Subordinating the Senate

The primary suggestion I make in the conclusion of my book for changing our government to make it more democratic and functional is to subordinate the Senate to the House of Representatives, that is, to change the current status of two supposedly co-equal chambers of the legislature, to one where the Senate is clearly subordinate to the House, unable to materially impede the process of legislation.

We have all grown up believing in the doctrine that the two houses of Congress are and should be equal in status. There are two problems with this: first the effective result is that the Senate is able to dominate the House, since the Senate operates under rules that allow minority obstruction, and is able to force the House to compromise with the Senate in order to get a bill passed. The opposite is not true: the House is not able to force the Senate to accept the House version of a bill. Thus the Senate dominates the House.

The second problem is that there is nowhere in the Constitution that dictates that the House and Senate are co-equal branches of Congress. I am not an expert on early political history, but as I understand it, in the beginning the Senate did not consider itself the equal of the House, and as it turned out, was on its way to becoming like the House of Lords in Britain today. It was only in the early 1800s (1805-1825) that the Senate transformed itself into the co-equal chamber of Congress that it is today. It did so without any Constitutional Amendments or even legislation. It simply asserted that it was equal to the House, and the House accepted its assertions.

If this is true, then it is also possible, without any need for Constitutional change or legislation, for the House to assert that the Senate will no longer be considered equal to the House. It is just that simple. The Senate of course will not accept that assertion, and there would be extensive debate, but in the end the issue is not one of the Constitution: it is one of relative power. If the House truly wanted to assert its power, the Senate would have no choice: the House controls the purse. The question then becomes, does the House want the power? Do the people want the House to be in charge? My position is that they do.