so shades, why not "standardize" the system so they have no excuse?

i'm also thinking of when 3 senators got their "unanimous vote" in the middle of the night concerning terri shaivo. if it was required that all senators be informed that there was a vote and they were required to vote aye or nay, or go on the record as purposefully abstaining, and being required to give a reason for that abstention, do ya think that vote would have even been attempted?

I still don't understand what is wrong with the senate. Seems to work just great when combined along with the house or Rep. Could you explain why exactly you would like it different?

The Senate was never intended by the nation's founders to be elected by the general public. The purpose of the Senate was to be the voice of the state governments at the federal level, while the house was the voice of the citizenry. Toward that end, Senators were elected by the state legislatures... until the 17th amendment was passed.

The amendment's proponents argued that it was too easy for candidates to bribe the legislators into voting for them. Regardless of that though, we now have Senators bribing the public with their own tax money, which is far, far more dangerous. And what's more, the states now have little say in the federal government.

Besides, if you only needed to curry favor among the legislature and not the population at large, Senate campaigning would be so inexpensive that far more people would be able to run for office (you'd only really need to meet personally and talk with all the legislators, no ads, no speeches); since you'd be running a very small campaign, it'd also be far easier to have many candidates from many parties.

Instead, we're stuck with another class of professional politicians, and only the rich can join the club.

"And what's more, the states now have little say in the federal government."

That's bologne. Each state has at least two representitves I think, and two senators. How is it that the states have little say in federal government?

I still don't understand what is wrong with the legislative branch as it is. This is how I understand it. If a bill is going to be passed into law it must pass with a majority so 51% or more in both the House or Representitves, and the US Senate, once that happens it goes to the president and he either signs it into law or vetos it. If it is vetoed then it goes back to the house and senate to be re-voted upon, and if the bill gets a 2/3 majority in both the House or Rep and Senate then it becomes law irregardless of a presidential veto, until a court case is brought up in the judicial branch.

Now the reason we have a senate and house or representitives, unless I'm wrong, is because each state has differing amounts of people, California vs Wisconsin, but each state is supposed to have equal representation, but completely equal representation means that the more populas states have less influence then the smaller states, so in the senate there are two senators from each state for a total of 100, 2 x 50 = 100. In the House of Rep it's 400 some representitves divided by the total populations of the United States, I forget exactly how it's formed, but the basic principal is that the House of Representitves was intended to be the forum that represented the population of the states and the senate was supposed to represent the states from an equal standpoint in votes only.

So what is wrong with the senate? You are saying the way in which senators are elected is the problem? How were they elected, how are they elected now, and what is the problem?

"taxation without representation"

Unfortunately, that went out the window quite a while ago. There are many groups that are taxed with no other representation than what everyone else gets. A few examples: tobacco users, alcohol drinkers, big ticket item buyers. You get the idea. Basically any tax that is designed to alter peoples behavior is a tax with no special representation given in return to the group being taxed. Ironically, in a lot of cases, these groups have less rights than usual.

Why is a big ticket item included in your list?

So what is wrong with the senate? You are saying the way in which senators are elected is the problem? How were they elected, how are they elected now, and what is the problem?

Try actually reading my post. I said exactly what it was for, how they were elected, and what the 17th amendment did and why it is bad. Since apparently that wasn't enough...

The purpose of the Senate was to represent the states' *GOVERNMENTS*, not the citizenry. The 17th amendment changed that, and now the state governments have to just take whatever the federal government decides to do to them. It effectively put an end to was left of states' rights: the federal government is no longer held accountable to the states, it completely ignores the 10th amendment with impunity, and it holds federal funding hostage unless the states do exactly as it says (this usually applies to highway funding). This is in addition to the problems that I mentioned in my prior post.

what confuses me is that, if i understand what they are saying correctly, they feel the goverments of the states should send the 2 senators and not the people.

i'm not sure i can agree that having the goverment appont or elect the 2 senators instead of giving the power t o the people of the sttes is a bad thing. and i'm not sure federal highway funds are strong enough of an argument to justify taking away power from the people.

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