[veeralpatel979]

What's unfortunate is that a lot of bills are not even brought up in the Senate or the House for a vote after the other house passes them, often with overwhelming bipartisan support.

This effectively grants the Senate majority leader and House speaker veto power over any legislation. Even if the rest of the body supports the bill, the leader of the house can just kill it by refusing to bring it up for a vote.

I'm not sure whether this practice happens because the leader of the bodies don't want it to pass, or there's not enough floor time to bring it up, or if these bills are ultimately tucked into an omnibus package and passed into law that way.

The good news is that if people and their legislators truly care about this issue, they can demand that leaders allow votes as a condition for their support. The system is bad right now, but it can be changed.

[scarface74]

Why would they? If your state senator is a high ranking representative like the Senate Majority Leader, you like that your state has more power.

Because of the way the Senate is structured with two representatives per state regardless of the population, that gives the less populous flyover states and the “Bible Belt” way more power than their population would entitle they to.