to each his own. We can agree in part on some of this.
:mrgreen:
